Travel Blog: Life of a Travel Writer
The Heavyweight Googlefight Championship: Bill Bryson vs. Tim Cahill
by Michael Yessis | 11.21.02 | 7:09 PM ET
We wouldn’t think to favor one over the other, but Googlefight would. Jen Leo plugged the names of famous—and not so famous—travel writers into the head-to-head keyword showdown program to find out who rules travel writing on the Internet. The results? Find the links via Leo’s travel writing weblog, Written Road.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Art and Psychology of Divorce Travel
by Jim Benning | 11.18.02 | 7:31 PM ET
In the midst of an ugly divorce 10 years ago, Susan Spano did what a lot of people in her position do: she traveled. Off she went to Europe, to walk by the Ligurian Sea and grieve before the Colosseum.
“Psychologically motivated trips like these are, in a sense, gambles with life,” she writes in a thoughtful column in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. “The transition or crisis makes people more willing to free themselves from routine, feel in a heightened way or make life changes based on events on the road. They are my favorite kinds of trips.”
‘I Am a Travel Writer’ Sounds Better Than ‘I Edit Manuals on Constructing Your New Barbecue’
by Michael Yessis | 11.09.02 | 12:48 AM ET
Is travel writing sexy? Sure, says Motionsickness magazine editor Steve Wilson. But the realities of most writers’ lives just don’t mesh with typical perceptions, unless working for peanuts is sexy. “I’ve met travel writers who will cover a destination for a publication for free just for the trip. Screw that,” Wilson writes in his Editor’s Letter in the November/December issue. “The trip is work. It’s fun work, but it’s still work.”
One of the results of freeloading writers, according to Wilson, is dumbed down, inaccurate stories written by amateurs. Wilson fears things will only get worse, but he hopes he is wrong. He writes: “Perhaps, as more people travel and become more sophisticated about other countries, readers will begin to demand that travel writers describe destinations with fewer adjectives, and that they engage in conversation with a local, and write about that person’s life, not just their exotic appearance. And maybe then, the professionals will again have a chance. And maybe this time they will see that their job is not to simply sell a place.”
Rick Steves’s Travel Philosophy and Progressive Politics
by Michael Yessis | 10.21.02 | 4:33 PM ET
Go ahead and say Rick Steves reminds you of your old high school history teacher. Call him, if you like, the Mr. Rogers of travel. The names don’t bother Steves because he has a mission.
“If there’s an ideal, I want people to broaden their perspective through travel,” Steves says in a profile by Seattle Times writer Carol Pucci. “If there’s a practicality, I want them to do it without going broke or wasting their time and having needless frustrations.’‘
Pucci’s fascinating look at the travel guide icon covers a little travel philosophy, a little progressive politics (Steves supports the legalization of marijuana and, in an upcoming episode of his public television series, he make points about European attitudes on pot and other social issues) and a bit about whether or not his books actually help or hinder travelers.
Pucci even covers the phenomenal economic success of his Europe Through the Back Door brand, not just for himself but for public television. “Steves is one of public television’s major fund-raisers,” Pucci writes, “pulling in more than $1 million a year for stations across the country.”
‘My Parents Didn’t Know How To Behave at Some of the Grandest Sights in China’
by Jim Benning | 06.26.02 | 11:49 PM ET
When Rolf Potts headed out with his parents onto the vast expanse of the Mongolian steppe, he worried about them. First, they seemed to lollygag on the hike. Then they became obsessed with finding botanical specimens and what looked to be garbage. Rolf was sure their parent-child relationship had suddenly reversed. Before he could scold his mom and dad, however, he came to a realization: Travel hadn’t turned his parents into children.
Joining the Cult of Rick Steves
by Michael Yessis | 06.24.02 | 11:58 PM ET
San Francisco Chronicle columnist John Flinn knows the prevailing opinion of travel guide author and TV host Rick Steves.
Publishers Embrace Travel Narratives by Non-Travel Writers2
by Jim Benning | 05.30.02 | 4:49 PM ET
John Edgar Wideman, David Leavitt, Jeffrey Eugenides and Michael Cunningham are among the writers not usually known for travel writing who have recently been recruited by publishers to write travel narratives. National Geographic and Bloomsbury are the two publishers mainly responsible for the trend, according to Orlando Sentinel book critic Nancy Pate. NG lures writers for its Directions series by allowing them to travel to a destination of their own choice. Bloomsbury pairs writers with destinations they know well, and the result has been the very successful Writer and the City series. The first book in the line, Edmund White’s “The Flaneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris,” has been through eight printings and sold more than 35,000 copies since publication last year.
Take Two Flights and Call Me in the Morning
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.02 | 4:56 PM ET
Like many travelers, John Flinn routinely falls ill before big trips. What’s the cause? Inoculations? Hypochondria? “My current theory is that the pressure of pre-trip preparations is the culprit,” he writes in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Combing the Internet for a good air fare, making hotel reservations, reading the fine print on foreign rental car contracts, altering those hotel reservations, arranging for a dog sitter, seeing a cheaper air fare advertised in the Sunday paper - the stress of all these things can sabotage your immune system.” Also in the Chronicle: A writer ties the knot on the Greek island of Samos and is given away by the mayor of Pithagorio.
My Parents Went to the Jersey Shore and All They Got Me Was this Oversized Box of Salt-Water Taffy
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.02 | 4:52 PM ET
Last year, we offered gift suggestions for world travelers in your life. This week, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Howard Shapiro tackles what he calls the “gift problem” from a traveler’s point of view. “[M]any of us feel the need to do what [Marco Polo] did—bring back a piece of our adventure, not just a show-and-tell, but a tangible piece of, well, anything,” he writes. “It’s one of travel’s most endearing aspects, the desire for giving.” Shapiro offers a few tips on giving gifts to friends and relatives, and reveals what he likes to bring home for himself: “Toothpaste…I almost never can read the words on the boxes. But for me, they are the perfect gifts to myself. They allow me to incorporate something from other places into my daily routine. They bring home one of travel’s essential lessons: People around the world may live differently from me, but we all are human and have the same basic little concerns. And in a very literal way, the toothpastes allow me to have a taste of my trip long after I’ve returned to Philly.” I always bring back gobs of candy, half of which I usually eat on the plane coming home. I guess I probably should start bringing back toothpaste, too.
“I Felt Like the Molting Goat in a Petting Zoo That No One Wants to Touch”
by Michael Yessis | 05.28.02 | 5:04 PM ET
What made Mark Rotella feel so isolated? Traveling in Italy by himself. “I couldn’t have felt better prepared - I spoke the language, could understand dialect and had a contract to write a book about Calabria,” he writes in Sunday’s New York Times. “But I was in for a surprise. I never expected to feel alone in one of the most sociable countries in the world. I found that it’s precisely because Italians are so social that the solo traveler - however outgoing - can feel an acute sense of loneliness.”
“I Get Nervous When People are Too Nice to Me”
by Jim Benning | 05.28.02 | 4:59 PM ET
Poor Susan Spano. The Los Angeles Times columnist travels the world on the company dime. As it turns out, she explains, the job isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Trying to remain anonymous on the road so she can learn how regular travel folk get treated, she sometimes gets paranoid. “I get nervous when people are too nice to me in my travels,” she writes. “Could they know what I’m up to?”
Fitness for Travelers
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.02 | 7:36 PM ET
The idea for World Hum contributor Suzanne Schlosberg’s latest book came to her while she was working out at the world’s most inadequate gym, which is located in the basement of an overpriced hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco. “My instinct was to blow off the workout. Between the flimsy equipment and my general feeling of lethargy, I had a couple of decent excuses,” she writes in the introduction to Fitness for Travelers. “But then I rallied…Afterward, I felt much, much better.” That incident inspired Schlosberg to compile fitness tips and routines for travelers taken from her own experiences and those of an array of fellow wanderers, many of whom also share anecdotes about the lengths they go to stay fit on the road. Among those Schlosberg spoke with are a sex therapist, an American political big wig and, most noteworthy, Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Michael Cartellone.
“This is the Essence of Travel, I Reminded Myself: Meeting Someone New, Seeing Something New”
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.02 | 8:04 PM ET
Alison Buckholtz often thought of travel as a way to gain access to exotic objects, which she would then purchase and take home as souvenirs. But when the rare bamboo basket she craved during a trip to Japan wasn’t for sale at any price, even for a stash of Budweiser, she was forced to rethink her narrow-minded notions of travel. Buckholtz writes in the New York Times: “[T]he act of travel itself grants us true access, the ultimate gift from host to guest, and it is more precious and transportable than any basket.”
If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be the Great Barrier Reef
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.02 | 8:01 PM ET
During his youthful travels, San Francisco Chronicle columnist John Flinn moved from place to place at lightning speed. “It seemed an unforgivable squandering of time to spend more than one night in any town,” he writes. “My wife, Jeri, and I covered nearly all of Switzerland and a good chunk of France on one three-week vacation, the entirety of New Zealand on another.” Now he likes to travel slowly, taking the time to savor countrysides, parks and, sometimes, pubs. “I’ve never found London pubs to be as convivial as the ones in the countryside, but after several visits, the one on the corner became my ‘local,’” he writes. “I was quite ridiculously flattered one day when I walked in and the barman greeted me with, ‘Your usual then, is it?’” A traveler looking for cultural immersion could hardly ask for anything better than that.
An Old Travel Book is New Again
by Jim Benning | 04.29.02 | 7:04 PM ET
The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flinn lunched recently with Welsh writer Jan Morris, whose 1956 classic Coast to Coast: A Journey Across 1950s America was dusted off and republished last month by Travelers’ Tales. During their visit, Morris described her impressions of 1950s America. It was another era—one of gratitude and promise—and Morris fell in love with the country. “Americans had started the Marshall Plan, one of the greatest acts of generosity in history, and made everyone feel that America was the ideal country,” she told Flinn. “The people had a sense of innocence about them that I loved back then, and I think it’s still there, compared to Europe.”
