Δ On travellogues: I like it old school

29 February 2020, 00:47

I realised that I have been neglecting the amazing presence of this blog, I mean it's been on for 14 years! The saddest part of it is that the entire blog is so filled with angst that it's quite a joke just to read in retrospect. I guess that's why I've never told people about the existence of the blog; or rather, those who once knew of its existence might have forgotten about it with the passing of time.

I thought I'd write something un-angsty today, I thought maybe I'd write about writing.

The most writing I'd ever do (other than academic papers which is more of a no-choice kind of thing) is probably my travelogue books. That's why I'm always so busy during and after travelling. Making travelogues require so much time and effort, from the writing to the editing of photos, to the layout, to the organisation and filing of items collected... Each book takes half a year (mostly more).

I've always thought about making a travel blog. I mean my books are mostly compiled digitally on layout, I could probably do it faster on a web editor with a standard format. I would look at travel blogs by others and admire the quality of photos and most of all, the ability to extract key travel experiences. My travelogues are thick and I've always struggled to summarise. How impossible was it to extract key experiences when everything felt so fresh and exciting!

Today I thought about this question as I browsed through some well known travel blogs. Each post was short and accompanied by a short writeup. Convincing photos were the biggest weapons. This is the exact opposite of writing, which takes care every other thing that is spelt on paper. Furthermore, the paper offers a texture that blogs cannot achieve. The experience of flipping through the pages, looking at the attachments, laughing at the horrible handwriting or appreciating the craft of the book.. these are all small actions but they make the experience of reading a physical travelogue so different from the endless scrolling on blogs.

Hence, I go with paper!