Travel Blogging 📒

Why are you still writing about New Zealand? Wasn't that 3 months ago?

— A dear friend of mine, who's reading my travel blog.

The delay

After four months of travel, I've finally finished processing the first one in blog form. As you can tell, there is quite some delay between the now of the Philippines and the then of New Zealand. What's taking so long?

1. First of all, I want to tell the entire story of my trip around the world. It wouldn't feel right, if I left parts out.
2. Second of all, I want to tell the story chronologically. Yes, I'm in a whole other country by now. But how weird would it be if I just skipped to the Philippines without finishing New Zealand and writing about the countries I've visited in between?
3. Third of all, what's the rush? Even if I drag this out to 2025, when my trip will already be over, who cares? I can take my sweet time.

So there's a delay.

The notebook

In order to remind myself of the great adventures I have had so far, I took up writing a diary. By now, I've filled 4 notebooks with my travel logging.

I record my thoughts and feelings, my daily activities and curiosities I discover about all the different cultures I get to know on my trip.

The craft

Travel blogging is a great opportunity to work on my craft and become a better writer.

When I started, my blog posts were more concerned with travel logistics than they are today:

After landing, we start our search for public transport in order to head into the city. We know where we want to go (the Syntagma station), but our desired stop is nowhere to be found on the map. A young airport employee, who emanates competence in the area of public transportation, seems to have noticed our confusion.

— Der Winter ist vorbei / The end of winter, loosely translated to English.

Just reading this gives me a headache. Nobody likes to concern themselves with travel logistics. It's so annoying.

But I was just getting started with travel blogging, so I didn't know any better.

Over time, I elevated my style to better capture the here and now of the moment:

The water is salty and cold. It's early in the morning. "So nice, that Sophia is always up for a swim", I think. There's no one else around on the beach. We are lying in the surf, as the waves come crashing in over our heads. "Why does no one enjoy this as much as we do?", Sophia reckons.

— Kaikōura, loosely translated to English.

You see the difference?

The visual stimulation

I try my best to describe my travels with words. But of course, I want my readers to also see the pleasures this world has to offer in the form of pictures.

Recently though, I've tried to keep them to a minimum for the following reasons:

1. Selecting pictures and reducing file sizes takes extra effort.
2. Writing Alt Text is time-consuming too.
3. I have more respect for a well-written blog post that comes with only one picture opposed to a poorly written blog post that comes with 8 pictures.

Adding pictures is additional work, and I've fallen behind with my blogging as is.

The stories

Writing a travel blog allows me to work on my storytelling skills. When I write on this blog I typically try to do the same. Start with a story or an interesting fact to arouse the reader's curiosity and keep up a certain attention span throughout the post.

But I can go even wilder.

Start a post by writing about the ending first, only to confuse the reader and resolve it at the end of the post?

Now, that's storytelling, baby.

Travel blogging

To me, writing a travel blog is something special.

Of course, I could just concern myself with the daily routine of travelling the world, which would mean writing more about the boring travel logistics and jotting down the events exactly as they have happened in a chronological fashion.

But that's not what I want!

Instead, I want to tell stories. I want to capture individual moments of this epic adventure. I want to share my thoughts and feelings as I learn about new cultures, the wonders of nature and the people who live in this world.

The reason why I'm still writing about my adventures of New Zealand, that took place over 3 months ago, is because I want to do it right.

I want to tell the whole story, from start to finish. I want to grow as a writer. And I want you to understand, that if you ever have the chance to leave everything behind and travel the world then there's really nothing to think about.

Just fucking do it. 🌏