Three time author and MEM columnist
Graham Field gives us some insights on
putting fingers to keys in the world of
trip blogging.
PEN TO PAPER
B
e it a book, blog, website, journal, status
update or a 140 character tweet, riding off
generally resorts in reporting back from the
road, with varying degrees of detail, coherence
and regularity.
I have met many travellers whose blogs have
got the better of them, as they adopt the
worldly wanderer lifestyle the logging of their
new status becomes the bane of their journey.
Although in jest I’ve heard it said ‘we have to
stop doing so much, the task of reporting it all
is daunting.’ My reply is ‘then don’t’
It’s probably true that once a trip goes past a
three week holiday there is a need to slow the
pace and stay put for a while. To remove the
panniers and take a few ride outs from a place
you can call base camp. There is a comfort in
familiarising yourself with local facilities,
doing a little bike maintenance and equipment
repair, and of course update friends, family
and followers as to your latest exploits.
Stopping is an important part of the journey,
assessing, reflecting, processing and planning
the next bit. The obsessive blogger who craves,
chronological coverage of their story so far
often agonises to a point of frustration. There
hasn’t been the time, the memories are
muddled, place names forgotten. In an effort to
record all that has gone their account becomes
an ‘and then, and then, and then’ torrent of
names and half remembered days. It’s like
being sat next to a raved out reveller on a
plane back from Ibiza who just needs someone
to talk at they come down from their class A
holiday.
There is as little joy in reading such relentless
ramblings as there is in writing them.
Chronicles of cohesion is not necessary for the
sake of a complete account. And I’ve seen this
compulsion of listing previous experiences
occur at the cost of missing what’s happening
right now beyond the laptop. Consider the
hand written letter, the biro on wafer thin light
blue airmail paper, a letter of love from abroad,
expressing the feelings of a single significant
experience . Better to skip to an antidote which
can be recalled and written with a passion than
to list a stream of non events like the literal
equivalent of unedited GoPro footage.
So what you have to decide is, much like a
diary, are you writing for yourself or for
everyone else. Is it to jog your memory, refresh
your recall in years to come, or is it an account
of your mile by mile view of the world as you
pass through it, so all who come across it can
experience it through your eyes.
There is only one blog I read, my little escapism
into someone else’s journey, which is not like
anything I have ever done. Also the qualities of
the person in question are ones I wish I had. So
for me it’s not just learning about the
environment she’s transversing it’s also about
her open and receptive attitude which always
attracts good people. That in turn for me
reminds and restores my faith in a world that, if
we got our impression solely from the media
we would never dare venture out into.