Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy. — Fanny Burney
Welcome to Travel the Write Way, a new blog that combines the joys of writing with the joys of travel. I’m so glad you found me. Travel and writing are my two absolute passions (my husband and my dog are the other two) and I’ve finally found a way to combine them. I just wish it was easier to travel abroad with the dog . . .
As Thomas Jefferson once said, “I cannot live without books.” I totally agree. And the older I get, the more I realize that I also cannot live without travel. Especially to Italy. My bags are just unpacked and I’m already planning the next trip. But, fellow travelers, you know the drill: we need time in between trips to download and cull through the hundreds of photos we’ve taken and to sift through the journals and notes. To put all the little ticket stubs and receipts and business cards and brochures in order, to try to recreate an honest memory of the places we’ve been. And some of us even need to make a living in between our adventures.
I was lucky this year to be involved in a publishing venture that enabled me to launch my first collection of travel essays, poems and photographs and to get really excited about travel writing. Travel changes your perceptions about things both large and small. It can be both exhilarating and frustrating. It can make you feel a part of something very big or make you feel exceedingly small. Our advantage as writers is that we can capture these feelings and put them into words.
We already tend to be hyper-aware of our surroundings. We are observers of human behavior. We see certain angles of light, certain human interactions that go unnoticed by most people. We make connections to the past and make predictions about the future. And we take notes. Lots of notes. My friend Barbara and I have enough journals to fill a spare bedroom — and not just the closets! That’s what we writers do. So how about putting them to good use? That’s what I hope this will inspire you to do.
Travel is not just about getting on a plane and taking a big expensive trip somewhere, although that’s wonderful when it happens. Travel can be exploring something in your own city that you’ve never seen before and playing tourist. It can mean a stay in a B&B just an hour away from home and noticing the landscape and how the sun hangs over the mountains a little while before plunging the countryside into darkness. It can mean remembering a trip you took years ago and writing it into life again.
Won’t you join me? You won’t even need a passport.
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
