Travel Writing

The memory is a vivid one: I’m sitting on my bed in Osaka, looking out the windows to the low, grey buildings sprawled out as far as the eye can see. I’m wearing a dress – I think it is black with little red and yellow flowers. My hair is up, of that I’m sure. My fingers are resting on the keyboard of my laptop, hesitating, hesitant.

My days of Livejournal were waning. That platform had hosted my first blog, back when I called myself Chapter Fourteen for no other reason than I like how those two words sounded together. I needed a new name, a new online persona. My Livejournal blog was almost solely about travel anyway, and at this point, 2008, I had already decided that I wanted travel to be a permanent and prominent part of my life. I remember that I tried to find the right words and then, like that, they appeared – This Battered Suitcase – and I registered my new blog immediately.

Over the last year and a half, my degree and my job have taken up most of my life. I have sadly had to let this blog slip behind a little bit, which breaks my heart. I love writing blog posts. Sometimes I go back and read old blog posts for inspiration for the book I’m writing, and once in a while I feel really proud of what I’ve written. A lot of the time, however, I cringe. I’m totally guilty of doing some really lazy travel writing. Lock me up and throw away the key, because I have definitely described a city as a “fascinating blend of the ancient and the modern”.

So, mostly out of sheer self-shaming (in the hopes that I never blog/write using these words again… or at least minimise my use of them) here are the words I think are overused in travel writing and travel blogging.

For many, spending days aboard a cramped train with minimal electricity and plumbing would be extremely unappealing. But for as long as I could remember, I had dreamed of taking the Trans-Siberian through Russia, one of those grand, Theroux-inspired adventures. Within a few days of boarding the train that would take me over 6000 kilometres and eight time zones across Eurasia, I realised that this journey would be much more arduous than I could have ever imagined, and yet much more rewarding than I could have ever hoped.

There’s really no beating around the bush here, as the title gives it all away. I’ve alluded to this in the past and openly talk about it with friends and family, but I rarely mention it on this blog or any of my social media. I’m not quite sure why, but I thought it was high time to do it, purely to put it out there. Once it’s out there, I can’t take it away. I’m writing a book.

I go through phases of blogging, just as I think that all people in creative fields do, whether their craft is painting or writing or singing or dancing. We all go through phases in life where we feel successful, where our output is high and our accomplishments prolific. This summer, for me, was definitely not one of these times. In fact, thinking about blogging often made me feel sad – sad because I love it so much and I wasn’t doing it, but also because I just couldn’t think of a damn thing to write.

The stigma of blogging has definitely subsided over the last decade, as so many people are online in some way, whether through blogging or social media. What used to be a strange phenomenon – writing and posting on the Internet for a bunch of strangers to read – is now quite common, and, in some cases, expected (for a business or magazine, for example). But I also realise that I feel differently about blogging than most, because my entire life is about blogging or writing in some way. Not everyone feels the same way that I do.