Opinion: Our job is to present you with the facts—to tell you what’s out there, and what’s helpful to know before you decide to go see it.
People have funny ideas about travel writers. To some, we’re dilettantes on an expense account, getting paid to play at the world’s finest resorts while we fill our social media feeds with aspirational shots of our backsides enjoying spectacular views while wearing ridiculous outfits. To others, we’re shadowy operatives, glaring snootily at hotel lobbies, and quizzing wait staff on minutiae (“Is this real wasabi?”).
Those are bubbles I’m happy to burst. I don’t have an expense account, and I’m not here to give readers a value judgment on my personal travel experience based on whether or not I liked it. There are plenty of travel review sites that readers can peruse if their jam is harsh judgments on single travel experiences by internet strangers.
Instead, I’m there to experience a place and tell its story through a lens that will speak to the largest slice of travelers that would find it of interest.
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When I travel, I make mental notes—Who’s traveling here? Who should be traveling here? What type of traveler would enjoy this place the most, and what kind of story should they read to help them understand what it’s about? How can they decide whether to visit, and once they do, what do they need to know? And if they don’t have the means or desire to visit, how is my story going to captivate and entertain them for the next thousand words?
Unfortunately, we don’t all do this. There’s something of a purity problem in travel writing. Travel writers wield words like “authentic” and “real” as the penitent half of a binary—if you’re not traveling that way, you’re doing it wrong. But who’s the arbiter of what’s “authentic”? Who decides what travel style has value?
I can assure you—it’s not travel writers. We were never meant to be the ultimate arbiters of value in this pursuit. Our job is to present you with the facts—to tell you what’s out there, and what’s helpful to know before you decide to go see it.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, at least one writer suggested in a professional forum that travel writers should all agree to discourage any and all travel because it simply wouldn’t have been ethical or safe (by their own estimation)—even at a time when tourism dependent destinations around the world had assessed the risks, put protections in place, and were cautiously reopening to visitors in desperate attempts to revive a small part of their largely halted economies.
I, on the other hand, went back on the road in August of 2020. People were still traveling, destinations were reopening, and whether or not everyone agreed with their decision—either to go or to stay home—there was a lot of uncertainty to sift through.
I was recently at a media event chatting with another writer who had been on a trip to Africa. She hadn’t written about it, she said, because she didn’t like it.
Not really relevant, I thought, but I’m curious now.
She went on to explain that the experience with the tour operator was “too Americanized.”
That’s a lot of judgment for a journalist, I thought, and pointed out that providing hospitality is a big part of the tourism business, and part and parcel of that is making visitors feel comfortable. It doesn’t matter whether the traveler is on a strenuous eight-hour jungle hike trekking through the mud, or viewing wildlife through a high-powered scope in air-conditioned comfort with a can of Diet Coke at the ready—both experiences are valid; both yield a story worth sharing.
I won’t name-check the tour operator in this anecdote. Sufficient to say it’s a large one with decades of experience and a loyal following of repeat travelers, most of whom would probably disagree that their story wasn’t interesting enough to be recounted and read.
That is what we as writers should focus on. Getting the story—not making judgments on behalf of our readers before we’ve even bothered to tell them anything.
That doesn’t mean I’m insufferably optimistic, loving every travel experience I have. I myself am not particularly taken in by theme parks. But as a travel writer I know they’re beloved by millions of travelers of all ages and tastes, so I can visit one and figure out exactly what it is that draws so many through their doors every day.
There’s a relatable human experience to be discovered in any journey, and my cynical side sees endless crowds, expensive food and logo items, and tired, overstimulated, frustrated families in theme parks. But that’s quickly tempered by the understanding of what each of those families are seeking. Comfort. Entertainment. Shared joy. Indelible memories. They’re not on a profound journey of existential self-realization—and they don’t have to be for their travels to have value.
Regardless of their reasons for travel, what travelers do need from travel writers are facts—and not the kind of “hacks” of questionable ethics that get toted around the internet. If they’re booking an African safari, maybe they can do without someone else’s judgment that a tour operator is “too Americanized” but instead be presented with the facts that lead the writer to that conclusion.
Whether they’re seeking the comforts of home, or want a transcendental experience unlike any could have possibly imagined in their own environs, it’s a travel writer’s faithful, unbiased, easy-to-understand retelling of their own experiences that should be there to guide and advise their own voyages.
Readers can trust writers who tell the truth, and leave the ultimate judgment up to them.
First, throughout journalism, the claim that one can present "just the facts" is a myth. The writer will always be biased, even if, as "rick" pointed out in a preceding comment, the bias is exercised by choosing the facts to report. The trick is to control those biases, as Mr. Laid seemed to imply himself at one point, though he still concluded that a writer had to be "unbiased." Maybe a robot reporter could be unbiased, but it's very difficult for an intelligent, thinking human to be.
But my biggest personal problem with travel writing was not addressed: the horrible quality of the writing (not always, but too often). Goofy, slick, hip, or slangy writing that would be trashed in almost any other field, still flies in travel journalism. Too many tourists think that travel is an opportunity to get silly and juvenile, and it seems too many travel writers feel the same about their subject. In travel writing, I still encounter that agnonizingly trite phrase "to die for." And do travel writers still think it's still clever to refer to bars with that tired, overused, overworked metaphor "watering hole"?
Second, and more important, why read somene exclusively devoted to facts? You can get most of the facts you need from guidebooks or even tourism websites. The writer's own viewpoint is what can make a story colorful and interesting.
Sure, it's smart to keep in mind that one's own experience might well differ from the author's. But the best travel writing I've read (e.g., Jan Morris) has been chock full of personal opinions. It's a kind of dialogue between writer and reader. Would you enjoy a conversation with someone who speaks only of facts (self-chosen) and not their responses to the facts?