An opinion on trip reports
 

I quote the following without comment.

"The only aspect of our travels that is interesting to others is disaster."
- Martha Gellman

Though the disaster can be "interesting" I find how people overcome the disaster far, far more interesting.

I like to know how people take a lousy situation and turn it into a memorable one. I want to learn more about how to adapt.

HOW SAD!

Meant to include the source, an essay "Round the World Journal"
by Matt Donath you can find at:

http://www.travel-library.com/rtw/donath/intro.html

Not if the trip report is about PARIS.. :)

"Martha Gellman shouldn't presume to know what is interesting to others." -- Capo :)

I like things like observations about people or cities or specific sights. I skip over things like logistics and (what I see as) minutiae. And, not being a foodie, I couldn't less what someone has for a meal (but I also realize other people eat that stuff up.)

When planning a trip, I find that trip reports can really give you insight into issues that I would not have otherwise even thought of. Of course, some are more entertaining than others and some read better than others, but the information can be invaluable.

jsmith: I agree! A wonderful, wonderful recent poster described her budget trip to Italy with two teens. Her attempts to surmount obstacles were what made her trip report truly interesting. She proved what my husband told me ages ago--vacations are for people uninterested in challenge; travel, by contrast, is for people who understand that each day of life presents wonderful challenges to expand one's existance.

hi, indie and Randell. J. and I dont mind getting lost. Once we thought we were in traffic but ended up on a ferry, TO OUR DELIGHT!. I met a few provencal friends when I was in the Post office, lost, asking directions. I can hardly wait to see them again as we do every year now after seven.We have been so lucky have made so many friends there. We made friends wuith another couple staying on a farm and the Belguim guy's went caput. so J. drove him to a station for help, a few years later they bought a place in Haute provence and have visited them at their invitation, amnd now we also have friends in poitiers so we visit France to visit friends now. But we also see new things through their eyes.

It is true that as we look back on our travels, it is the disasters that stand out.

For example:

Wasting 2 days of vacation to see the great European eclipse of 1999 only to get rained out in a real soaker.

The various ways European cars can be put into reverse--and how you learned how to put the one you had into reverse (next time you specifically asked for minute directions). It was the ring, stupid.

Delays.

The French Car Engine Disaster.

The British home exchange house owned by pack rats.

Taking my crazy clean mother on the trip where we had the British home exchange house owned by pack rats. It did not help when her luggage was mislaid for a few hours and she went into a major kvetch-a-thon.

Getting lost anywhere.

Looking for a hotel room at 10:00pm near Mont St. Michel in August with a car full of kids.

Air conditioning in the car always breaking down every time I went on a family trip anywhere in New England (The Curse of New England).

However, all of these things make the best and funniest stories afterwards after you are home safely in your own bed. You regale others with the details and, if looked at from the right perspective, the stories are very entertaining.

And that is why Martha Gellman said what she did.

I should say that routine trip reports of someone's first time in Paris, London, etc., do not interest me because I have seen almost all (if not all) the things they are going to see. Funny stories, however, do interest me and I read those.

You can pick out the boring brag-a-thon trip reports in a nanosecond ("I stayed at The Ritz. If you can't afford The Ritz or the Georges V, YOU have not done Paris. And, I never even have breakfast at anything less than a 2 star, etc."). I skip those sorts of posts because they are dumb, dumb, and dumber and most of the people posting those sorts of "reports" have, in my opinion, very good imaginations (and a large supply of travel guides that assist them with the details of their so-called "trip" reports).

And all my disasters cited above were happily resolved. There was nothing that a large infusion of cash could not fix. :-)

For that we have credit cards.

I'm with Mimi: HOW SAD! And I don't think it's the least bit true. A good travel story doesn't have to include a disaster to get me interested in it.

I'll take adventure, romance, serendipity and spontanaiety over disaster any day. (Especially the "woe-is-me-rained-every-day" variety. Complete turnoff, that.)

I suspect that Martha Gellman has been subjected to more of the latter, than the former, to have made that jaded comment?

When travelling, there are no disasters. There are, however, adventures!

jsmith, "We" (fodorites) ain't "others."

I disagree!

To me, Humor makes a very interesting report. And human interest, more than food descriptions and directions.
There is one going on now, that is lovely, sort of a daily diary where one can pretend to be there..

Marilyn is SO right :D

Of course Gellman is right. Disaster and overcoming it is the essence of all
great storytelling.

Gee, so I guess if you have a perfect vacation, you need not post your trip report?

I don't think a daily repot of what you do every day is interesting no matter how well you write but this reminds me of the book, that has lots of funny comments, "The Travelling Curmudgeon," quotations and anecdotes on all aspects of trave, such as Paul Theroux: "You define a good flight by negatives:You didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late,you weren't nauseated by the food."

actually, depends on how you look at it / how the disaster is told.

one very funny book I have in my travel library (over 100 books and counting! gads) is called "Not so funny when it happened" by Tim Cahill. all about misadventures. it's a scream!

Well, of course, the memorable lines are the most outlandish:

"...and so the girl from the EuroCar office gets in and slips the gear easily into reverse..." (yeah, that ring got us, too)

"It ate my credit card!" (on the autostrada at the un-manned toll machine)

"The good news is that the cops said they'd pay for the front door." (on return from our first trip to Paris)

Oh, what can we do to get Elvira back?

Although, I've sort of liked m_k2's Barcelona report too, even with all the "up-nosing brag-a thon" (or maybe just because ot it)

OK, I'm running for cover now