There are six parts to both inner and outer journeys as a hero, and Milo from the Phantom Tollbooth goes through all of these steps in his journey to find who he is. This journey is an outer journey because he physically leaves home and goes to an unknown place. It’s also an inner journey because he mentally leaves not knowing who he is or what he’s doing with his life, but when he returns, he is grateful for his life and realizes where he went wrong previously. Therefore, Milo seems to be a hero. Taking both an inner and outer journey which qualifies as a hero journey seems to make him a hero, but there are other reasons that are shown in the story that make him a hero. In the Phantom Tollbooth, Milo takes both an outer and an inner journey in the story, and there are qualities in the story that make him a hero. Before Milo leaves his home, he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing with his life. If he’s one place, he wants to be somewhere else, or if he’s doing one thing he always wants to do another thing. When he finds an automobile and a tollbooth at his home, he sets it up because he has never had much adventure in his life. Therefore, he completes the first step of an outer journey: leaving home. Once he leaves home, he arrives at two towns— Digitopolis and Dictionopolis. He meets many confusing people on his way along his journey, and receives help from most of them, which completes step two of an outer journey. In this sense, he is travelling from known to unknown, and he is always moving, and going to different places to help different people; thus he completes the third step, travelling from known to unknown. Milo goes through a lot of danger on his journey; there are many people who don’t like him, and when he goes on another quest to find the princesses of the Kingdom of Wisdom (which is what Dictionopolis and Digitopolis where called when they were unified), even more danger is shown. “Closer and closer they came, bumping and jolting each other, clawing and snorting in their eager fury” (Juster, 239). However, he is rewarded in the end by many people for finding the princesses and unifying the two towns. Therefore, he completes the fourth step, danger and reward. For Milo, the fifth step, or the reverse trip, is much shorter, which is the author’s way for representing that he is wiser now that he has gone on his journey. The sixth and final step, returning home with a gift, is shown when Milo returns home with more wisdom than what he left with; he now knows what he is doing with his life, and enjoys being places while he is there, or doing things while he is doing them. Milo also shows an inner journey while he is on his outer journey. At the beginning of the book, Milo completes the first step right away—recognizing his need. “There was once a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself- not just sometimes, but always” (Juster, 9). Once he completes this step, and leaves his home, he shows the second step, acceptance, by the way he accepts that the strangers around him, although they are odd, are good people. Milo shows the third step and commits to his risk when he realizes Dictionopolis and Digitopolis need his help to find their princesses, and is the one to help them. He completes the fourth step when he confronts his fears to earn renewal, which is shown in the way he takes on this journey or quest to help others, and more importantly, himself. After this, he shows the fifth step, or renewal, when he came back to Digitopolis and Dictionopolis with the princesses and realizes he is important, which makes him re-think most of his life. Finally, he shows the sixth step, or a sense of mastery and well-being when he returns home and turns his life around by enjoying it while it lasts. Milo shows both an inner and an outer journey, which seems to make him a hero. He is a hero in this novel, and it is not only shown in that way, but in other ways as well. For example, when he comes back to Digitopolis and Dictionopolis with the princesses, he is viewed as a hero from the townspeople’s point of view, and so are his two friends who went on the journey with him. “Cheer after cheer filled the air, and even the bug seemed a bit embarrassed at having so much attention paid to him” (Juster, 246). Milo and his friends are rewarded after their journey because they have saved the Kingdom of Wisdom, by unifying them and also by bringing back their princesses after a nearly impossible journey. “‘That’s why,’ said Azaz, ‘there was one very important thing about your quest that we couldn’t discuss until you returned’… ‘It was impossible,’ said the king…” (Juster, 247). In the Phantom Tollbooth, Milo takes both an inner and an outer journey, and becomes a hero throughout the story. Before he went to the Kingdom of Wisdom, he didn’t know exactly who he was or what he was doing in his life, and the towns weren’t unified, and couldn’t work with each other. When Milo reached Digitopolis and Dictionopolis, he worked with the both of the towns in a sense, and in the end, both Milo and the Kingdom of Wisdom were rewarded—the towns were once again unified, and Milo knew what he was doing with his life and enjoyed every second of it. Therefore, Milo is a hero, because he helped the Kingdom of Wisdom when they needed it the most, he took an inner and an outer journey, and he has many heroic qualities. However, the most important part of the story was when Milo found who he truly was and loved himself for who he was.