Travel Writers, what do they write about?

"Paul Bowles observed that an important difference between a tourist and a traveler “is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking.” 

This difference also separates writers about travels from “travel writers.” Is the voyaging writer telling us canny stories from a romping trip or using his peregrinations to relocate his place in the world? 

Sometimes it’s difficult to tell. D. H. Lawrence knocked off travel essays about places in which he had arrived only a few hours before, but he was writing about himself and his intuitions. Bowles, for his part, lived for years in Morocco but traveled through the desert with a suitcase filled with his favorite neckties. Do we read either man for profound and meticulously earned insights about Sardinia or the Sahara, or for their ability to convey something about themselves as they pass through those places? 

Most writers are “passing through,” and we expect no more of them. It’s part of their charm, if they have any. And part of the sometimes dubious premise of travel writing itself."

That was written by Lawrence Osborne in The New York Times Book Review when talking about "Carsick" by John Waters (which I've gotta read).

I think he has it pretty close to right, but one thing Osborne misses is that often travel writers write about neither themselves nor the place, but the people. I find the most fascinating travel writers offer insights about different peoples as they travel through or in places. 

It's the people that interest me.

We're Doing It Again!

We had so much fun with Eurodash 2011 that we are doing it again. Stay tuned for the irreverant side of international travel.

What motivated this point of view is Alain de Botton's book "The Art of Travel". For me he hit the nail on the head with that book. 

When people travel they only take pictures of the stuff they want you to see. Everything seems perfect. But we all know that vacations are rarely like the brochure. More often there are daily challenges and annoying oversights that nobody wants to talk about. I want to bring those to life.

As a fellow traveller once said to me when we were recovering in Egypt after a bout of traveller's diarrhea (had to (Google that), "Tis better to have travelled with the shits than not to have travelled at all."

This is not an all inclusive trip to some resort, or a fancy cruise. This is a trip like you might have taken when you were twenty. We have a few things planned, but there are huge gaps in our timetable where we don't even know where we'll sleep. This isn't an adventure vacation, but this will be an adventure. Like Yvonne Chouinard once said (I think), if you want an adventure, just park your car on the side of the road, walk into the bush and stay there for a few days, or weeks."

That's the kind of adventure I am anticipating.