For months now, I've been traveling the blogophere seeking out the interesting, the obscure, the obscene from the world of travel bloggers. Good lord, there's a lot of us out there. Seeing so many blogs, it's natural that I've developed a marked preference for certain characteristics.
Even though I have absolutely no editorial cred other than my reading habits, I'm going to scribble a brief rundown of what catches my eye and what makes me click away. There's truckloads of text out there on how to write about travel, but hey, what's stopping me from adding to it? These are my opinions only (I gots plenty of those!) so take it for what it's worth, my .02, etc.
- Make it physically readable, for starters. I can't read pink text on a yellow background, for example. And sometimes, wow, there is so much going on that I can barely find the text. Which leads me to...
- Minimize the design toys, please. Everyone wants a custom blog, but if you don't really know what you're doing, you just end up with noise. There are lots of perfectly acceptable templates to use, it's not a crime to use them, especially if you're a good writer. I want to read you, not hire you as a designer.
- Reading itineraries is really boring, unless they're mine. I skip right over blogs that list where the writer went without telling me anything about happened there. These things get hidden in entries - first we went to the Museum, then the park, then we took the subway back to the old part of the city.... Meh. Doesn't tell me anything. What did you do, see, eat there?
- Turns out I do want to see a picture of you, who knew? I love the surprise of seeing that some big dude in a Hawaiian shirt and a silly hat is wriitng culturally sensitve stories about visiting holy sites. Or some hard core outdoors climber is a woman of a "certain age."
- Speaking of pictures, bring 'em. It's nice when there are thumbnails in the posts, or a single photo up top, and then, after reading, I can go click through to an album. I don't care for it when people use a linear blog format for photoblogs, however, there are better ways to present photos only. If you're keeping a photoblog, use a tool that's designed for it, not one that's designed for text.
- In general - though not always - I tend to breeze past Live Journal and My Space blogs. Sorry, but mostly, I'm not seeing compelling reading in those implementations, or they're too noisy to read.
- Negativity can be okay as long as it's not cultural imperialism. "Oh my god, I ate the most disgusting thing ever!" is all right as long as it's followed by a description of what the thing was and how it's a local specialty and you had the nerve to try it. Props to you for being adventurous. Just don't diss the locals, man.
- Too much introspection? "I was thinking about my friends back home and how they were so not having this experience that was totally changing me and everything is different now..." Click. Next please. I get that travel can equal huge transformation, but I'd so much rather read about how that transformation is being experienced. Is that too woo woo to make sense? Maybe. Maybe you get what I mean. Ditto for irony and ubercoolness. What's the point in traveling if you're going to be all inside your own head or distant from what's happening in front of you?
- Gimme the details! I absolutely want to read about how the waiter looked like he was wearing his Grandmother's wig, that hair could so not have been real, or how the train station smelled of cigarettes and pee and oddly, roses. Good travel writing doesn't miss the little things sitting in the corners in the background.
- Take me with you. This is difficult to define and quantify, but good travel writng makes the reader feel like they're on the trip too. Put me in the car, on the bus, next to you on the plane. I really want to be there, so take me with you. No, seriously, take me with you. I can be ready to go in, like, 20 minutes.
Happy travelblogging!
Pam writes about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View. She's not at BlogHer because she needs the money for her upcoming travels.
Comments
Suggestions, please
By: Lia Posted: 1 year 42 weeks agoDear Pam,
Is reading travel blogs an ongoing and ever-changing pastime of yours? If someone, myself for instance, wanted to start reading travel blogs and didn’t want to just take a stab in the dark of a hundred thousand search engine links, where do you suggest we should start?
Do you tend to like travel blogs of people who are constantly travelling or those who write well about one journey?
Can you make up a list of your current Top 5 travel blogs and a short description about why these blogs are on the list?
Thanks for any suggestions.
lia from luebeck, germany
(author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog).
Boy, Talk About Yer Hard Questions...
By: Pam Posted: 1 year 42 weeks ago1. I read so many because of my role with BlogHer, but I've always read travel because, well, I travel.
2. I don't care if they're on the road all the time or just blogging one epic trip. If it's good writing, I'm there.
3. Top 5, eh? Jeez. I like Vagablogging mostly for envy, I might wish I was Rolf Potts. World Hum (not just because they published me, a-hem, but because the writing is good and varied), Elliot for nuts and bolts practical stuff and travelers woes. The Paris Blog for, yup, Paris. And just this morning I added Wanda Lust to my RSS feeds. Philanthropic Travel showed up in my mailbox yesterday and it's very pretty and envy/wanderlust inducing.
Nerd's Eye View
Cultural sensitivty
By: Lee LeFever Posted: 1 year 42 weeks agoHi Pam!
I ran across this entry from Technorati, as my friend Nancy White linked to our travel blog. I really appreciate your insights and I think you are on-target. Being on the road, it is really hard to know what people would like to see- but we try our best to be original and never start an entry with "Today we...". :)
I was interested in your "don't diss the locals" discussion. We struggle sometimes with being honest about our experiences and being culturally sensitive at the same time. Yesterday a cab driver attempted a blatant scam on us and we Link Textwrote about it, as it is a part of our experience- but one that does not paint Vietnamese cab drivers in a positive light. We both feel that honesty and opinion is important for our writing, even if it exposes some of our ignorance from time to time.
How do you negotiate the balance between brutal honesty and cultural sensitivity? I fear that being too sensitive and fragile is a quick route to banality. Thanks for your thoughts. :)
~Lee
www.theworldisnotflat.com
Another good question.
By: Pam Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoAgain, I think negativity is okay, as long as you Tell The Story.
I read your post. You write about specific humans, the cab driver, the guy that meets you, and the reception desk. You make a declaration about dealing with cab drivers, but you don't conclude that everyone is that way. This is a-okay.
What I don't like seeing is broad statements about how the people of X country are [general adjectives here]. I might have personal issues here, but as an American, I HATE it, absolutely HATE it when people tell me how Americans are.
Maybe that's a good guideline to use. If you can replace X country with your own and it annoys you, it's probably not okay. There was a time when people would have said, "Be clear with your New York cab driver" too, right?
I also think it's okay to say things like, heaven forbid, "Everyone we met while in X was trying to rip us off. " There's a subtle difference between that and "Everyone in X is a ripoff artist," but that difference is what makes the - um - difference to me.
I know it's semantics, but hey, that's writing for you. Whaddaya think?
Upon thinking about it, I think this works for the positive too, but isn't as senstive an issue. You can say everyone in X Province was friendly, generous, etc... but again, it's sweeping and doesn't tie to specifics.
Now, I'm off to read about more of your adventures. I'm DYIN' to go to SE Asia, where I will be VERY SPECIFIC with my cab drivers.
Nerd's Eye View
replacements
By: Lee LeFever Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoAhhh, I like the idea of turning the tables back on your home country. I'll remember that. Speaking of generalizing Americans...just last night we had dinner with an Aussie couple from Perth who said that most Aussies think Americans are "blockheads" based on movies and TV. I said to her what I've said to others- there are blockheads everywhere, it's partly that Americans make it into the living rooms of the world at a highly disproportionate rate thanks to the TV.
Maybe once we get back we'll have to get together in Seattle for coffee or something Pam- we live in the Mt. Baker neighborhood. Thanks for the discussion.
From a Paris Blogger (see:
By: maitresse Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoFrom a Paris Blogger (see: The Paris Blog), cheers! (or rather, tchinn tchinn!)
I find on my blog that I do tend to make somewhat general statements about the French, but that is because after 3+ years of experience of living among them, you start to notice certain patterns.
So in a nutshell, I suppose it's alright to diss the locals if you are a local. Kind of.
Yeah, Me Too
By: Pam Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoI do this with the Austrians because I live in Austria part of the time. But even then, when I do this, I specify that I live in a behind the mountains cow town and that if I lived in an urban area, my experience would likely be different.
I'm a big fan of The Paris Blog and find that most of the writing has a gentle teasing affectionate manner as opposed to that broad negativity I'm talking about avoiding.
Just to see if I talk the talk, I searched my own blog to see how if I make these broad declarations. I found:
Austrians are cranky about the EU...
Austrians seem to sit around and talk about stuff where Americans - even adoptive ones - appear to be more about action...
...some old guy in an old village shouldn’t color my perception of what Austrians are like.
BTW, Austrians really ARE cranky about the EU. Man.
Nerd's Eye View
Travel Carnival and Stereotyping
By: Basia Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoHi Pam,
Enjoyed browsing through your blog. I was happy to learn from your site that there is now a Travel Carnival. With all the carnivals out there, I was wondering when someone was going to get one started-
I live in India right now (have been here for almost 3 years) and I've found that the "stereotyping the locals" thing is definitely something that requires a good balance. My Indian friends are frequently amused (and sometimes perplexed) about the things I find interesting about them. I've only ever received one comment from a person who was offended, for a very honest, very raw blog entry I did called Sometimes, I Don't Know Why I Like India So. And that one was more like a flame from an anonymous commenter, so I tend not to attach too much weight to those.
India Ink
Not Flameworthy
By: Pam Posted: 1 year 41 weeks agoI think this is a marvelous bit of writing that really captures the place. I'm surprised anyone was able to find something to flame you about.
Nerd's Eye View
Greetings from Paris
By: Polly Vous Francais Posted: 1 year 1 week agoThanks for the great tips. I post on the Paris Blog, too. Good to learn to balance criticsm and enthusiasm, but nothing overzealous.
The PB is great because it has a good variety of voices. I learn a lot from my fellow bloggers there and so am heartened to think that others appreciate the breadth and depth of posts.