German born storks do indeed spend the winter in Marrakech.
The Chinese have no word for no. Bu shi – not so.
Beef Tartar is a French specialty and among my favorite meat dishes.
There you have it. My world of travel. Whether nature, culture, or artery clogging dining is one’s priority, wandering on foreign soil is an exciting quest. Sure, not everybody is interested in bird migration. Sorting out language variations and their effect on daily lives can be boring. And I assume that raw beef does not make most other people’s haute cuisine list.
But in spite of my idiosyncrasies, I consider myself an average traveler. So I love to travel alone and carry a teddy bear on my backpack. So I watch television in languages I don’t understand. But I do, like everybody else, enjoy room service, exceed my daily budget, and I get lost in big cities.
Because I have taken several trips since I retired – trips to China, Morocco, Egypt, Jamaica, Canada, England, and Germany – I am sometimes asked how I prepare for travel and how I organize my notes for writing later on.
The easy answer would be that I research, execute, review. The long version includes many separate steps, beginning with the purchases of a travel guide, a binder, a journal, a photo box, a glue stick. I never leave home without a glue stick. While I have sung the glory of the clothespin before, as placeholder for random thoughts on yellow stickers, when it comes to collecting travel memorabilia nothing but a glue stick will do.
Over the years I have refined my search for a travel journal. Spiral binding for easy opening. No smaller than five by seven, to accommodate the average postcard. No bigger than the purse or daypack I carry at the time. Short trips require less pages than long trips, so do excursions with friends. Alone-time is important for writing down impressions and gathering fly-by information; being with family or other close companions tends to reduce the amount of left over energy for writing.
One of the solutions is to set aside a certain hour each day, as I did when my granddaughter and I traveled together. We both glued mementos and captured important items each evening while we watched home news on CNN. Our observations were quite different from each other. She wrote about the presents she bought for her friends, the new foods she tried, and the napkins she collected at each restaurant. She wrote with gel pen in tiny print on a tiny notepad on one side only. She used red, blue, and green glitter glue. I slapped news articles and restaurant bills onto one page with my acid free Glue Stic™ and described the gathering of gnats on a mountaintop on the opposite page with a black ballpoint pen. Later, at home, we laughed when we discovered each other’s major events.
******
My trips start months before I set foot on an airplane, with a binder filled with computer printouts of maps, history, accommodations, sights, train and bus schedules. How to overcome the cultural divide. What not to eat.
Once I have decided on an itinerary I print out a calendar of events. I own an all-in-one printer, which makes it easy to copy and reduce information to journal size. Consequently I glue in a lot of information before I leave. This fits my motto:
“Be prepared enough to assure comfort and flexible enough to accept discomfort.”
Before I leave home I add a copy of the airline receipt from their website. Copies of hotel reservations. Mapquest directions. A few words of the language spoken at my destination. Since I love to buy books I always take along a few book reviews or recommendations. And because my luggage was delayed and could have been lost on my last trip I might now add a “laundry list” in anticipation of claim forms that have to be filled out. I didn’t realize until I began to write an estimate of loss that my suitcase, the one that Air Canada left behind in Toronto, held 550 dollars worth of my life. Well, fifty dollars of that covered Tyana’s wardrobe – the poor bear wore the same outfit for four days.
******
On location I never throw anything written away. I check my purse or backpack for receipts, business cards, brochures, and stray notes every evening. During the day I might have jotted somebody’s address on a napkin. The lady at the market might have mentioned the name of a fruit I had never heard of before. In China I collected business cards since I couldn’t explain to the taxi driver where I stayed. In Egypt I retained sales slips from grocery stores to get an idea of the pricing. On several occasions I ripped labels from water bottles to compare content. When I don’t have my camera with me I buy postcards. ATM receipts keep track of my spending and currency conversions offer comparisons. A quarantine declaration reminds me later that I was one of the people who didn’t let SARS stop them from visiting China.
I buy a newspaper wherever I go but seldom read it when I get home. Why do I insist on loading my suitcase with the opinions of foreign government officials? Why do I think that insight into local real estate and the price of lettuce will give flavor to my writing? I really don’t know. But someday there might be a need for it.
Though I usually write in the evening, I take the journal with me to coffee shops. Sometimes I meet other travelers or curious locals. We talk. Exchange stories. The stranger shows me a picture of his family. I open my journal and point to a photo of my daughter or son. I glued snapshots into the back for just that reason. Something else is usually tucked away in the back – a copy of my passport and driver’s license. I haven’t quite figured out yet why I do that. Possibly a slight neurosis. There are two scenarios in which this overkill might come in handy though. One, I lose my purse or get robbed and need proof of identity. Two, I get abducted and murdered and the only evidence of my existence would be the journal. Both assume that I left it in the hotel room.
As for the kinds of things I actually write about – it all depends. Some days I barely manage to name the places I have visited. On other occasions I pour my heart out over the sighting of the morning sun. I invent stories too, capture dreams, exploit chance meetings. In China I spent much time copying strange and sloppy translations and threatening dos and don’ts. One of the don’ts was the reason for copying since I would have been charged a hefty price for removing anything from the room including signs with strange and sloppy translations. The “Green Initiative” folder for instance that praised: “The economy is a virtue.” And the booklet that called upon me to visit all the beautiful bars in the Zhejiang Intercontinental Hotel. Take “Club Egypt” for instance, of which it bragged: “The whole decoration is possessed with the ancient Egyptical feature.”
On the inside of the back cover of most travel journals I attach a pouch to hold “undecideds” and things that can’t be glued permanently like receipts for credit card purchases and two-sided brochures. The pouch usually gets overstuffed and explodes. Some day I will come up with a better idea than cardboard and tape
.
******
The last third of my travels, the reviewing part, pulls everything together. Soon after I get home I line up the books I have purchased, the binder with the information from the internet, my journal, the photographs – there might be hundreds of them – and the photo box in which I store parts of newspapers and magazines and other oversized documents. Images catch my eye as I pass the line-up of material on the kitchen table. Sentences follow me around. Stories begin to simmer.
In a Gotham online course on the basics of travel writing I learned about the narrative art and structure of travel pieces. Not only are practical information and a sense of place necessary; I have to include people, dialogue, episodes, and opinions. The lead is very important; according to John Gottberg who writes for Frommer’s and Lonely Planet. He insists on “alluring, alarming, mysterious, or action-oriented.” The body, he says, has to have focus and the ending should capture the essence of this focus.
I seldom write chronological trip reports, instead I work around an incident or thought or person. In Marrakech I was thrilled by the presence of storks. My childhood memories of them nesting on the church steeple became the focus of a story. Jamaica stands out because of Bob Marley. The bus ride to his birthplace Nine Mile made an interesting piece. China intrigued me with its hunger for capitalism. My writing centered on Lucy the travel guide and her references to the changing cityscape.
A month after my last trip to Germany I tested my memory by trying to recollect the events of one single day. I failed. As soon as I opened my journal and saw the receipt from the coffee shop, the bill from the University bookstore, and the church music sheet, I pieced together the rest of the afternoon. Then I read about the day I spent looking for my parents’ graveside. A story yet untold.
With my first cruise coming up in April, I am well into the binder phase. Tomorrow will also be my first face-to-face experience with a travel agent. I will be able to consult printouts of all twelve decks of the “Monarch of the Sea,” and I will confirm my preferred excursions in San Diego, Catalina Island and Ensenada. I am ready for a preliminary glue stick session.
The Chinese have no word for no. Bu shi – not so.
Beef Tartar is a French specialty and among my favorite meat dishes.
There you have it. My world of travel. Whether nature, culture, or artery clogging dining is one’s priority, wandering on foreign soil is an exciting quest. Sure, not everybody is interested in bird migration. Sorting out language variations and their effect on daily lives can be boring. And I assume that raw beef does not make most other people’s haute cuisine list.
But in spite of my idiosyncrasies, I consider myself an average traveler. So I love to travel alone and carry a teddy bear on my backpack. So I watch television in languages I don’t understand. But I do, like everybody else, enjoy room service, exceed my daily budget, and I get lost in big cities.
Because I have taken several trips since I retired – trips to China, Morocco, Egypt, Jamaica, Canada, England, and Germany – I am sometimes asked how I prepare for travel and how I organize my notes for writing later on.
The easy answer would be that I research, execute, review. The long version includes many separate steps, beginning with the purchases of a travel guide, a binder, a journal, a photo box, a glue stick. I never leave home without a glue stick. While I have sung the glory of the clothespin before, as placeholder for random thoughts on yellow stickers, when it comes to collecting travel memorabilia nothing but a glue stick will do.
Over the years I have refined my search for a travel journal. Spiral binding for easy opening. No smaller than five by seven, to accommodate the average postcard. No bigger than the purse or daypack I carry at the time. Short trips require less pages than long trips, so do excursions with friends. Alone-time is important for writing down impressions and gathering fly-by information; being with family or other close companions tends to reduce the amount of left over energy for writing.
One of the solutions is to set aside a certain hour each day, as I did when my granddaughter and I traveled together. We both glued mementos and captured important items each evening while we watched home news on CNN. Our observations were quite different from each other. She wrote about the presents she bought for her friends, the new foods she tried, and the napkins she collected at each restaurant. She wrote with gel pen in tiny print on a tiny notepad on one side only. She used red, blue, and green glitter glue. I slapped news articles and restaurant bills onto one page with my acid free Glue Stic™ and described the gathering of gnats on a mountaintop on the opposite page with a black ballpoint pen. Later, at home, we laughed when we discovered each other’s major events.
******
My trips start months before I set foot on an airplane, with a binder filled with computer printouts of maps, history, accommodations, sights, train and bus schedules. How to overcome the cultural divide. What not to eat.
Once I have decided on an itinerary I print out a calendar of events. I own an all-in-one printer, which makes it easy to copy and reduce information to journal size. Consequently I glue in a lot of information before I leave. This fits my motto:
“Be prepared enough to assure comfort and flexible enough to accept discomfort.”
Before I leave home I add a copy of the airline receipt from their website. Copies of hotel reservations. Mapquest directions. A few words of the language spoken at my destination. Since I love to buy books I always take along a few book reviews or recommendations. And because my luggage was delayed and could have been lost on my last trip I might now add a “laundry list” in anticipation of claim forms that have to be filled out. I didn’t realize until I began to write an estimate of loss that my suitcase, the one that Air Canada left behind in Toronto, held 550 dollars worth of my life. Well, fifty dollars of that covered Tyana’s wardrobe – the poor bear wore the same outfit for four days.
******
On location I never throw anything written away. I check my purse or backpack for receipts, business cards, brochures, and stray notes every evening. During the day I might have jotted somebody’s address on a napkin. The lady at the market might have mentioned the name of a fruit I had never heard of before. In China I collected business cards since I couldn’t explain to the taxi driver where I stayed. In Egypt I retained sales slips from grocery stores to get an idea of the pricing. On several occasions I ripped labels from water bottles to compare content. When I don’t have my camera with me I buy postcards. ATM receipts keep track of my spending and currency conversions offer comparisons. A quarantine declaration reminds me later that I was one of the people who didn’t let SARS stop them from visiting China.
I buy a newspaper wherever I go but seldom read it when I get home. Why do I insist on loading my suitcase with the opinions of foreign government officials? Why do I think that insight into local real estate and the price of lettuce will give flavor to my writing? I really don’t know. But someday there might be a need for it.
Though I usually write in the evening, I take the journal with me to coffee shops. Sometimes I meet other travelers or curious locals. We talk. Exchange stories. The stranger shows me a picture of his family. I open my journal and point to a photo of my daughter or son. I glued snapshots into the back for just that reason. Something else is usually tucked away in the back – a copy of my passport and driver’s license. I haven’t quite figured out yet why I do that. Possibly a slight neurosis. There are two scenarios in which this overkill might come in handy though. One, I lose my purse or get robbed and need proof of identity. Two, I get abducted and murdered and the only evidence of my existence would be the journal. Both assume that I left it in the hotel room.
As for the kinds of things I actually write about – it all depends. Some days I barely manage to name the places I have visited. On other occasions I pour my heart out over the sighting of the morning sun. I invent stories too, capture dreams, exploit chance meetings. In China I spent much time copying strange and sloppy translations and threatening dos and don’ts. One of the don’ts was the reason for copying since I would have been charged a hefty price for removing anything from the room including signs with strange and sloppy translations. The “Green Initiative” folder for instance that praised: “The economy is a virtue.” And the booklet that called upon me to visit all the beautiful bars in the Zhejiang Intercontinental Hotel. Take “Club Egypt” for instance, of which it bragged: “The whole decoration is possessed with the ancient Egyptical feature.”
On the inside of the back cover of most travel journals I attach a pouch to hold “undecideds” and things that can’t be glued permanently like receipts for credit card purchases and two-sided brochures. The pouch usually gets overstuffed and explodes. Some day I will come up with a better idea than cardboard and tape
.
******
The last third of my travels, the reviewing part, pulls everything together. Soon after I get home I line up the books I have purchased, the binder with the information from the internet, my journal, the photographs – there might be hundreds of them – and the photo box in which I store parts of newspapers and magazines and other oversized documents. Images catch my eye as I pass the line-up of material on the kitchen table. Sentences follow me around. Stories begin to simmer.
In a Gotham online course on the basics of travel writing I learned about the narrative art and structure of travel pieces. Not only are practical information and a sense of place necessary; I have to include people, dialogue, episodes, and opinions. The lead is very important; according to John Gottberg who writes for Frommer’s and Lonely Planet. He insists on “alluring, alarming, mysterious, or action-oriented.” The body, he says, has to have focus and the ending should capture the essence of this focus.
I seldom write chronological trip reports, instead I work around an incident or thought or person. In Marrakech I was thrilled by the presence of storks. My childhood memories of them nesting on the church steeple became the focus of a story. Jamaica stands out because of Bob Marley. The bus ride to his birthplace Nine Mile made an interesting piece. China intrigued me with its hunger for capitalism. My writing centered on Lucy the travel guide and her references to the changing cityscape.
A month after my last trip to Germany I tested my memory by trying to recollect the events of one single day. I failed. As soon as I opened my journal and saw the receipt from the coffee shop, the bill from the University bookstore, and the church music sheet, I pieced together the rest of the afternoon. Then I read about the day I spent looking for my parents’ graveside. A story yet untold.
With my first cruise coming up in April, I am well into the binder phase. Tomorrow will also be my first face-to-face experience with a travel agent. I will be able to consult printouts of all twelve decks of the “Monarch of the Sea,” and I will confirm my preferred excursions in San Diego, Catalina Island and Ensenada. I am ready for a preliminary glue stick session.
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