I love the way you write.
Seriously. Such a thrill. I’ve read a lot of travel writing online and offline, and it’s such a relief to read someone who truly gets it. I love your stuff.
And here’s three reasons why. (more…)
travelwriting
TBEX ’10 Keynote Round-Up
If you want to understand just why I was so chuffed to be included in the TBEX Community Keynote last weekend, go to Nerd’s Eye View and have a read of the other pieces. They’re all ridiculously good.
I still see and hear people get sniffy against travel blogging. I still see and hear a few people mutter “oh, it’s from a personal blog, is it? Oh well then.” I still watch nostrils flare and noses turn up at the suggestion that self-published, non-commissioned, initially-for-the-hell-of-it travelwriting can sing anywhere near like the average paper-clad travelogue. Patronising rather than malicious – smirky rather than lip-curling. But it’s there.
And those people really need to wake up.
Image: anniemole
There’s That Voice Again
Here’s mine.
Since returning from Orkney I’ve been freelancing over at WebUrbanist and its sister-site WebEcoist, and my final post for them will be going up on November 24th.
And after that?
In the immediate short-term, I’ll be looking after my mum when she comes out of hospital after some surgery (all’s gone well, but I’ll be needed round the house) and I’ll be taking a fortnight off my very accomodating part-time dayjob to do it. Then I’m back to York before Christmas, just in time to move house.
My new gaff – as in “place of residence“, not “laughable mishap” – will be nearer the centre of York and a lot closer to the train station.
I have Plans.
- I have a book I’m writing.
- I have a play I’m writing for Radio 4′s Afternoon Play slot – using the same character as in my book. (Yes, I’m trying to be Clever. I don’t know if it suits me or not, but I’m having a crack at it all the same).
- I have travel articles to write.
- I’m going to read as much as I write.
- And I have a lively slithery stack of personal projects that I’ve neglected while being a freelance blogger – like the website you’re looking at right now.
And while I’m still living here, I’m revisiting York. I can’t comfortably move away from it until I’ve done so.
That’s my plot. It’s got everything - Conflict (a writer’s life vs. starvation, frostbite and a debilitating Caffeine Problem), Theme (One Man’s Epic Struggle To Paper Over The Hole In His Finances, Set Against A Backdrop Of Titanic Yorkshireness), Tension (Can Mike Become A Freelancing Digital Nomad Before He Hits 40?) and Character (cast of thousands – possibly including you).
I’m looking forward to writing it up.
Image: Amir K.
What Is A Staycation?
As the leaves turn golden and Christmas approaches, our thoughts naturally turn to what truly sucked about 2009.
Top of my list? “Staycations”.
Oh, you horrible, horrible word – a wretched portmanteau of “stay” and “vacation” (and perhaps a silent “bullshit”).
British media coverage has been intense. Every newspaper, every radio presenter – such as this one – and every inch of travel-themed newsprint seemed obsessed with it. I think I understand why. You know when you wake up in the morning and there’s a song lodged in your head, and it stays there all day – and you loathed it to start with? This is what happened with ‘staycation’ in the Great British Media Consciousness this summer.
And not just in the UK. You can’t blame us – it all started abroad, well before 2009. My fave online travel read World Hum charted an arc from pioneering fascination to a premature obituary and lately to weary resignation. Staycation. It lingers, like a persistent grease-spot or a kippery smell coming from the carpet. It’s unstoppable. We pump round after round into it, and it just keeps coming.
But…what is it?
At the height of the summer madness, the Times Online noted that because of the recession, Brits were staying within Britain for their hols – day-trips, weekends away, or gallivanting around in a camper-van. You stay in the UK, but you travel. The Guardian agreed.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph was defining it as staying in your own home – putting your feet up, ordering pizza, catching up on Lovefilm DVDs, and attemping Do-It-Yourself that resulted in a couple of grand being knocked off the value of your house. In other words, “a luxurious time in your own home”. I recently listened to BBC Radio 2′s Jeremy Vine take a similar tack.
So which is it?
I’m all for exploring your home country, your home county, your home town. I hardly know York, and now my nomadic plans are starting to crystallize, I’m going to undertake a protracted written goodbye to this city that has housed me for a decade, with articles for fun in here, and other, better articles pitched at paying markets. I’ll thoroughly explore York – and part of that will be staying elsewhere in York, in bed & breakfasts, hotels, campsites, you name it. (This appeals to me greatly, being an idea both adventurous and faintly stupid).
Britain is a wondrous place, I hear. I can’t confirm that, because like 99.9% of the population, I don’t know it very well as a whole. I’ve been here, I’ve been there, but on average I’ve missed out absolutely everything there is to see. I could spend the rest of my life traveling around the UK.
Just as long as I’m traveling.
Staying at home is not traveling. Staying in your own home, no matter where you go for the day, is not the same experience as being truly Elsewhere. Home is a mass of habits, complacencies, commitments and interruptions, and when you stay at home, these suck you right back into the everyday world you long to escape from.
Travel is escapism – maybe even escapology. When you’re at home, there is no escape.
If a staycation is about traveling around, I like the idea (hate the word; like the idea).
If it is about staying at home – please let it die.
Images: mondopiccolo and Mike Sowden.
