Rookie Travel Tip #2: On Writing & Traveling
When you embark on a long journey and plan to write about it, commit to taking pictures and notes every day. Each day when you return to your B&B, hotel or tent, write up your notes, download and edit photos, post a selection to your Instagram, and an extended version to your blog. That way, your followers can enjoy your journey in near-real time. When you do this, you will find that, although you might take down many notes in the moment, and do your rest to memorize every conversation and interesting occurrence, and your exact thought at the moment you encountered everything you see, you will fail. Because when you’ve been driving, walking, and gasping in awe all day, your total engagement will cause you to drag your ass to your temporary home each night completely done in. You will have no energy to take off your traveling clothes or pull down the bedspread before you pass out on your rented bed. And the photos? Did you forget that downloading photos (assuming you haven’t lost your photo card reader yet), and obsessing over white and black levels, color saturation, and cropping options will take daaaaaays. You will get behind. You will despair of ever posting anything again. You will wonder if you should give up the reporting angle of this joyride. In the crisp light of a new day, you’ll decide that the world needs to hear from you. Minutes later, you’ll admit that you need to talk to the world. You thus come to:
Pro Travel Tip #2:
Writing is about sitting. Traveling is about moving. These are contradictory activities. Get over yourself.
Move. Travel. Sit in awe of every moment.
Take notes if you can, remember what you can (see Travel Tip #1 on memory).
One day, when you’ve scheduled a two-day stay and decide you’d rather sit in the cool inside air than venture into the scorch, tap up a few notes or loose thoughts. Download and edit some photos. Perhaps even post them.
The world will wait. In fact, only a tiny portion of the world is waiting on you. You can text updates to those dear ones in seconds.
One day, you’ll return home. You will have an entire fall and winter in which to sit on your ex-traveling ass and write.
Move along, now.
