Thoughts and Truths on Travel Writing

It is my belief that the days of freelance travel writers doing a quick tour of a place, sponsored by this airline, or that hotel are over. Finished. Dead in the water.

Future travel guides are likely be written by a local since all things considered, sending a travel writer out from London or Sydney, to write about somewhere, thousands of miles away, is curious. Even arrogant. And certainly costly.

Travel writers must accept there are good regional journalists, both local and/or expatriate, who need only follow the publishing brief. And should their writing fall short, it can always be polished by an editor.

A former travel guide writer, I was always conscious that ‘Joe Public’ normally only gets one annual holiday. I therefore made damn sure my advice was correct. In Bali, I once drove 50 miles to check an hotel when the owner didn’t even offer me a drink. And I waited an hour to meet the owner of “Rick’s Café” in Casablanca. Ditto.

Such energies were not always supported by the publisher. As writer, I had first refusal to an update when due to editorial ignorance, I was not always free. Like requiring a revision on a Muslim country during Ramadan. Or a giving a three week deadline to update Malaysia, during the rainy season.

A major UK publisher went ahead, without my knowledge, and reprinted my Seychelles guide, three years after the original printing. The new edition bore my name, but it had not been updated. The reason given was that it was not cost effective…

I had a similar experience with a guide to Oman, a country whose development I’ve followed since 1975. The publisher did a reprint, eight years after the first edition which I only found while browsing in a bookshop. When I called to query what was going on, the editor said they’d done a ‘desk job.’

A desk job! On a country such as Oman where change is like a thunderbolt.

I will say no more, except to suggest that the comments of the paying public on an internet site tend to have more credibility that many a guide-book.

Images: www.copix.co.uk

MY BIRTHDAY FROM HELL

A young travel journalist was recently whining on his blog of how lonely he expected to be on a three week trip to America. In response, I felt like saying you don’t take your best pal to work do you? So if travel writing is your chosen metier, please fasten your safety belt and stop complaining.

In fact there is a huge gulf between travel writing and travel journalism. The former sees you away - often for months at a time - in an alien society with no infrastructure other than your wits. The reverse is a quick press-trip with colleagues to Majorca, or wherever, when you’ve barely closed the door and you’re back again.

Real travel writing by its nature, is a solitary occupation as the authors of great narratives will confirm. Missing home and dining alone are inevitable downsides and while grateful for a capacity to be alone, I find that spending your birthday without a companion exacerbates the sense of social isolation.

In a lifetime of travel writing I`ve awakened on 17th October in Sydney, London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Nairobi, Dublin, Tahiti, New York, Marrakesh, Muscat, Provincetown and Algiers. I`ve also seen out three birthdays in Pakistan: my 39th up the Khyber, my 40th in Islamabad and my 41st in Sukkur, an historic town on the river Indus in Sindh.

Knowing I’d be alone in Sukkur, I was determined not to let it get me down. I bought a big bag of sweets for local children that morning and normally skipping lunch, I opted to celebrate with a meal - albeit it in my room as it was Ramadan.

I’d ordered catfish masala, but since my air conditioning wasn’t working and the electric fan had stopped, I called reception to send up an electrician.

In a few moments a sharp knock heralded a short man in navy overalls holding a giant screw-driver. ‘Electric,’ he said and coming in, he switched the fan on, then off, spun the blades (its cage was missing) announced ‘fan heat,’ and picking it up out he marched out again.

A second knock had signalled a waiter with my lunch and taking the tray, I placed it carefully on the bed and pulled up a chair, but before I could take a mouthful, there was another rap on the door. No surprise that it was the electrician.

This time he kicked off his sandals and stepping over the tray, he stood on my pillow and placing a foot against the bed-head, he yanked the air conditioner off the wall, splitting its timber frame and showering my lunch with dust balls.

‘Check,’ he said and taking it into his arms, he had disappeared down the corridor.

Moments later he was back dragging the fan through the door which I had left ajar in anticipation.

‘Wire,’ he declared and kneeling down, he plunged his giant screw-driver into the wall socket.

‘Don't do that!’ I shouted, picturing an incinerated corpse.

‘Problem fix,’ he said and flicking a switch, the fan had started up like a turbo-jet, blowing my birthday curry all over the bedspread.

Images: www.copix.co.uk

My official press pass to visit Zambia in 1994.

Breakfast with Bedouin while researching my first book The Gulf States and Oman (1978).

With houseboat children on the Indus river in Sukkur on 17th October 1981.

17th OCTOBER IS INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY