firstly I totally empathise - whenever I try to think up a journey story it starts with a guy in the desert, and then he ... walks a bit ... and then ... well that's pretty much it.
So the other day I went to the Op-shop and got 3 national geographic for 50 cents each - score!! And I went through them with the explicit task of finding something I could use to help someone write a story and I thought it was fantastic. I'm not saying use these ideas if they don't suit but maybe you could try the same thing - try any sort of old mag. a fishing mag an old readers digest anything but you don't want a creative story cause the impulse to use too much of it would be too strong you just need a 'seed' of an idea. Anyway I found some stuff which gave me these ideas (Cool thing is that there is research to support a story of a different culture, society whatever):
1. article about a group of impoverished squatters on the outskirts of Delhi, India, who have no water but live in the shadow of a huge pipe which carries water to the city. They survive by using the water from little leaks in the pipe - gave me an idea (as yet unformed) about one of the squatter deciding to follow to pipe with the idea of finding a better life - some nice symbolism of water as renewing life.
2. a very descriptive article about Mars and thought it would be a great story in the sci-fi genre about a new colony or something. Coincidentally, I heard on the news a couple of days ago that it's snowing on Mars so you could Google that too. It had some great descriptive language that would be inspiring to help realistically set the scene like "The world unfolding in front of him was not, as he put it, "your mother's Mars" it was as if he had scaled its Everest-dwarfing heights, slogged across its frosty dunes, felt the sting of its dust storms, and shaken the fine sand out of his boots - he confessed that this Mars shocked him" and so forth.
3. one about 'Jewel Scarab beetles' described as June Bugs with panache. They are loosing their habitat to farming land and I thought it could be about a young scarab beetle leading a colony (if that's what you call a group of scarab beetles) to a new area of forest. Again some lovely description that you could adapt like:'At night, when the metallic scarabs fly into light, it's as if stars are falling from the sky".
4. So scarab beetles aren't for you? What about Namibian bushman - south africa's first people; "reduced to servitude in the land that was once their ancestor's domain, South Africa's 85,000 Bushman fight to win back a foothold along with their pride." Apparently the can't hunt anymore cause land is dwindling around them into farms and tourist game reserves and hunting is a huge part of male pride (great description about how they kill and antelope and smear the blood on their legs) and I thought of a story about a bushman, maybe he's dying, maybe he's not (who knows?) who takes one last journey of pride to hunt an antelope - or a scarab beetle!! No better not mix them up. One says: "There is no wildlife left around here, even the hares are hunted out. There used to be much game here, when my grandfather was a boy. But the farmers who live nearby have fenced the land ... they can arrest you and throw you in jail. Our old life is gone".
5. Apparently the Gaza Strip and the West Bank territiories have not always been plagued by fighting between Israeli and Palsetinian people. 40 years ago a pile of letters was uncovered in a cave in the Judaean desert on the southern fringe of the West Bank. The letters tell the story of the life of Babatha, a 2nd century Jewish woman. She apparently describes Jews and Arabs coexisiting in harmony and even attending each others religious festivities. Could be a story in there (I google more info on the letters) or even a juxtaposition of two stories one about Babatha who journeys to an Arab festival and another about a modern descendent who flees for her life.
I could go on and on but I must be boring you all - anyway check out a mag.