Archive for the 'Travel Writing' Category

“The River That Empties Into The Ocean”: Glimpse Piece #2

Published February 2, 2012 Offbeat , Places , Travel Writing , Subculture , Lonely Girl Loves , Sola , Inspiration , Independent , Abandoned Places , Sola , Southeast Asia , Cambodia , Thailand Leave a Comment
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Wax refugees from Khao Lan

So. Finally, finally, nearly a year after I originally landed on this continent, the second piece for my Glimpse project was published. You can check it out here.

The piece depicts my trip to the Thai border, where I searched for the remains for an old refugee camp my friends’ family passed through. If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you’ll recognize part of the journey. What I didn’t write about at the time—because I knew I wanted to save it for this piece—was the strangely fortuitous meeting that occurred after I’d returned to Cambodia, made entirely possible by this blog. (Hey, I still may not have monetized this thing, but at least I’m getting something out of it!)

With the publication of this piece, I’ve officially completed the Glimpse Correspondent program. As such, I was asked to write a few words about my experience. What I basically told him was how incredibly valuable the program was to me. Getting the clips was nice, getting a stipend was nice, but what it really came down to was the editorial guidance. Sarah hashed through some insanely deep-level edits with me, giving me the kind of feedback you usually have to pay a lot of fucking money for.

I was gonna come out here and do the project regardless—I’d already booked my tickets when I’d heard my project was accepted—but it would have ended up being a much different project if it hadn’t been for all the support and guidance I received. I think the process pushed me to grow a lot, both creatively and personally. And I secretly kind of doubt I’d be back out here now if that hadn’t happened.

So read up! It’s mega long, so grab some coffee and get comfy. Then tell me what you think—and what you for real think, not what you polite think. [Insert smiley face]

How Do You Write An Expat Blog, And Other Life Questions

Published January 19, 2012 Expatify , Learning the Ropes , Transition , Travel Writing 11 Comments
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Here's my terrace, for lack of a more relevant picture

So… you may have been able to tell by the infrequent and half-assed nature of my recent posts that I don’t know exactly what I’m doing here anymore. With this blog, I mean.

Well, okay, I guess my life too.

I know how to write a travel blog. Not a super successful monetized one, but the kind of travel blog I want to write. I know what kind of material to look for and write about: snippets, character sketches, first impressions, cultural clashes, bizarre moments—the other-worldly, almost out-of-body moments that travel affords, that I’ve been craving and chasing for years now. I can even write a good informative, service post from time to time, and not feel totally smarmy about it. And when I’m not traveling, I know how to write travel-themed posts that manage to be relevant.

But I don’t know how to write an expat blog.

I’ve been in Phnom Penh for a little over two months now. I’ve left the city once, for 2 days; I’ve got a couple little trips planned, including one to Malaysia over Khmer New Year. But for the most part, I’m staying put. I’m focused on establishing a life here—getting a job and friends and more furniture and houseplants, a routine and rhythm to my days. It’s not dynamic, exciting stuff; there’s no a big wow, must-see factor. It’s kind of just my life, and I’m not sure how to write about it here.

I’m not sure of a lot right now. I’m new at this—my first time being an expat. I’d always been intrigued by them, as a traveler. You could spot them, you know—the ease, the breeziness, the comfort with which they walked down the street, talked to vendors in the local language, went about their business with the kind of self-possessed air of a person reading a book on the train, when you just know it’s their commute home and they’re thinking about dinner or what TV show they’re going to watch or whatever—mundane shit.

Now I’m one of them, and there’s a lot of shit that feels mundane, uninteresting to write about. Which isn’t true, of course—it’s just that I don’t know how to write about it.

And I’d always wondered what expats thought of travelers. I’d talk to friends, whose feelings ranged from indifference to embarrassment; one girl I knew, living in Santiago, would avoid eye contact with other gringas, she wanted to badly to not to be associated with tourists.

But for the most part, for me, they seem to exist on this other plane, walking up and down the riverside in their flip flops and tank tops, and they kind of fade into the static of life here, right along with the construction noises and metallic audio recording of the egg vendors.

But it’s funny, cause sometimes I notice them, just kind of watch them, and it’s a strange, unexpected feeling that comes up. It’s not jealously, but a sort of wistful longing. They have a kind of structure, a context and definition: They are travelers. They are passing through. For the most part they have book ends for being here—return tickets and lives waiting, houseplants being watered by friends in their absence. They have closets, I imagine, where all those zip-off pants and Tevas will return to.

And for the first time, I don’t have that. I don’t have the security, the knowledge of a life that’s waiting for me somewhere. Here’s my life, but I’m not exactly sure what that life is yet. I’m discovering it, and it’s exciting and scary and lonely and exactly where I need to be right now.

But I don’t know how to write about that.

But inbetween-nees seems to be the theme these days. I’m 29: I’m not old, but I’m also not young anymore, and there’s wrinkles where there didn’t used to be wrinkles. I don’t know what clothes to wear; I’d go to shows back in the States over the summer, and the band would look like they were 12, and everyone would be young, so young, glowing with young in a way that seems ravaged and obscene. And not me.

But I’m not totally sure what “me” is anymore. Or I suppose I should say, where me fits in this new life, that has yet to form. It’s slowly taking shape—I can feel it and I have a faith, which might be a blind faith but is a faith nonetheless, that it’ll all gonna work out.

I just don’t know how to write about it yet.

Alone With Everybody: My First Post on HuffPo

Published September 2, 2010 Lonely Girl Loves , Sola , Sola , Solo , Travel Writing 7 Comments
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You know how I say on my “About” page that I’m not actually that lonely? Well, I lied. Or I half lied. What I should say is that I’m more or less, to one degree or another, constantly lonely. Except for when I travel—alone.

If that seems to make no sense to you, well, you’re in good company. For my first post as a blogger over at the Huffington Post, I muddled around with the quandary for few hundred words. Check it out here.

Confession: I Have Been a Bad Travel Writer

Published June 7, 2010 Struggles , Successes , Travel Writing 6 Comments

And it’s not just that my computer’s been stressing out and spinning that color pinwheel in endless stuttering frustration.

It wasn’t that I traveled with friends or that I didn’t leave the US. It wasn’t that I went to a crusty music festival, or that I lounged in a private Hawaiian villa, or even that I slept till noon and stayed out till 4am chasing boys in a leopard print miniskirt (successful method, btw).

It was that I never made the switch, flipped my brain over into traveler mode. I didn’t push myself to explore, to dig in, to muck around and get dirty in the soul of a destination (no, getting covered in other people’s beer and sweat didn’t count).

It wasn’t that I was a “tourist instead of a traveler”—I was worse. I was a vacationer.

If tourists are the people following around umbrella-wielding tour guides, clicking shutters and buying cheesy trinkets and (sin of all sins) wearing fanny packs, vacationers are their drooling, sedated counterparts. We could really care less about whether a tour is culturally authentic or not; we don’t have the energy to get off our asses and go in the first place. We go to the same cafe over and over, buy the same sandwich, because it’s good and why bother finding another spot? We spend an hour staring into space. It there were a Sitting and Staring Olympics instead of a half-Ironman while I was in Hawaii, I would have won. (I have photographs that document my decent, but I’m currently not even able to upload anything onto my computer.)

I haven’t vacationed in years, maybe not ever, really—guiltlessly wasting days away. No notes taken, no itineraries feverishly followed, no long rambles down alien streets. So it wasn’t just that I barely wrote any posts while I was gone—it was that I wasn’t even traveling.

I had fun, and I certainly still have stories to tell. And while I “got away from it all” (really, people are on to something with this whole vacationing thing), I didn’t get away from myself. I talked a couple months ago about how I like who I am better when I travel, how I become what feels like a better version of myself, freer and happier and more at peace, enthralled with my surroundings instead of the hamster wheel of self-will. And while I was certainly a more relaxed version of myself these last 11 days, I was still Home Me, not Traveler Me.

So that’s what my brain will be chewing on while my laptop’s in the shop—or rather, what my brain won’t be chewing on. Not articles or blog posts and pitches—just the image of what I stared at along the Kona coast, what’s burned into my retina, like the pink is onto my skin: a hammock, a horizon and a pile of black rocks. I’ll take my computer crashing as a sign, a circumstantial nudging that I need to take a step back and keep on being a bad travel writer.

Monetization Madness: Horn Players, Slam Poets and Why I Turned Down an Opportunity to Make Money on My Blog

Published May 20, 2010 Struggles , Successes , Travel Writing 6 Comments
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From Flickr, not my stats

Yesterday I turned down an opportunity to make money on my blog.

Ridiculous, right? Isn’t that what every travel blogger wants? Isn’t it the dream that keeps us clicking fingers over keyboards and battling faulty WiFi connections around the planet: to fund our travels through a well-trafficked and heavily monetized blog? Click-throughs, AdSense, commissions. SEO and analytics and Top 100 badges. ”Travel Blog Success,” “Monetize Your Blog,” “8 Steps to Building a Profitable Blog that Funds Your Travels.” Purchase an eBook, book a hostel, buy a flight. ”Get advertisers contacting YOU.”

Well, I did. Without trying. And I shot them down.

It all happened, as most things do, via Twitter. A travel service that I actually have used and like contacted me wondering if I’d like to be a part of their “exciting new campaign.” “I’m hoping that we can create a relationship in which I email over exciting news, offers and competitions that (nameless company) has over the year so that you have some new content for your blog.” So, um, do you want to place ads or have me write posts related to your promotions on my personal blog? “The latter.”

It would have been easy and relatively painless. And also goddamn boring, both to write and to read. And if I wouldn’t want to read it, why would I want to put it up on my own blog? To improve traffic and make a little cash? I do contract work writing what is essentially marketing content for a trip-planning site. I pour hours into crafting pitches for sellable articles. I fucking wait tables. Why am I gonna compromise on the one place, the one thing, that’s really mine?

It sounds snarky, but that’s really just a defense mechanism for feeling unsure of my direction and a little jealous. Why jealous? Because if your goal is a have a successful and profitable travel blog, the trajectory is much more clear, much more linear: write on these topics, have a couple give-aways and contests, become an expert in something, brand yourself—get in where you fit in and get paid. There’s nothing wrong with that; being self-supporting through a blog is actually pretty bad-ass. It’s just that, when I browse through the most trafficked travel blogs, I realize that they’re (for the most part) not doing what I want to be doing. Which, I’m beginning to suspect, is write first-person narrative inspired by travel.

Trip-planning has its place. When I’m getting ready to go on a trip, I want to know what to pack and what buses to take and Top 10 tips and Top 10 undiscovered gems and Top 10 Top 10s. But that’s not what I want to write, not where my heart is. The travel blogs that I love and read regularly aren’t the most popular ones; they’re narrative-driven, thought-provoking and literary.

My blog is still young, in utero, 9 months old and dreaming fetal dreams of personage. ”What kind of readers do you want to attract?” a friend of mine who’s helping me redesign my site asked months ago. “What are people coming to your blog for?” I’m starting to figure it out. And ads and stats don’t have much to do with it.

When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time doing Poetry Slams. The spoken word scene was popping off, Bay Area underground hip-hop was at its height, and every kid who could string a rhyme was taking to the stage. I took after-school workshops with an excellent literary non-profit and performed what felt like once a week. But I wasn’t a Slam poet. I couldn’t beat box, couldn’t freestyle (unless I was seriously faded), wasn’t a performance artist. I read Sylvia Plath and Charles Bukowski; instead of quoting Mos Def in my pieces, I quoted William Burroughs.

I learned, early on in that, to be okay with what I was. And that the kids that got all the applause and won all the competitions weren’t producing work that was necessarily any better or worse than mine—just different. A lot of it was bullshit, and a lot of it was really good. I met kids that weren’t into the scene of it all, but loved writing—kids I still keep in touch with and whose work I still respect. I’m immensely grateful to have been a part of that community, even if my own addiction-drenched lyrical poetry didn’t ever fit in, prompted more raised eyebrows and dead silences than standing ovations.

I’m finding myself again in the same situation. There’s a lot of great travel blogs out there, and I’ve “met” a lot of great writers. There’s really this awesome, supportive community out there, and I’m glad to be a part of it, however tangentially. But again, as usual and as always, what I’m doing and my vision of where I want to go doesn’t align with the dominant trend—isn’t raking in perfects 10s and bringing down the house. And again, I’m learning to be okay with that, and to stay true to myself.

When I was a teenager, amidst all the Slam Poetry woo-hah, I saw a documentary about Wynton Marsalis. He was talking about being a childhood prodigy, how he’d learned some fancy trick that horn players are hip to but audience go nuts for. He did it at a show and the crowd lost their mind and he basked in the thunder of their adoration.

After the show, on his way home, his dad was real quiet. Finally, he said, “Son, if you play for applause, that’s all you’ll ever get.”

I’ve kept that one with me all these years. And I’m still not performing for applause—or writing for advertisers.

Lady Love: Digging In to the Blogroll

Published February 6, 2010 Inspiration , Lonely Girl Loves , Travel Writing 11 Comments
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Thank you, Flickr, for another gem

I’ve got a long Blogroll. What can I say?—I gotta lotta love.

Recently, I’ve seen some fellow bloggers do posts breaking down their favorite blogs. I was honored to be included in both Abbie Mood and Nancy Harder‘s lists, along with some really great writers I often read.

These posts got me thinking: I should really call out some of my own favorites. Many of my go-to blogs aren’t as widely read as I think they should be, and this’ll serve as a chance for me to give an extra shout out to some deserving, ass-kicking writers.

So I’ll start with the ladies. Five of my absolute favorite lady travel bloggers are…

Click Clack Gorilla

I’m not sure how I discovered Nicolette’s blog, but I’m stoked I did. This girl is old school, a DIY, dumpster-diving punk currently living in a house without heat in Mainz, Germany. She writes killer prose about digging around abandoned buildings, au pairing, living on the cheap and trying to keep warm through the winter. What I love about this blog is that it’s something different—utterly non-corporate and unapologetically  its own. It reminds me of the kind of writing the filled zines I’d find at the old Lookout Records. Thanks for keeping it real, lady.

Girl, Unstoppable

I’ve been following Ekua’s blog for awhile, so I was excited to see her get some big-time props from the folks over at Matador recently. The blog’s title says it all: Ekua is an adventurous lady who writes from a Bay Area perspective about her travels around places like Ghana and Bolivia, as well as her life here in San Francisco. One of my favorite features of her blog is travel quotes, especially this one, from a kid she works with—priceless! Despite living just across the Bay, and talking about it for months, Ekua and I haven’t been able to get it together to hang out yet. One day…

Kanitha Heng

Kanitha’s self-titled blog is a well-kept secret that shouldn’t be. Her stuff is seriously off the hook. She’s an engaging, provocative American writer currently chronicling her travels through her parents’ homeland, Cambodia. Her prose is both unafraid and tender, exploring cultural chasms and haunting histories. Kanitha’s writing consistently blows me away. Get on this shit, y’all.

Posa Tigres

Okay, so technically it’s a joint blog between Sarah, who does the writing, and Jorge, who does the photography. It’s quite the dynamic duo, and Sarah’s writing is some of my favorite out there. She doesn’t water shit down, or shy away from tough subjects—case in point, one of my favorites of hers, about the cultural implications of taking a Dia de los Muertos tour. She writes about living in Oaxaca with her boyfriend—beautiful prose that’s not nuggetized or easily digestible. Get ready to think.

The Mija Chronciles

I started reading Lesley’s blog a few months ago, enraptured by the photos, recipes and, most of all, her sumptuous descriptions of regional Mexican food. She’s currently living in Mexico City with her husband, and writes not just about food, but Mexican culture and the expat life. She’s a solid writer with journalistic credentials, and her tweets about what she’s cooking constantly get me salivating. She once casually invited me to come down to Mexico City for a foodie tour. What she doesn’t know is that I totally plan on taking her up on it one of these days…

Top Three Travel Secrets: A Chain Letter for Travel Bloggers

Published December 3, 2009 Bay Area , California , Offbeat , Places , South America , Tips , Travel Writing , USA , Venezuela 9 Comments
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It reads as ominously as a middle school chain letter. Except, in the end, failure to perpetuate the chain isn’t sworn to result in untimely death or spinsterhood (which are more or less the same thing when you’re 12). Rather, in this chain, compliance results in access to a treasure trove of travelers’ secrets. And probably some new friends.

I was hit by two writers in the TripBase Blog Tag, spreading through the travel blogosphere like hot gossip around a lunch table. Or a dirty note during Math class, light-up sneakers in a mean game of duck-duck-goose. (The analogies could go on forever.) The idea is you write a post about your top three travel secrets: out-of-the-way towns, little-known restaurants, unheard-of hotels—”hidden gems” that lay glittering in the dimness of obscurity. Until now, that is.

Aside from amassing an ass-kicking list of previously unknown spots around the world, the other objective of the TripBase Blog Tag is to be build community and get folks involved. I can get down with that. In addition to the awesome ladies that tagged me—Stephanie from Twenty-Something Travel and Abbie from Miles of Abbie—I’ve already discovered some new writers on the TripBase list of bloggers tagged so far. (Best blog names? Dirtbag Writer and Snarky Tofu. Fuck yeah.) My hunch: the final list won’t just expose travel secrets, but also some bad-ass writers I hadn’t encountered yet.

They say you’re only as sick as your secrets. Here’s to travel health:

End of the hike: waterfall into the Pacific

#1 Palomarin Hike, Marin County, California

My work friend had been telling me about “the secret hike” for months. Huddled over our staff meals in the cramped bus station, she made rope-swinging into the clear lake, and the coastal waterfall at the trail’s end, sound like a dream. Or at least a damn good fantasy.

We finally coordinated a day off together in August and headed up to Marin to the Palomarin Hike. We grabbed sandwiches and drove up past Stinson Beach to tackle the 11-mile hike. And I gotta say, it was just as killer as she’d described.

The hike starts through rather typical dusty California coastal terrain, taking you past sweeping Pacific vistas us locals have grown accustomed to. After about 45 minutes, the foliage and trees thicken, and you eventually get to Bass Lake, a frigid-water lake that’s biggest draw is an old-school rope swing. You could while away hours here, but, seeing as though it was August in the Bay Area and foggy as hell, we were too cold to partake. We continued on, and ended up at the trail’s end, where a waterfall tumbles into an isolated coastal cove.

The good news: the hike, although long, is gentle and not too strenuous. Which means just about anyone could do it—including my smoke-a-pack-a-day friend and me, who was then recovering from swine flu (yes, really).

The bad news: the Palomarin Hike is a total word-of-mouth Bay Area secret. As is the way with Marinites, locals don’t want outsiders to know about their secrets or have access to them (see also: why BART doesn’t run to Marin). Locals take down street signs and signposts, meaning that you’ve pretty much gotta go with someone who’s been there. So if you’re headed to the Bay soon, just hit me up; I’ll take you.

Ahhh...

#2 Legzira Plage, Atlantic Coast, Morocco

Okay, if you’ve been following this blog for a bit, you’ve already heard me gush about the most deserted and beautiful beach I’ve ever been to: Legzira Plage, Morocco.

Talk about tucked-away: from Tiznit, take an hour bus ride, hop off at the faded roadside sign, and hike down 20 minutes. It’ll really just be you, a couple stray tourists, some fisherman and their donkeys—and the sandstone arches that dive red earth into blue water.

Among the handful of pink building that cascade down the cliff into the main beach, there’s two hotels that offer relatively cheap rooms. I went high-class and got one with my own shower, squat toilet (doin’ big things), and a window that opened onto the ocean view—for under $20.

Another bonus is the Moroccan street harassment factor, and the fact that Legzira Plage doesn’t have one. After a couple weeks of solo backpacking, sweating in long sleeves and fending off the barrage of “bonjour”s, it felt pretty damn sweet to strip down to my bikini and wave-hop in peace.

Kids on their way to school

#3 El Congo, Venezuela

The story goes that, when Europeans first arrived in what is now Venezuela, they came to the Lake Maracaibo villages, perched on stilts amid the marshes and water. Watching the village folks traverse the “streets” in handmade rafts reminded the Europeans of Venice—and they dubbed the place Venezuela.

El Congo, Venezuela is the most other-worldly places I’ve ever been. It’s only reachable by boat, a 30-minute ride through the hazy flat expanse of water, and you’ve gotta book a tour to get there. But surprisingly, the town isn’t the main draw of the tour. The Catatumbo Lightning phenomenon is what draws most people—mysterious, thunderless lightning that occurs almost nightly in the skies over Lake Maracaibo.

The road to Los Llanos was flooded when I was in Merida, so I opted to take the Catatumbo tour in its place. I hadn’t heard of El Congo, but it ended up being the highlight of the tour (the lightning didn’t really happen that night). The town had everything—a school, a fire station, a convenience store, even a Plaza Bolivar—all erected on stilts. Rumor had it there were a couple old folks still living in the town who’d only ever stepped foot for dry land to bury relatives.

It wasn’t an untouched Eden: El Congo was extremely isolated, making inbreeding a huge problem, and the town was quite poor. Sanitation was a major issue, with most refuse and human waste going directly into the water. Owning an actual boat was a sign of privilege. The less well-to-do had to construct their own floatation devices—this girl tied a piece of wood to some leftover styrofoam, dug a stick down into the mushy lakebed, and propelled herself along that way.

The thing that really bummed me out were the poor yapping dogs chained to the “front porch” of some of the houses. So much for getting a walk, little buddy. But hands down, El Congo was the most unusual place I’ve ever traveled to—and so far off the beaten path, there wasn’t a path at all.

So that’s my top three, scrawled not-so-jaggedly into the margins of a wrinkled note. Now to fold it up and shove it into another sweaty, unsuspecting palm. This could get good…

Reaching Out My Tentacles

Published November 18, 2009 Successes , Travel Writing 6 Comments
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The inky arms of this blog have stretched out, past the confines of this page and onto other travel sites.

Voureen Taylor over at The Travel Nerd asked me a couple weeks ago if I’d like to be the first interviewee in her new weekly series profiling budding travel writers. Seeing as though I was the girl who, at 12, was convinced she’d be interviewed on Oprah by 16 for writing the great American novel—um, yes, I’d love to be interviewed.

The questions really made me realize how far I’ve come in a short period of time, and just how much I love both writing and traveling. Plus, I got called a prodigy—who doesn’t like that? You can check out the full interview here.

Matador Abroad editor and kick-ass writer Sarah Menkedick asked if I’d be into having an edited-down version of my recent post “The French Won’t Save You” published on Matador. I was especially stoked because Sarah and her man Jorge’s blog is one of my favorites. The slimmed-down version went up today, and I was happily surprised to see so much of the original post remained: my Oakland references, my back-handed throw-down to Futurism, even some profanity survived the editorial process. I’m super interested to see what kind of discussion the post generates.

And finally, Girl’s Getaway republished the post I did on my emotionally brutalizing day in Marrakesh. “Marrakesh, You Broke Me Down” appears in full, even with some of my own photos (though the girl pictured in the header is most definitely not me). It’s been rather life-affirming to read the other ladies’ comments. And you know how they say that writing is the ultimate revenge? Well, sometimes it is.

I was surprised when the editor at Girl’s Getaway approached me about the Marrakesh post, since it seems like a bit of a deviation from the other articles on the site. But it was encouraging to see, in both republished articles, that there’s a place for some of my less servicey pieces.

My next narrative piece for Girl’s Getaway will be a lighter, more cheerful one: when Melissa, Georgina, Alicia and I, sick of the incessant street harassment of Puerto Vallarta, snuck into a cheesy package resort and spent the day amid the overweight middle-management dudes and their budget trophy wives at the swim-up bar. Just in case you need a sneak preview…

This should be a good one… one more written appendage reaching out, grasping at the invisible sparks of web pages and wireless signals, submission guidelines and editors’ emails—and finding something to grab on to.

Notebook Digging

Published November 14, 2009 Lonely Girl Loves , Poetry , Travel Writing 6 Comments
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Yep. Traveled with all 3 of these guys.

Recrafting prose or polishing turds?—you make the call.

I’ve put it off long enough. I’ve finally embarked on the task of digging through my last trip’s notebooks. I’ve set out on a spelunking mission through the email addresses, phone numbers and crudely drawn street maps that fill the stained pages, excavating hieroglyphic scrawling and jagged phrases in search of literary gems I just know are in there, buried amid the recesses of black ink/bat feces.

As per usual, these disembodied stanzas and half-poems don’t seem quite as brilliant as they did in the moment, but some aren’t so bad. I plan on bugging some writing friends of mine for feedback (that means you, Jacob), then packaging up what survives in a nice electronic bow and sending it to Literary Bohemian, a site I have a crush on. What’s left will be put on here.

Don’t think of it as a literary scrap heap, but rather that first post-Thanksgiving plate of leftovers—before you’ve gotten sick of turkey. At least that’s the spin I’m putting on it.

One of the great things about my last trip was how much I wrote. I was on fire. It’d been a long time since I’d felt that way, completely consumed, possessed. It’d been a lost couple of years, basically not writing at all; I could feel it all swimming around in there, very far beneath the conscious surface, but nothing would come out. Literary constipation. As uncomfortable as it sounds.

To my delight, I actually wrote a fair amount of poetry on my trip. Which feels more like writing to me than first-person narrative—I don’t know why. I love narrative, but it sometimes feels too easy. Just me mouthing off, you know. Of course, I find my witty insights endlessly amusing and fascinating, but I still love the rawness of writing poetry, the way an image will overpower you, how the best poems feel like they write themselves. It’s a tough place for me to tap into these days, and it sometimes feels like traveling is the only way to give my poetic prowess the necessary kick in the ass. Shock therapy via passport stamps.

In any event, here’s a fragment I wrote in Tangier about, well, writing and feeling like you’re in the pocket. And there’s plenty more where it came from…

I’m writing again

all the time

even when there’s not a pen in my hand,

always, in some back basement

of my brain, a hunched figure

banging typewriter keys,

smoke-shrouded

with only a street level window

silhouetting it

against the endless passing of feet.

I can’t keep up

with the furious clatter,

the singing of the keys,

their persistent tapping,

not for permission

but to be unleashed.

Trudging the Road to Travel Writer-dom: Struggles, Successes and a Couple Happy Dances

Published November 7, 2009 Living on the Cheap , Struggles , Successes , Travel Writing 11 Comments
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The ole ball and chain

It’s been an exciting, exhausting week in my journey (bad pun alert) to become a travel writer.

It’s pretty counterintuitive when you think about it—trying to become a travel writer. As Tim Cahill said, travel writing is a forgiving genre, “because as soon as you step out the front door it’s travel writing.” By the same token, the moment your fingers start scribbling or typing, you’re writing. So, bingo-bango—I’m a travel writer.

But when it comes to the more pressing business of business, of embarking upon building a profession around overlapping passions, in an industry so tumultuous seasoned experts are scrabbling to make due—well, that’s another story. I’d like to say I’m writing that story, but I suspect that this is a story that’s writing me.

First with the successes. They say bad things come in threes, but I’m convinced good things do too. The travel-writing stork delivered three little bundles of joy to my laptop this week.

My run of good luck started on Tuesday, when a StumbleUpon link to my blog generated 346 pages views, making the day’s total 494. My previous record had been 97, so, yeah, I was a little stoked. I knew it would only be downhill after that (indeed, the downward slope in the line graph is a little sad), and the busted link-back kept the original Stumbler a shadow-shrouded enigma. But I was tickled nonetheless. There may or may not have been a happy dance involved.

Wednesday I discovered that a local TV station’s website had published an excerpt from my Dia de los Muertos post, along with a link to my blog. This is the closest I’ve come to being on TV. (Happy dance #2)

Thursday, the editor from the new female-oriented travel site Girl’s Getaway contacted me to see if I’d be interested in writing for them. Um, yes. While I brainstorm ideas of girlie stuff to do around the Bay, my post on getting hassled and humiliated in Marrakesh will be appear on their site (guess my grand entrance will be on the bummer-ish side). I’m now listed on their writers page, which evoked more of a happy giggle than a dance. My feet hurt—it’d been a long night at work.

Which brings me to the “struggles” side of things. I don’t mind the long hours at the computer, and taking my laptop over to the cafe and eating cake while I work may or may not be the highlight of my day. But that’s also indicative of the adventure level of my life right now. Which, even if you don’t want to be a travel writer, is pretty lame.

Here’s the scenario: this week, I wrote the post on Dia de los Muertos; worked on a sizable, ongoing freelance project from NileGuide (fun with regional descriptions); continued reading the Pico Iyer book I’m deep into; spent hours online reading and commenting other people’s blogs; wrote an article on Caracas—and worked full-time. This means that pretty much every minute I wasn’t at my actual job (the one where I make enough to support myself), I was at the computer, doing what I love. Now, I love writing, but this scenario doesn’t leave a lot of time for friends, for going out, for doing the kinds of things that generate compelling writing in the first place. If great writing is the end product of great living, this ain’t cutting it.

Something’s gotta give, and I don’t think it’s gonna be the writing. I’ve been grappling with financial insecurity this week, on working up the nerve to release my grip and leap into the unknown.

I face, of course, the American Dilemma. No, not Gunnar Myrdal’s—I mean health insurance. If I cut my hours at work, I lose my health insurance. I can stay on the company’s plan and pay out of pocket for up to 18 months, but the last time I did that, it cost me nearly as much as my rent. But wait—if I cut my hours at work, how will I afford another monthly bill? Ah well, who needs thyroid medication anyway? Oh wait—me.

So I’m working (in addition to working) on letting go of my comforts, and getting comfortable with the idea of less security. Or no security. Careers that offer security don’t appeal to me—thus the debauched grant writing stint. Sometimes, a lot of times, I wish they did. But we don’t get to pick what we love, now do we?

I read an excellent interview with writer and fresh lady (and perhaps role model) Daisann McLane, in which she talks about how scary a life without security can be, the life of a travel writer. But, she says, “when you travel to so many different places, and you see how people live outside of your little bubble, you realize how ridiculous the very idea of security is, from a global perspective” (Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing, p. 140).

Well, amen, sister. But now I’ve got some margaritas to sell… do you take salt?

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Lauren Quinn is a writer and traveler currently living in Phnom Penh. Lonely Girl Travels is a blog of her sola travels and expat living.

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