How did we write back then? How did we keep track of our travels? How did we share our experiences?
On another big trip, my grandparents went to Italy. We got postcards from them every other day. New pictures on the fronts, new stamps, new postmarks, new brief mentions of an adventure or a view. We pored over every inch. Examined every component of this communication, feeling, somehow, that we were participating in their exploration.
When Michael and I traveled through Europe in the back seat of my parents' rental car, we wrote in our diaries. We got locked diaries for our very first trip. And kept getting them for each new trip. I particularly remember a Ziggy one. My entries were rather mundane (ref: Kevin) but Michael's were more experiential, more poetic, more artistic. But those diaries were for ourselves (they had locks for crying out loud). The memories were just for ourselves. They weren't to share, really.
How does that differ in a travel blog? The new technology allows for an instant and potentially very wide audience for your travel diary. Does it change your writing voice? When you write to remind yourself of an experience, how does it differ when you write to entertain? I wrote a blog when I lived abroad last year. Its primary purpose, or perhaps its impetus, was to share my adventure with my friends and family back home. I am happy to have a potentially permanent record of my experiences, yes, but am I happy they are out there potentially permanently for all to see for(potentially)ever? If I wrote for a specific audience, an audience that was gathered to share in my journey, what effect does my writing have on future, unrelated audiences? Will it hold up? Will people find it at all of value? Will there be some governing body or judgment bench that decides what survives in cyberspace and what does not? Have we just created a new place for trash? Where do all the abandoned blogs go? Do they actually waste space? Is all the material on the Internet accumulating in some way that will wreak havoc on, or at least compromise, future societies?
What are your thoughts?
10 comments:
I don't ever recall keeping a diary of my travels when I was younger. The closest thing was writing letters or essays (for school) that included details about trips. I've used mostly memory and pictures to "document" my travel.
I never really wrote about my trips either. I even started my own web server with the intent to update it with things like vacation photos but never did. I guess I'm just stuck in the old mentality where it was a chore to sit through other peoples vacation slides, and don't want to cause undue strife to my friends and family...
I am glad to read about your first trip and imagine
that it must have been very memorable. My first trip
on a plane (and I wish I could check this with my aunt
because she now has alzeimers)left an impression on me
because my uncle who worked for PAN AMERICAN AIRLINES
(This is an airline that no longer exists) was allowed
to travel free. Since I was a minor and traveled wiht
my aunt I also, at least so I think, went free. What
strikes me most to this day is how people used to
dress for air travel. They used to wear their very
best and I mean they really got dressed up.
Isabel
Tom, thanks for your consideration. But the beauty of posting your pictures online is that it gives the viewer complete control. So it's worry-free!
Isabel, thanks for figuring out the technology and including your story. You'll see that I also pasted your email into a comment of my own (on the MY FIRST TIME post) so everyone could read your story. I love your observation about the level of dress for passengers at that time.
I remember Grandma and Grandpa's postcards vividly. The stamps, the ruins, etc.
I loved that (no longer in existence) Ziggy diary! I had different colored pens for my poems and such!!
I continued journaling during my college travels until my European 14-country memoir got stolen. I actually rewrote the whole thing from memory a couple of months upon returning!! Unfortunately that one is no longer in existence either. . .
Therefore, I've stayed away from writing, and haven't had the opportunity to blog (which I could see doing during future travels)
But I'll always remember singing showtunes in the car with you, Chris, in Denmark and Germany and Italy and England and Scotland and Sweden and Belgium, etc. (boy were we spoiled!!!!)
I don't write--I just bring a sketchpad. From my two or 3 trips to Europe, even a thirty-second roadside-stop outline of a mountain tells me the feel of the sun, why I was there, what I was feeling, who I was with--same with going home to CT and sketching my sis' dog.
I stated keeping a journal on my first trip to Europe, as a teenager. (I still do.) And, I've always bought postcards as a reminder...
The funny thing is, a few years ago, my younger sister found her journal from that first trip to Europe. She was probably 13 that summer, and seemed to have a miserable time. But, according to her journal, she loved it!
When I first started to travel and tour, I always kept a journal. Not only to keep track of all the things I had seen and new experiences I had gotten thrown into. My Journal from my days in Japan is filled with not only anecdotes but notes on the language, words and pharases I picked up, little drawings at my attempt to acctually write the languages. It's always a trip to look back on those and relive all those adventures. All that stuff was purely for myself with no intention really of ever sharing it with anyone, but now with the invention of myspace you can keep your experiences posted online and let everyone see what you're up too. In this case i find it much easier to write a general blurb of where i am and just post pics. Cuz "a picture is worth a thousand words..." They are so much more fun to look at then scroll through pages of text on a screen.
Anonymous writes: "...now with the invention of myspace you can keep your experiences posted online and let everyone see what you're up too. In this case i find it much easier to write a general blurb of where i am and just post pics."
While earlier, s/he wrote: "My Journal from my days in Japan is filled with not only anecdotes but notes on the language, words and pharases I picked up, little drawings at my attempt to acctually write the languages."
Interesting the progression and the observation of the difference between private and public journaling. Thanks!
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