Long before cheap flights and map apps, travel writing offered vicarious passage to distant places, and that impulse remains powerful. A good travel book collapses distance and time, letting us inhabit landscapes, cultures, and states of mind we may never physically reach. Even today, when information is abundant, good, thoughtful travel writing offers something rarer: meaning shaped by experience, not just facts.
One obvious pleasure is vicarious escape. Travel books allow readers to t
Travel writing not only has the potential to compete with novels on literary merit, but to excel. After all, it’s potentially got everything: exotic locations, true adventure, multiple story lines, peak emotion, honest reflection, and poetic insight… for starters. So why is most of it—in short (magazine) form, anyway—so bad? Follow the money. No other literary genre is expected to sell peripheral products—tickets and tours and gear and (gulp) insurance—in addition to magazines and books.
Should Travel Writers Ask for Free Trips or Get Paid by a Destination?
This started out with a question: Should travel writers ask for free trips.
It’s a vexing and contentious issue for travel professionals.
The ethical issues are pretty clear: If a travel writer is given an all-expense trip to a country, hotel, resort or whatever - and this usually includes airfare, meals, accommodations and passes to attractions in the region - can that writer be balanced in his or her article?
In the
Published: Ocotber 3, 2011
Finding lesbians in New York City or London is somewhat easy, but it is a whole other story in distant lands, especially when women have very little if any rights at all - don't even mention the "L" word - but these are minor challenges to Gina Gatta and Tanya Churchmuch.
Damron owner Gina Gatta with business and life partner, Erika O'Conner, enjoying Iceland.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Damron
Gatta is president and editor-in-chief of Damron, the oldest
The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010: True Stories from Around the World
Edited by Stephanie Elizondo Grist; Travelers' Tales, 352 pages; paperback, $17.95
Reviewed by Heather Cassell
Published: Ocotber 5, 2011
Get ready. Pack your bags. You are about to embark on 27 adventures that will take you all over the world, inspire your wanderlust, and journey into your own heart in the Best Women's Travel Writing, edited by award-winning writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest.
Succulent and ri
For pics, more info and similar stories see the author's music, film and books blog.
Have you ever noticed that the best travel writers never really considered themselves as such? Look at anybody’s list of favorites and you’ll see names like Kerouac, Bowles, Matthiessen, etc. quite often, along with names like Theroux and Iyer, writers who certainly consider themselves travel writers, but not exclusively. You’ll only rarely if ever see a guidebook writer. But there is a historical tradition wh
Travel & Words, the Pacific Northwest travel writer's event recommended by Writer's Digest, features a line-up of media and sustainable tourism specialists. The annual two-day event will be held May 1-2, 2011 at Willows Lodge, a sustainable boutique hotel located near Seattle in Woodinville, Washington.
The conference theme, Sustainable + Green + Responsible Travel and Tourism, will be woven into each speaker's presentation so that freelance writers and journalists can explore these key trends
Traveling through space is geography. Traveling through time is history. I just finished reading the Travels of Marco Polo and Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux simultaneously; okay, actually I was alternating between them. As fate would have it, they’re traveling somewhat the same route, at least part of the way. No I didn’t plan it that way. If I had, then it wouldn’t be serendipity. I like that word, and I like the meaning behind it—the happy accident, the brilliant mist
Yes, if all they write about are places they travel to. It seems the traveling public is more interested these days in travel ideas, trends, travel news and technology, than in destinations.
Travel writers love to travel. That’s why most of them are in the business.
But it that the right reason?
I don’t think so.
Matador Notebook points out that the world is so thoroughly Googleized that the tradition of destination travel writers may be coming to an end.
Historically, authentic travel conte
The New York Times thinks so.
In a wry and cutting article, “Vacations To Steam All Couch Potatoes", television columnist, Neil Genzlinger throws darts at The Travel Channel for programming that shows elite travelers having the kind of fun in places you and I can only dream going to, if that.
Genzlinger says instead of programs like “Xtreme Waterparks” or “Insane Coaster Wars” that focus on places like Fortaleza, Brazil , or death-defying coaster rides that no sane person would try, why not cr
ANALYSIS: TRAVEL ADVERTORIALS. With tourism being a multi-billion dollar industry collecting the spending from 1 billion tourists in 2012, the hunt at travel agencies, airlines and hotel bookers for new customers is at the boiling point. The media has of course seen the trend, and the number of glossy magazines, websites with amazing photos and travel phone apps is increasing by the minute. Being a part of all this, the Traveling Reporter as well as, most likely, every other travel website edito
