Travel Writers…Why do they blog?
Posted April 12th, 2008 by lizGoogle ‘travel blog’ and you’ll find that there are over 61 million to choose from. Seems everyone wants to write about travel. But most travel blogs, written by people wanting to share stories of their travels, are maintained only for the extent of the journey and then left to float around cyberspace.
But there are also a growing number of travel blogs written by established travel writers who already write for magazines, newspapers, and guidebooks.
Curious to find out why professional writers who already have a paid market for their work would also spend hours creating and maintaining travel blogs, I decided to put the following questions - ‘Why do you think travel writers blog?’ and ‘What made you state a travel blog?’ - to a few travel writers.
Sun Sentinel Travel Columnist Tom Swick, who recently started the travel blog Tom Swick:Travels thinks that “…travel writers are blogging for the same reasons other people are: to be heard, to share stories and information, to be part of the global conversation.” He feels that “…travel writers are particularly receptive to it because it’s an electronic version of what we’ve been doing for centuries on the road, in hostels, in cafes, etc.”
Tom was encouraged to start a travel blog by the Sun Sentinel newspaper and has taken to it like a fish to water, loving it’s instantaneousness. “An idea will occur to me, or an e-mail appear in my inbox, and within minutes I can have it on my blog. It’s also a wonderful place for miscellany - miscellany is SO underrated - which just doesn’t work in a newspaper column.”
(Reason # 1: Writing a travel blog allows freedom of expression and ideas not always suited to newspaper and magazine writing)
Leif Pettersen of Killing Batteries is very clear as to why he blogs. He wants a place to promote his work and also write fun, goofball stuff - stuff that probably wouldn’t see light of day anywhere else. But he also sees blogging as the equivalent of an electronic journal…
“I started travel blogging as a public way to keep a travel journal that I can refer to when I’m 100. When I backpacked in the early 90’s, I didn’t keep a journal and I was stunned at how much detail I forgot even six months after the trip ended. Things like hostel names, food, museums, people…All gone. So I started writing paper journals in the mid-90s and finally online when I started my stint of homeless travel writing. I made it public to, again, self-promote a bit as I was trying to build a name, but also for friends and family to stay updated on my doings. And now almost five years on from when I started, having that absurdly detailed ream of notes is priceless as a reference.”
(Reason # 2: A travel blog provides a storage facility for travel notes)
Australian writer Kim Wildman thinks that most travel writers blog simply to share their passion and experiences with others. Guidebook publishers are generally more interested in “getting the facts - where’ s the best place to try local cuisine? what’s the newest and hottest night spot? What bus do you need to get from city A to city B?” leaving little room for “the fascinating experiences you have, the interesting people you meet or the amazing things you see.”
Kim sees her blog Wild About Travel+Writing as a creative outlet for her writing, a place where she can “…share all the millions of wonderous experiences [she] has as a travel writer.” The Travel Writing life can be lonely with little feedback from readers. Blogging, Kim feels, provides the chance to open up and maintain a dialogue with her readers, therefore making it a very cathartic experience.
(Reason # 3: Writing a travel blog connects you with your readers)
Meanwhile, Joshua Berman sees himself more as a ‘blogging traveler’ and ‘Central America–watcher’ rather than a ‘blogging travel writer.’ His blog The Tranquilo Traveler, which Berman describes as “a celebration of voluntourism, slow travel, and other interesting ways to see the world,” offers up a cornucopia of themes and topics, particularly about Belize and Nicaragua, countries he covers for the Moon Handbook series. Berman says, “When I’m on the road, I blog to share images and scenes of where I am. When I’m home (in Colorado), I blog to share the fascinating travel tidbits that show up in my inbox every day. I have a special interest in volunteering abroad, community-based travel efforts, and stand-out new travel books.“ He adds, “having a blog also helps readers and editors find me.”
(Reason # 4: Writing a travel blog is like creating a travel library)
Tim Leffel writes two blogs - Cheapest Destinations and Practical Travel Gear. The first blog, he says, was started was a way to promote his book The World’s Cheapest Destinations. But he soon realised “….it was reaching far more people than the ones who would buy my book, so I starting using it to cover rants, raves, and things that didn’t make it into any of my books or articles. It’s more personal and immediate, with no editor in the way.” The Practical Travel Gear blog evolved because Tim wanted to “review items that real travelers use, especially those who are on the road for longer than just a week — and do it based on real use instead of a press release.” Writing the blog provided Tim with access to products he might not normally have got.
(Reason # 5: Writing a travel blog provides exposure and some financial rewards)
Conclusion: Turns out travel writers are just like everyone else - they blog ’cause they have something to say about travel that they can’t say anywhere else…
So why do you blog???
April 12th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I blog to practice my writing skills, it’s fun, and I get feedback.
The financial rewards are very low in travel writing and I’d be much better off just freelancing in my professional area!
April 13th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Hi Jack,
Sounds like you’re blogging for the same reasons I blog over at Write to Travel. But I have also found that it is a great way of exposing your work to others and building up a portfolio and name.
Plus it’s fun and you meet like minded writers to bounce ideas off…
Cheers,
Liz
April 14th, 2008 at 7:20 am
yeh that’s what is so good about blogging…an idea comes to your mind and you just put it down.
Usually travel blogs are very well written. But on some of them i usually find advertisements for online travel agencies.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
I agree. Sometimes the ads can be a pain. Not so much the number of them but how they can be in your face. I’m all for ads if they pull in some income but you don’t want them to overwhelm the actual articles.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Like Lief Petterson, I did extensive travel to interesting places ( like USSR in 1988) where I did not keep track of details and wished I had. Now, almost 2 years into our family trip around the world, I am very grateful that we have blogged the entire trip and will continue to do that on our open ended journey. We have just revamped our site to hold more because we are really still only beginning this odyssey
In addition to the reasons mentioned here, I find that just by doing this multi-year slow travel/mobile lifestyle as a family, that we are learning all kinds of cutting edge , virtual techniques that I can pass on to readers who are looking for their own escape.
Today’s extended travel is more viable than ever before for families on a budget, so areas like online learning on the go, virtual assistants, early retirement, online banking and finances, foreign monthly rentals off season, collaborating with teachers, classes and homeschoolers while traveling, shipping RV’s to different continents, attending local schools and more ….all come into the mix of travel writing for us and our readers.
I blog to share our adventures, collaborate with others ( like disadvantaged kids who may never get this same chance) and share information that might help others find a way to follow their own dream!
April 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I’m having a blast blogging with my friends at TravelingMamas.com. It gives us a feeling of freedom and control over our words.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Okay, so let’s just face it. Blogging is freedom. Blogging is fun. And blogging is addictive….
happy blogging!!
April 18th, 2008 at 8:23 am
What a great idea for a post!
My reasons are encapsulated in your conclusion. I was motivated by a couple of specific incidents and a few frustrations.
The first incident was a particularly frustrating author query period after turning in a manuscript where an editor kept asking me for phone numbers and addresses for places that didn’t have them, eg. it might have been a stall in a souq where there was no numbering or lane names, or a dingy hole-in-the-wall bakery, or a bar with no phone, etc.. For Lonely Planet the rule was that if there are no ‘practicalities’ (no addresses, numbers, etc) then it can’t go in the guidebook. I started to obsess about this and think about all those things we can’t include and stuff we can’t write about because it has ‘no practicalities’, which explains my first post on a stall in the Aleppo souq.
Then, after reading a brief from a commissioning editor where she was referring to the need for the guidebook we were about to write to be inspirational. I started to think about this and to ask myself whether guidebooks were really inspirational to travelers. Obviously travel literature can be, and I can read novels or books about culture, politics, etc, and it gets me curious about seeing a place, and I love the old guides, the very first guides, the Baedeckers are inspirational. But with most modern guidebooks (excluding the ones with lots of photos), they’re just about the practical detail, and from a writer’s perspective, apart from the evocative introduction to a place, most of what we do is about providing information. Then I started to think about comments I’d received from editors on some books - a shopping chapter in a Dubai book for instance when the editor had said “I hate shopping but you’ve made me want to go out and shop”… and then I thought guidebooks can inspire travellers to travel, and started to think about what are the kinds of things that make us want to go and pack our bags.
So the aims of my blog are to write about things I can’t write about in guide books and to explore ideas to do with what inspires people to travel and what’s so inspirational about travel - those moments when we go “now, that’s cool!”. I had actually started a PhD eons ago on travel films and the connections between film and travel and how films motivate us to move, so this is partly connected to that… but then I just started to write about anything to do with travel, other travel blogs I liked and travel writing more generally. For me, it’s also a fun thing to do when I take a coffee break from writing the stuff that pays the bills.
Anotehr incident was read
April 18th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Woops! Sorry guys - maybe I should focus less on my coffee and re-read what I write!
April 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I blog as a way to promote to my travel business. Blogging is a great business marketing tool and can bring a small business a lot of targeted traffic for very little financial outlay just a lot of time and effort in the “blog slog”.
I don’t consider myself to be a travel writer although I write about travel. I see my blog and website a resource for travellers who want to experience authentic travel in Europe on a modest budget. I try to provide links to more in depth information on various topics rather than write extensively about all topics.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Lara, I think you’ve not only encapsulated why travel writers blog, but reiterated again why we all love to travel — it’s for the unexpected, the inspiring, the momentary experience that takes us out of ourselves. Your first post on the Aleppo souq stall said so much. Here’s this image, this experience in an instant, something different from what so many people will ever see or smell or write about. From a practical standpoint, there’s not much you can say about it. But from a philosophical or intellectual or travel-loving standpoint … well, what _can’t_ you say about it?!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
All of the above. I’ve traveled all over the world and have had some fabulous experiences. Unfortunately, I haven’t written about them, and I’ve lost way too many of the details due to a faulty memory.
On our last journey bicycling around the US and Mexico with our kids, I started a blog for my family. I quickly realized how wonderful it was for recording my thoughts and feelings - and I can have that recorded for when I’m old and gray. I can sit in my rocker and read about those days and relive the memories.
I’ll be blogging on our upcoming journey to the ends of earth for the same reason. We’ll be biking from Alaska to Argentina (with ten-year-old kids!) and I’m excited about having the whole journey recorded -both for me and my boys!
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Hi Nancy, what an amazing way to bring up the kids…we were always on the road when I was growing up but not on a bike…brilliant. Will look forward to reading about your journeys on your blog…