Don George on Travel Writing in the Time of Corona
this online travel writing workshop starts next week!
Hi writers,
I’ve been looking at a map all morning, drawing different lines across the country.
Lots of people in the U.S. are preparing to celebrate later today. While others don’t see anything worth celebrating. I stopped eating hot dogs and hamburgers two years ago, and the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor still haven’t been arrested. So I’m going to sit this one out.
Instead of celebrating, and instead of stewing in the various crises facing our country and world right now, I’m focusing on a map.
Someone once told me that the experiences of curiosity and fear are chemically close to each other in our brains. So when we’re feeling afraid, we can turn that into curiosity for the thing we can’t control or don’t understand. (I think sometimes fear is much further away from curiosity, but for certain scenarios, this idea provides me with some comfort.) And maps make me so very curious.
I’m looking at a map because tomorrow, I start driving from Portland, Oregon to the shoreline of Connecticut to visit my family. Admittedly this is not a great time to be traveling. But I’ll be entirely self-sufficient, camping on public land along the way and stopping only for gas. And I’m curious about how the country might look and feel different right now, in the wake of these tumultuous few months. I wonder if the bubble of social distancing, and the reckoning with our country’s violence and inequalities, will provide some new way of seeing this swath of complexity while driving through it.
I think it’s so important for writers to stay curious. We can be frustrated and angry and scared, too—of course. But staying curious keeps us open to more information, to more experiences, to a closer examination of the world that’s worth sharing.
So it seems fitting that today I’m interviewing Don George, who might be the most effectively curious travel writer I’ve ever read. His ability to absorb the details of a place and convey them with thoughtful consideration for the lives and experiences that exist in those places is so inspiring to me. And next week he will be teaching the first of a four-session, online travel writing workshop, which you can still sign up for. Travel Writing in the Time of Corona will be an intimate opportunity to examine past travel experiences and develop the pacing, structure, and delivery of one story, while workshopping between participants.
Regardless of whether you get in on this opportunity to work with Don George (if I wasn’t going to be driving 3,000 miles over the next two weeks, I’d be all over that), Don’s approach to travel writing can provide the inspiration you need to go find your own travel stories—and regard the world with essential curiosity—even if you aren’t going far.
Don George on Wonder and Travel
The pandemic has pressed the global Pause button, and given us a precious opportunity to consider how we want to act going forward, and what kind of world we want to nurture.
Your travel essays always seem to tap into something deeper than going somewhere and doing something. My personal experience with your work is that it guides me to the transformative potential of really paying attention. So I’m curious, what have you been paying more attention to lately, while travel is more difficult and less of a priority?
First of all, thank you for saying that. I think that is one of the themes that threads through my work -- the importance of slowing down and really paying attention. Lately, I've been traveling close to home and paying attention to the riches all around me -- and I have been astonished to find that my metaphorical backyard, the greater Bay Area, and my literal backyard are full of wonder and richness. This staying-at-home experience is reinforcing for me that lesson I always re-learn when I travel: when you slow down and really pay attention, the world reveals infinite marvels to you, wherever you may be.
What inspires you to keep writing these days?
Travel is my religion, and so partly what inspires me to keep writing is simply to keep that religious practice, that way of looking at the world and cherishing the world, alive. Also, writing has always been a way for me to try to make sense of things, and there's a lot in the world right now that I need to try to make sense of. And I've been writing a series of short travel pieces-cum-essays for the blog I edit for GeoEx, the adventure travel company, and part of my inspiration for these has been the desire to keep people's hopes and spirits up in these really demanding and potentially demoralizing times.
Besides the obvious remote nature of your upcoming ZOOM workshop, “Travel Writing in the Time of Corona,” what will be different about how you and participants approach travel writing in this class, compared to workshops you’ve offered before the time of corona?
My inspiration for this workshop was hearing many of my travel writer friends despairing that they're not traveling anymore, and so they're not writing. My goal with the workshop is to help writers find the travel story that is right around them, and then craft a piece about it that is both a record of their travel experience and a reflection on it. My hope is that the nine writers in the workshop will each produce one gem-like piece that captures the unexpected depths and riches of their lives now and puts those depths/riches in some larger context. Participants will conceive the idea for their essay/piece, shape it, and write it during the course of the workshop. We'll read and critique the pieces closely from class to class and help the shaping and evoking process.
Sometimes I worry that my memory just isn’t good enough to go back to past travel experiences and write about them. Which is to say, I should probably take better notes. Do you have any tips for being in the moment but also recording it for later reference? How do you make sure you’ll remember the little details of your travels?
On one of my earliest trips as a professional writer, I had an experience that I thought was so intense I would never forget it, and so I didn't write down any notes about it. About a week later, after a week of immersive experiences, I couldn't for the world recall what that unforgettable experience was. That's when I learned that you always need to take notes, and so I always try to build time into my travel schedule so that I can just sit somewhere -- a cafe, a market, or just my room -- and write what's been happening to me and also what is happening in that moment, in that place, all around me. Later on, when I'm writing about that place and experience, these passages will be portals to the past. At the same time, of course, when you travel, you want to immerse yourself in the experience as deeply as possible, because you can only write about something as deeply as you live it. So that's essential too -- momentarily losing yourself to and finding yourself in an experience. For me, travel is a constant alternation between immersion and reflection. But I do always take notes on the spot or as soon after an experience as I practically can.
There are so many online classes and workshops to explore these days. Tell us why writers should consider this one.
This class will be intensely focused on producing one wonderful piece based on your life right now. We'll talk about different possible subjects for your piece, settle on the one that has the most potential, and then develop it during the course of the workshop. I think the workshop will give participants a new perspective on the staying-at-home experience and on the meaning and uses of travel writing. As I've been finding with my own essays for the GeoEx blog, we can travel-write in our own backyard, literally, and in the immediate world around us.
As one example, I just did something I've been meaning to do for decades: walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. I turned this seemingly simple act into a 1500-word piece that ended up being about the exhilarating experience of doing this crossing -- both the spectacular views and the unexpected lessons it taught me -- and a rumination on the larger meaning of bridges. That's one model for what I hope participants will write.
We’re all aware of the challenges facing the travel media industry right now. But can you point us to anything good that’s happening or might be happening when it comes to the future of travel/travel media?
It is an incredibly challenging time, but I do think a couple of good things are happening: One is that travel media, along with every other facet of our world, are re-examining the entire issue of equality, perspective, and opportunity in travel and travel writing. This is such a complex, multi-layered issue, and there is so much learning, growth, and change that needs to happen. But I think that there is traction here now where there wasn't before, and I think that an incremental momentum-movement has begun. This will make the world a better place.
I also think that travel media are reassessing the role of travel in the world and the role of travel media in the world -- and hopefully, we are all becoming more cognizant of the pitfalls as well as the potentials of travel. I believe 150 percent that travel is a force for good in the world. But it's incumbent for all of us to recognize the need for balance, respect, and some self-sustainability in places and economies that are entirely reliant on tourism income now. The pandemic has pressed the global Pause button, and given us a precious opportunity to consider how we want to act going forward, and what kind of world we want to nurture.
You have spent a great deal of time teaching travel writing. What is something that you have learned from your students?
I learn something precious and inspiring from every class. One big lesson that comes immediately to mind is that everyone has a great story to tell. Another lesson is the abiding and essential importance of passion -- passion and love are the foundations of everything. A third lesson is how what you bring to the world -- wonder, exhilaration, fear, intimidation -- so absolutely influences what you find and experience in that world.
What kind of travel are you looking forward to right now?
That's like taking me into Berthillon in Paris and asking me which flavor of gelato I'm looking forward to eating. I'd like one of each please! Next year I have trips planned to Greece, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan, and I'm super excited about each of them. Not being able to wander the wider world right now is like an ache in my bones and in my soul. So I'm tremendously excited about being in that great classroom of the world again, exploring ancient ruins, encountering contemporary craftsmen, savoring local feasts, and being swept away by serendipity. I think this year of not traveling will make the world seem even more bright and beautiful than before.
That’s all for today friends. Stay curious. Stay critical. Keep writing.
Britany