Most online travel writing sucks; unoriginal, SEO-optimized hack jobs made to sell click-throughs and ads. And yet, I’ve been the happy beneficiary of well-sorted friends who email me their trip notes when they hear I’m going somewhere. They are a delight, with hidden finds, off-the-beaten-path experiences, family-run restaurants, and sometimes things to avoid.
So, here would be my travel writing breakthrough: get off the hamster wheel of the everyday and into an appreciation of an everyday moment. Take the time to commit to memory and pen the feeling of different air, the sense of hope and uncertainty, the observations that ground the differences between us.
Welcome to Weekend Trip Notes, my fresh take on travel writing. A journal, a place for reflections, a collection of maps and ephemera, and notes about what I'd like to do next time around. It is an act of memory, a tool for myself and others, and a writing experiment in making connections between places, people, and ideas.
I should have a manifesto! A travel writing manifesto.
I SHALL:
- Foster serendipity over certainty: luck favors the prepared, open to receiving it, free from dogmatic plans.
- Value illustration over digitization: a sketch tells more than a dozen Insta repeats.
- Share what's personal: my eyes see the different light; I'm the one moved by a place and moment.
- Embrace experience over consumption: travel is a privilege; comforts are enjoyable, but not the reason for my travels.
I SHALL NOT:
- Write yet another “Top 10!” task list of can't miss, checkoff see/eat/dos;
- Suggest an absurd and exhausting cross-city “DAY AGENDAS” driven by online research no actual traveler could do;
- Be technology blinded. Assisted, yes — I’m a technologist at heart. But let’s put the phone down and experience something other than turn-by-turn directions.
- Do it for the ‘gram.
Happy travels.
