Want to read something great and not too long about travel? Try travel poetry. Two Go Round-The-World has launched a new column called “Looking Back,” where they include a journal entry from their past travels. Daniel kicked the series off this week with Looking Back: Langkawi (Malaysia) which includes a photo and one of the most lyrical descriptions of a place and time I’ve read in awhile. Lauren Quinn occasionally shares some of her travel poetry on her site, Lonely Girl Travels (for instance, see the poem at the bottom of her post “It Itches! Feeling the Burn of Wanderlust”. And J.B. Conway writes daily haikus about Disney World at his site, MouseofZen.com. It’s been a good 20 years since I wrote poetry, but I can see the appeal of applying it to the travel genre. Do you know anyone else who writes travel poetry? I’m kind of getting into this.
I hate to sound like a complete fangirl of Daniel and Kathryn at Two Go Round-The-World, but they also produced a second one of my imagination-capturing posts this week, their entry to the I Backpack Canada /Gap Adventures competition to create your own adventure. What can I say? They were on a literary roll this week, and as a former English major, I was very receptive to this. Their entry was “Channel Your Inner Hemingway”, which really sent me daydreaming about following in Hemingway’s footsteps around Spain, though I don’t think I’d want to run with the bulls in Pamplona, since being gored isn’t on my bucket list.
A terrific photo essay titled 10 Reasons to Love Brazil by Robin Esrock and Ana Alheiro at MatadorTrips set my mind to daydreaming about Brazil, beautiful, exotic Brazil. Lovely photos, and excellent reasons for traveling there.
I was jazzed to read an article in the New York Times this week called How Vacations Affect Your Happiness. Apparently, some researchers from the Netherlands did a study on the happiness levels of people in relation to their vacation travels. It proves my long-held theory that I get as much enjoyment (perhaps more, depending on the trip) out of the process of planning my travels as I do out of the actual travel itself. It also explains why I am always planning my next trip.
On a more sobering note, Staying Safe While Traveling (by Stephanie at My Melange) offers up a sad story to serve as a reminder that bad things can happen to us, even on vacation. So please be safe out there.
Photo credit: alicejamieson
on Mar 1st, 2010 at 5:45 pm
[...] This post was Twitted by EcoTurismo [...]
on Mar 6th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
You have this amazing knack for collecting stories. Tell me you're penning a novel or something? If not, please start.
on Mar 6th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Oh, you are so sweet, Jeannie! Funny you should say that, I wrote fiction for 20 years (I started when I was 11). I gave up on that a long time ago, though. Trouble with writing long works like novels is you write in a vacuum and start second-guessing your ideas, the quality of your writing, etc. I prefer the immediate feedback you get from the Internet. Good, bad or indifferent, at least you know right away how people feel about what you're writing.
on Mar 7th, 2010 at 10:31 am
[...] a follow-up piece to the article I noted in last week’s Recommended Reads (How Vacations Affect Your Happiness from the New York Times). Here, Christine Garvin elaborates [...]
on Mar 7th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I concur, finding myself in that writer's loop in the past as well. Guess I hope to court both avenues and see where I end up. Hopefully not in a vacuum again! I dunno, you might have an Oprah Book Club moment in you, yet.