The New Rules Of Travel Writing

How to Revive a Tired and Dusty Genre

Dear Republic,

What is it about this week that makes it feel right for Travel Week? Maybe it’s also Craft Week? — or maybe that’s next week? … anyway, I guess it’s just in the spirit of Travel Week to see where the week takes us. We’ve been interested in travel writing, and trying to figure out why travel writing seems to have become less of a force, and so asked Blake Nelson, who writes TRAVELS TO DISTANT CITIES to think through the subject.

-ROL

THE NEW RULES OF TRAVEL WRITING

Does anyone remember Andrew McCarthy, the 1980s Bratpack actor and star of St. Elmo’s Fire and Some Kind of Wonderful? The one who then retired from acting and began a new career as a travel writer of all things? And became quite successful at it?

I do. I couldn’t help but follow McCarthy’s story because it felt like such an abrupt transition. Though, in a way, it made sense. Being a travel writer would be the perfect antidote to the pressurized claustrophobia of being a movie star. It was probably a good mental health move: to venture out into the world and see what other people do with their lives.

*

I wrote some travel pieces myself early in my career. I enjoyed writing them but I’m not a fan of the genre in general. Whenever I try to read a travel article—in the Sunday New York Times, for instance, I don’t get very far.

I’ve had this experience repeatedly: I see a typical travel piece in the Times or Conde Nast Traveler and I think, Of course, I want to read about Lisbon or Istanbul or Medellin. But then I’m lucky if I can make it to the third paragraph.

Why are these articles so boring? Are the writers not inspired? Can they not find anybody interesting to talk to? Why do they stay in the most boring hotels?

*

If I had to pick my own favorite work of travel writing, it would be Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. I can always go back to it. Re-reading it feels like having a long phone call with an old friend. Those same three characters, trying to climb that same mountain. The mishaps, the humor, dreamy California in the late 1950s . . . .

But of course, once you label Jack Kerouac a travel writer, you’ve exploded the genre. You are now in the territory of “All writing is travel writing,” an aphorism I tend to agree with and which has become my own personal mantra as I have now entered the travel writing sphere myself, as a late-career hobby.

*

In 2019, I retired from writing YA novels. I wanted to do something different. I tried writing personal essays, stories, poems. In the back of my mind, lurked the example of Andrew McCarthy.

At the same time, I also considered how unsatisfying most contemporary travel writing was. I thought to myself: maybe there is an opportunity here.

*

So, I went to the library and dug up some current travel magazines. This was late 2020. Magazines, in general, were not prospering. A few of the classic upscale travel publications still existed, though they didn’t have the glossy sheen they once had. Even the articles had a feeling of being long out of date.

So then I looked at newer magazines like Men’s Journal and Outside. These were maybe more youth-oriented and amenable to a masculine perspective.

But there wasn’t much there. Most of the stories were short, dull, and lacked any distinctive voice. There wasn’t time in these pieces for you to get to know the writer. And the writing was so bland, why would you want to?

*

But I still thought there might be something worth doing in the travel genre.

I thought about Dishwasher Pete, the legendary zine writer from the 1990s who circled the globe, washing dishes from city to city.

Or Aaron Cometbus’s brilliant zine about scrappy punk rock tours and the many pockets of alt-vegan-bohemianism scattered across America.

I couldn’t do what those guys did. I wasn’t 25 years old. But I liked the boldness. The creativity. The outsider-ism. These were extraordinary people doing interesting things. You could feel it in every word they wrote.

*

One thing I knew: before I could think about publishing any form of travel writing, I needed to develop a voice, or a style, or a mode of writing that was specific to me.

The only way to do that was to start writing travel pieces. And to write a lot of them. I needed to start cranking them out and see if I could find a groove, or some default starting-point that I could use over and over again.

*

As it happened, just one year before, I’d gone on a long driving trip around the Midwest. I dug out my day planner and reviewed the trip. It was 18 days. With stops in at least a dozen cities. Why not practice on that?

I got out my laptop. Where was the first place I stopped? Boise, Idaho. What did I do there? Nothing, really.

But no, that wasn’t true, I went to an AA meeting. It was outside, in a parking lot, because of COVID. Afterward, some of the young guys were going fishing together, which sounded super fun. But I was too shy to ask if I could tag along.

The next morning I went to a “used camping equipment collective.” This place sold used tents and climbing gear and various camping gizmos. The people who worked there were goofy and weird, in an Idaho kinda way. They helped me set up a small tent in the back room, to show me how to do it.

I wrote it up. It was pretty good. It was just a couple pages. But it was a start.

*

Where did I go next? I went to Salt Lake City. I wrote about spending a few hours in the Mormon temple compound, where I was escorted by two young Mormon women who didn’t seem to know anything about Mormonism. That was weird.

Then I described a really good thrift store I found, and suddenly remembered—from my rock band days—that the groupies in Salt Lake were supposedly extra horny because of all the religious repression. In SLC, everyone in your crew could get laid! Or so people said.

*

I kept going. I wrote about the stylish young people at a coffee shop in Breitenbush, Colorado. And then the terrible architecture of the Denver Central Library, and the lively open mic night I stumbled upon in Omaha. I wrote up a Saturday afternoon I spent at University of Nebraska, during a football weekend.

These were short, magazine-length pieces, that didn’t conform to the usual magazine style. I didn’t waste time setting the scene. I didn’t do history. I got right to the fun part. If there was one.

If not, I went straight to the bad part. Like the gigantic Walmart in Twin Cities, Idaho that had bankrupted all the local businesses. And now all those people worked there. The whole town!

*

I mainly tried to not be BORING. That was the most important thing. If something was BORING, I immediately deleted it.

The bad news was: I was older. And retired. Both of which naturally make you MORE boring. So I was fighting against that. But overall, I felt most of the pieces were at least moderately entertaining.

*

So now I had a dozen short pieces. They averaged about 1000 words. I had noticed there was a new blogging site called Substack, which seemed to be the most up to date platform.

So maybe I should start a travel blog? I signed up on Substack. I developed a format. At the beginning of each piece, I wrote where I went and what year I went there. If I did it that way, I could write up older trips. Even trips I’d taken decades ago.

The idea was to make it as light and fun as possible. And when possible maybe a poignant twist, à la Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion.

I named it TRAVELS TO DISTANT CITIES. I knew that sounded pretentious but when it comes to titles, pretentiousness can be your friend. People remember pretentious.

I slowly worked out how often and how much material to publish: one piece a week, about 2000 words seemed about right. I could establish a consistent schedule, without people getting sick of me.

*

One important decision I made early on: no politics (or as little as possible). Since everything else in 2021 was saturated in politics. My Substack would give people a break from that.

One thing I would say: it’s been much harder to avoid being boring than I originally thought. Travel is boring. It can be really boring at times. So I have sometimes not met my own standards in that way.

*

But I have slowly expanded the reach of TRAVELS TO DISTANT CITIES to include other topics, like writing itself (since that’s what I know most about) or the business of writing, or whatever other useful info I can pass on to younger writers.

I’ve also written book and film reviews and an occasional sketch of notable people I have known or had dealings with.

By doing it this way, I’ve found that almost anything can be made to fit under the banner: TRAVELS TO DISTANT CITIES. Because as the aphorism so accurately states: “All writing is travel writing.”

Blake Nelson’s many novels include Girl, Recovery Road and Paranoid Park (adapted to film by Gus Van Sant). He’s also written for The New York Times, Sassy, Details and Conde Nast Traveler. New novel: The City Wants You Alone.