Foreign Policy magazine has a piece on the changing world of travel writing titled: <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/05/travel_writing_ain_t_what_it_used_to_be?page=0,1">Travel Writing Ain't What It Used to Be</a>. The argument is that now that the world is smaller--it's easier to travel and publish that travel writing has changed along with it. Well, of course. The question at hand seems to be do we still need the travel writer?

The old formula seems to be: "I saw, you didn't."

<em>Right?!</em> Isn't that great? That is travel writing at it's most basic.

Why then do I like to read travel writing--books about Bulgaria and the Balkans if I live here? I've been there and seen much of it first hand.

This seems to lead pretty naturally to the question: then, am I a travel writer? <!--more-->

If I am not, what kind of writing am I doing? I live abroad and travel, but my instinct is not to call myself a travel writer. Sure I see things that other people don't but I guess that it's the tone and style that make travel writing more than the location. This makes me suspect that I am in fact not a travel writer--either by current standards or past standards.

Sure, I am writing a personal narrative on the blog but now anyone can. Thus I guess it's no surprise that even first-person narrative is undergoing (or maybe even undergone) changes.  In face, the Foreign Policy article says this:
<blockquote>Long-form travel writing has always been mostly about the writer. It's a first-person account of an expedition into uncharted territories. Authors went off to search for truth and beauty and pleasure, and came back with grand stories about human nature, the weirdness of exile, and the spirit of the place. (They also returned with memorable and useful life skills, like Sir Richard Francis Burton's advice on the best way to learn a foreign language: Lie in the arms of a beautiful married woman and she will teach you all the proper vocabulary to navigate society -- and when her husband discovers you, you will learn all the coarse street language you will ever need.)

But the first-person narrative has changed dramatically over the last 50 years with the rise of the memoir, and outer territories have been abandoned for inner ones. If everyone can hop on a plane to Patagonia, what distinguishes your story from mine? Well, me, of course. So we have shelf after shelf of books of men and women walking across Spain, going to the islands, riding horseback across Mongolia, and coming back with stories about what they learned about themselves.</blockquote>
So, if it's actually true that the only thing which distinguishes travel writing now is the story and the person at the center of it, it seems like travel writing has become pretty narcissistic. Who can do it best, find the wildest story, get the most off the beaten path. Travel writing as competition rather than as enjoyment, exploration and adventure. There's something pretty sad about that.

It's clearly only fitting that the piece ends with this question:
<blockquote>Do we still need the travel writer? In <em>Black Lamb and Grey Falcon</em>, Rebecca West wrote that "sometimes it is necessary for us to know where we are in eternity as well as in time." You get the feeling that most travel writers these days are just passing through, missions and checklists in hand. Travel is about more than sunny beaches, fruit drinks served by the sexually attractive. It's more than being a fuzzy version of Hemingway. It's about how the world works. The ease of the transitory has hidden the necessity of the eternal.</blockquote>
And so the conclusion makes me think that maybe I am a travel writer. I am just much less interested in checking places, things and experiences off a list than many the current travel writer. Yes, I am living here and working here but for better or worse, I am also writing this experience and I guess that makes me a travel writer.