Thread by @Mikeachim, I've seen a lot of travel folk saying "should I write about [...]

I've seen a lot of travel folk saying "should I write about travel when everyone's on lockdown (or should be)?" My answer would always be yes, if you want to write about:

- wonder
- curiosity
- learning how other people live
- tolerance
- empathy...

(1/)

- the joy of looking stupid & getting other people to laugh at you (my beat, I'm starting to think)
- landscape & history
- all the sciences & arts
- the importance of community and of helping others who need that help

(2/)

- how to connect with things far greater than you'll ever be, and why that's a really good thing for your ego in the long run

And other stuff I'm not smart enough to have thought of.

But I reckon there's plenty.

(3/)

Easier said than done.

(And zero comfort for anyone watching their travel-related income fall off a cliff right now.

No easy answers there.)

But I reckon travel is also about hope, and I think we're going to need a hell of a lot more of that in coming weeks and months.

(4/)

This book from @Al_Humphreys is a good example. It's more about what goes on in your brain, it's very British, it's wise in a non-preachy/annoying way, and it's a fun read.

And he just reduced it to free on Kindle:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doorstep-Mile-Live-Adventurously-Every-ebook/dp/B082BGD7QR/

Grab it.

(5/)

Also about travel-except-not-really-except-yes-absolutely-really:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00OPO9ZMQ/

It's @Eric_Weiner chasing down ideas of happiness around the world, about how we choose to be happy & what we can do about it.

It's also funny. A double assault on grumpiness.

(6/)

This book is wonderful, playful, a bit mad, and a perfect example of a travel-not-travel-yes-travel book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/024195388X/

Read this lowdown on it at @brainpickings: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/08/24/how-to-be-an-explorer-of-the-world-keri-smith/

It's about opening your eyes to what's around you - including at home.

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(I also love this statement from her book - screenshotted from the Brain Pickings article.

Ye gods. If you're looking for a template for the kind of writing-about-travel that can be done right now, THAT'S it in a nutshell.)

(8/)

"Towards the end of the 18th century, a young aristocrat, confined to his house in Turin for 42 days as a result of a duel, decided to both ease his boredom and make a joke of it all by writing a – well, there it is in the title."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/04/journey-around-my-room-review

(9/)

A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre – review

Nicholas Lezard's paperback of the week: This is a witty response to being confined in your room

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/04/journey-around-my-room-review

That book is mentioned in the final chapter (I think?) of this one by Alain de Botton:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002RUA4U2/

...which is about the great ideas underpinning why humans like to travel, including a few that are self-deceiving nonsenses that need rethinking.

(/10)

This book by @DogUmwelt is about what you can see when you go for a 10-minute walk:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009CBJ5RC/

No, really. A whole book on just that:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/

We see so little and miss so much. This book is a wake-up call.

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I'm going to keep adding to this thread (see the top for what it's about). Friends who are worldier than I am, please yell suggestions at me if you have 'em!

(/12)

There are plenty of travel writers who write about staying put for a while.

Take @candacerardon's lengthy stay in a yurt, which she wrote about at @NatGeo's Intelligent Travel... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2014/07/18/the-power-of-not-unplugging/

...and turned into a sleep story for @calm: https://blog.calm.com/blog/magic-of-yurts

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The Magic of Yurts — Calm Blog

If I had to point to a single place that has had the greatest effect on me in the world, I’d have to point to the three months I spent living in a yurt on a rural island in Canada. It wasn’t my...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/intelligent-travel/2014/07/18/the-power-of-not-unplugging/

(Good on Calm for doing this, by the way: https://www.calm.com/blog/take-a-deep-breath)

(/14)

Let’s look after ourselves, and each other. — Calm Blog

As days of isolation turn into weeks, many of us are feeling increasingly uprooted from our normal lives. In a world on lockdown, it isn’t just our routines that are being disrupted, but our relati...

https://www.calm.com/blog/take-a-deep-breath

Travel essayist Pico Iyer wrote a book subtitled "Adventures In Going Nowhere":

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Stillness-Adventures-Going-Nowhere-ebook/dp/B00JSRWJ2S/

Considering things right now, it sounds alarmingly on the nose - but it's really about finding stillness to stop your brain catching fire. Needed.

(/15)

Here's a book about not going overboard (eg. buying your own body-weight in toilet rolls in a single shop):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lagom-Swedish-Secret-Living-Well-ebook/dp/B06XQ1RXYN

@LolaAkinmade is a travel writer. But this is a book about a way of living that can be adopted *anywhere*.

4 rolls max, please.

(/16)

Award-winning journo @evaholland is smart & brave & does crazy outdoorsy things - but she's not at all fearless.

But since she's smart & brave (& maybe crazy) she wrote a book about fear. Go preorder it here: https://www.amazon.com/Nerve-Adventures-Science-Eva-Holland/dp/1615196005

Good time to read such a book: check.

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So, from a travel perspective, try writing about fear (after reading Eva's book).

Or write about risk, after reading @kaytsukel's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Risk-Science-Courage-Caution/dp/1426214723

Or uncertainty, after reading this by @jonathanfields: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052RHDY2/

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( @kaytsukel @evaholland @jonathanfields I think all three of you should gang together and write a book called "Foreboding: The Science Of Anticipating (And Avoiding) The Worst". You could get really creative with your preorders marketing.)

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"Travel is, at its heart, as much about fascination and learning as it is about physical exploration." - @patriddell, NatGeo Traveller UK editor: https://twitter.com/patriddell/status/1242791809262202881

(Reckon that's also why most people read travel stuff, even when movement is unrestricted.)

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https://twitter.com/patriddell/status/1242791809262202881

Okay, so, this book.

It's included in any roundup of famous travel books - but it's...not *really* about travel? Except maybe kind of?

It's an honest, unflattering self-portrait of someone falling apart (the film, not so much: http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/life/haters-guide-eat-pray-love-879103/)....

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...but the travel's a backdrop, & the focus is usually inwards.

Worth noting that Liz Gilbert never meant it turn into a "how to find yourself" guide for the emotionally fragmented, or a "travel the world & fix your life" thing.

Which is good because it's neither.

(/22)

Or stay home and mercilessly take the piss out of the kind of travel you love! (May be a British thing.)

"Nomad" is tremendously awful, the pettiest and least self-aware Partridge has ever been, & the results are sublime/excruciating.

Read it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HY8NSQ8/

(/23)

This book's a rare thing: an expat "year in the life" tale about living not on an olive farm in the country, but in a big, noisy city:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eurydice-Street-Athens-Sofka-Zinovieff/dp/1862077509

It's also "On Looking" put to work. Write about where you are, where you live right now. (Look hard at it.)

(/24)

Intermission:

A good way to discover how woefully ignorant you are of what the world actually looks like, at ground level?

Play this game, and make a guess that's less than a hundred miles out:

https://www.geoguessr.com/

Bet you can't.

(/25)

Further, #lockdown-related intermission:

This thread from @FloraBaker is a couple of cubic miles of good stuff to keep yourself busy with right now:

https://twitter.com/FloraBaker/status/1240637169372467207

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https://twitter.com/FloraBaker/status/1240637169372467207

"All great civilizations are based on parochialism. To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime's experience...it is depth that counts, not width."

- Patrick Kavanagh, from @RobGMacfarlane's intro to Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain': https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005GK7LQK/

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This book (I'm currently reading it for the first time - reason: https://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1241793461759639554) is a gorgeous example of the power of looking closely at what's so familiar to us that we never actually see it. A book created from attention fully paid:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005GK7LQK/

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https://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/1241793461759639554

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