A Life’s Travels, Six Words Only

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  03.03.08 | 9:23 AM ET

route66Photo by jurek d. via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Last month, the online magazine Smith published an addictive collection of six-word memoirs, titled Not Quite What I Was Planning. As you might expect, the project’s abbreviated life stories—contributed by Smith’s readers and a few well-known writers—cover a wide arc of joy, tragedy, heartbreak and fulfillment.

Travel is another theme that surfaces, linked to a sense of discovery, unrealized wanderlust or the power to transform. A few samples from the book and Web site, which continues to take submissions:

Xenophile escapist tumbleweed globetrots, finds self.

All my stuff is in storage.

Stopped traveling, began thinking, where’s everyone?

A sake mom, not soccer mom.

My own six-word memoir?  I’ve got several versions under consideration, but this one came immediately to mind: Went to China. Now can’t settle.

For more on the project, check out this NPR slide show, a fun video on Amazon, and a wry take from the New Yorker.

Tags: Media Addict, Travel Writing, Life of a Travel Writer, Literary Travel, News and Briefs

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


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