There are no signs in Mexico, at least none that aren’t out of date or unintentionally funny. My personal favorite was the sign on Chacala beach that said no mascots were allowed. (Mascota is the word for pet in Spanish.)

Photo: Wonderlane

It isn’t easy for someone like me to get accustomed to a place where you can’t find the information you need in writing. I’ve been known to read software manuals cover to cover. When I want to know something, I go on the internet or buy a book. I expect pamphlets, signs, and lots of fine print.

It isn’t like that in Mexico. Lupe, the woman who took care of Casa de Tortuga, explained to me, “él que tiene boca, llega a Roma.” Literally, it means he who has a mouth arrives in Rome. In other words, you gotta ask somebody.

Arriving at the Puerto Vallarta airport, dozens of cabbies descended on us asking where we wanted to go. There were no posted signs, no zone maps, no printed list of cab regulations handed out to tourists. Just, you gotta ask somebody.

Photo: Susi Watson

I even caved and took a tour, mostly because I didn’t want to have to drive to Tequila, Mexico (for obvious reasons). Instead of having my nose in a guidebook for the day, I met some really cool people.

The tour guide and I talked about everything from Orozco murals to how I was going to be the first gringa strawberry picker in Irapuato, Mexico. It was a blast. Contrast that with “tours” in U.S. museums these days. Each of us walks around with our own personal headphones. We move together, but we have no human interaction at all.

I began to realize how much our entire lives are designed to avoid talking to people. Our tours are recorded. Our phones are answered by machines. Our political discussions happen through computers. And I wonder why I’m socially retarded.

Photo: Ricky

By the time I got to Mexico City, I was a new woman. I was talking to everyone. I knew how much cab drivers paid for their gas. I knew how many times the bus driver had tried to get a visa to visit family in the U.S. I knew how much it cost him each time he was refused. I knew so much and none of it required reading.

My hotel in Mexico City was run by American Friends Service Committee volunteers. Most of them were from the United States.

One afternoon I asked the girl at the front desk how to get somewhere.

Without looking up from what she was doing, she pointed at the bookshelf across the room and said, “I usually look it up in one of those guidebooks.”

Photo: Vincepal

We wandered into Rad Brothers. The bar was dimly-lit and packed with inebriated foreign men and Japanese women. This was during the Sapporo Snow Festival. Everyone looked as though they’d just finished a massive snowball fight.

Taka-san ushered us over to seats by the window. Outside were sparkling ice sculptures. I ordered my standard tequila and Coke while Taka drank a Sapporo. All around the room were red-faced foreigners coming off another week of teaching English. Now they attempted to wow Japanese girls looking for an “international liaison.”

Like so many who choose to spend a year in Japan teaching English, I had fallen into the “gaijin circles,” expats who cling to other English speakers, spending most of the time joking about funny Engrish signs, the lack of good Mexican food, samurai, geisha, sushi, and Karate Kid all wrapped into one. I wasn’t a traveler, but an American living in Japan.

I’d landed in Osaka nine months earlier. Now I decided to end my Hokkaido trip with an evening stroll amongst the ice sculptures in the entertainment district, possibly to sing a few songs in one of the ice karaoke booths. Then I got the light tap on the shoulder and “Hey! Hey! Hey!”

Any other time an encounter like this had happened I was somewhat skeptical; it was usually a random Japanese emerging from a bar who felt like practicing his high school English.

That wasn’t the case this time. A middle-aged man met my gaze, along with a teenage kid who averted his eyes, looking from sculpture to sculpture.

Photo: Alfonso Jiménez

Taka-san, as he liked to be called, was very friendly and easygoing, willing to speak Japanese to me in simple words so I could understand and respond confidently.

His son was a little shy, or maybe he just felt nervous about speaking English and being around a stranger for the evening.

When we were all a little warmer from the alcohol, I reviewed the days of the week in English and Japanese with Taka’s son, and I learned a new cultural expression:

“You want to understand Japan?” Taka said, suddenly turning his head away from the path and looking at me with frosted eyebrows:

“Majime. Remember, majime.”

I couldn’t understand the Japanese, and he didn’t have the right English words, but I later found out majime means sincerity, or seriousness. Respecting someone with a bow shows majime. An apology shows majime. The cultural aspects I was describing to him about why I chose Japan (e.g. the kindess of the Japanese people) show majime.

But his next sentence still threw me: “You stay at my house tonight.”

I was still disoriented; we had only been talking for an hour, and this man invited me into his home? With his family? I had not yet been a guest in a Japanese house, but I knew I couldn’t accept his offer: I didn’t want to inconvenience him, and I knew I’d have to leave there pretty early in the morning anyway – I was flying out the next day.

Luckily he didn’t seem too offended, and understood that I already had a hotel room for the night. He gave me his business card – common to exchange when you meet someone – and took his son home in a taxi, encouraging me to contact him if I was ever in Sapporo again.

I talked to a random Japanese person for an hour, and he invited me to enter his home, his life.

It seemed unremarkable at the time, but now, I attribute this moment to losing my travel virginity. A sudden awareness of a different way of life. My mind opened in a new way: if a person in Japan could be so kind for such a simple thing, how would those in other cultures behave?

It started small: researching off-the-beaten-path places near my home base, which took me to Shikoku, small islands in Hiroshima Bay, and quaint towns in Kyushu. When I found a different job available in beautiful Kagoshima, I accepted without hesitation.

Where my mind had previously been occupied with finding employment back in the US once my contract with the English school expired, now there was a hunger to know. To know why the Japanese did things this way or that. To consider why Americans act the way they do. To think… am I an American for these reasons? Have I “turned Japanese”? And if I’m not an American… if I’m not Japanese enough…then where do I belong?

It took me some time to find out. Couchsurfing was already in my vocabulary by the time I made the decision to Amami Oshima, one of the larger southern islands of Japan. Matador was my first destination online before I chose to leave Japan. Taking a two-day ferry, I journeyed to Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong before arriving in Thai Mueang, Thailand.

Unlike in Japan, where I usually stayed in capsule hotels for practicality, I grew into the habit of searching for decent Couchsurfing hosts; instead of buying an air conditioned bus ticket far in advance, I started hitchhiking when I couldn’t even speak Thai.

But most importantly, I came to realize it didn’t matter how I got there, what I did along the way, even what I saw when I arrived: it’s all about perspective, and my mind was open in a way it had never been before.

Community Connection

Can you pinpoint a certain moment in time where you felt like you became a traveler for the first time? Let us know in the comments, or check out our submissions call for stories of losing your travel virginity.

photo; Tony Lanciabeta

Frame the most dynamic areas of action and often the story tells itself.

For instance, when filming a busy market, an inexperienced person might swing his camera from stall to stall like a pendulum. But what if you set up your camera to capture the two old men drinking tea, or the exchange between the tourist and the tired looking vendor?

The key is to think like a director. Capture as many angles as possible so your have lots of choices. But a steady, single take of the scene is the most crucial. Try to;

• Find the most interesting action and angle available.
• If your subjects are moving, choose a position that will allow them elbow room.
• Frame the shot to capture the fullest movement.
• Always allow the subjects to leave the frame if possible.
• Once you begin recording, hold your shots for 10-15 seconds, because you never know what will unfold in front of your lens.

Here is a video I shot of mountain bikers in Seattle. Notice how it frames the action, anticipates the riders’ movement and showcases static and dynamic shots.

Community Connection

Stay tuned for more Tips for Travel Video from Josh Johnson in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, check out 4 Easy Tips for Better Travel Videos.

“technically the ninth of january when we arrived in lima, though it felt like a long night of the eighth; after one in the morning when we got through customs at last. nelson was there at the airport with a driver, and we were whisked off into the streets of lima. through the quiet and dark streets of callao toward the neon casinos and thoroughfares of lima. past the golf course and hotel with dolphins to the doors of the parroquia santa maria reina on the óvalo gutierrez in san isidro/miraflores. up the elevator with uncle nelson and then straight to bed, so happy to be there at last.”

Editor’s note: if you’re interested in submitting your Journal Page, please check our submission guidelines.

Editor’s note: if you’re interested in submitting your Journal Page, please check the submission guidelines here.

Photo: Gabriel Delgado

Every second, people are searching the internet for information and answers to their questions. Therefore the primary way to get ongoing traffic for your blog is to appear on the first page of search engines.

So how do you get on the first page of search results?

One word: links.

As more and more other websites link to your website, you move up the search results. Web rankings are like high school. The most popular people in high school always had a lot of friends. The top websites on the web have a lot of links pointing to them.

Search engines determine how to rank people by the number and quality of the links that point to you. You can use the metaphor of academic papers. If everyone is citing “Mary’s Book on History” in their reference section, Mary’s Books must be the authoritative source on history.

If only 99% of people cite John’s Book on History, it must be the 2nd most authoritative source, and so forth down the line. This is the guiding principle behind search engine rankings.

How to find links for your blog step 1: Direct outreach to other sites

In the travel world, it’s quite easy to find links to your blog or website. Travelers are friendly. We like talking to other people and meeting new people. We love reading about other people’s travel stories as well as sharing our own. So we are always willing to help other people and spread the love. Just ask most travel website owners and you’ll get a positive response.

Correct usage of keywords in links

When you get a link, you want the anchor text (the words of the link) to be the words you want to come up for in search results. In SEO terms, this is called a keyword.

If your website is about New Zealand or Backpacking, you want those words to be in the link text. The more of those links you get with those words, the more you move up in the search engines.

There is also an added bonus to this. Not only will you get links to help you in search engines but you will also build a relationship with other travel owners and gain new readers as well as finding new websites to read. The more people who read the more links you build! It’s a like a giant snowball but one you need to give a big push to in the beginning.

Monetization

Once you have regular traffic you can begin to think about monetization. The easiest way to do that is to get traffic from search engines to click on ads. The people out there are looking for something and if clicking on an ad gets them what they want, they will do it.

Community Connection

For more information, please check out Matt Kepnes’s complete ebook on Monetization and SEO.

And if you’re just getting started and want to know how to set up a travel blog, Craig Martin gives you a complete step by step guide.

A.T. in Pennsylvania. Photo: Nicholas T

We stop for a water break under a leafless white oak. Up the ridge, Blue Mountain juts through the darkening sky. Somewhere up there is Darlington Shelter, our home for tonight.

“What do you think bro?” I ask.

“’Bout what?”

“Tomorrow.”

“How far is it, like 18 to Boiling Springs?”

“Something like that.”

“You think we’re gonna get hit?” Corey screws the lid back onto his water bottle.

I look up at the roiling gray clouds. “You really gonna ask that?”

Two friends are planning to meet us tomorrow in Boiling Springs, a full-day’s walk away, and we’re faced with a winter storm warning beginning at midnight. A month ago I wouldn’t have worried about the weather, but since entering Pennsylvania we keep getting hit by storms. If we get dumped on it could make an epic day out of those 18 miles.

I put my Nalgene back onto my hip belt. My hands are stinging in the cold. “Why don’t we just wake up at midnight, check the weather?” I say. “If it’s snowing we can just start night-hiking.”

The trail ratchets up Blue Mountain in steep switchbacks. As we climb, I can feel the sweat on my back, under my cap. Out here you’re always either too hot or too cold. I pull off my cap.

Darlington shelter is like a chicken house, 8 X 12 ft, with patches of plywood covering where porcupines have chewed up the sweat-soaked floor. We eat our current favorite dinner–chicken broth with dehydrated vegetables and egg noodles–a meal that doesn’t require any pot scrubbing.

Afterwards we begin the nightly preparations: filling the pots with water, leaving the boots with the tongues stretched out. We sleep maybe four hours when snow sifts into the shelter.

“Should we tarp it off?” Corey’s voice seems to come from underwater. There’s a sloughing sound on the roof, and I wonder how much snow is accumulating. I do a quick mental calculation: the amount of snow drifting into the shelter vs. the effort of getting out of my warm bag and stringing up a tarp.

“I don’t know bro,” I say. I light up my watch. Only a couple hours until we’d planned to hike. “It’s not too bad now.”

Corey shines his headlamp into the night. A gentle yet steady stream of snow falls through the beam. “Ok,” he says. We both slide our Therm-A-Rests to the back of the shelter, then burrow deeper into our bags.

Photo: Paulo Brandão

Winter on the trail has this way of reducing life into three options. You’re either working, (i.e. hiking or gathering firewood), sitting by a fire, or in your bag. Anything else and you start freezing.

Since the daylight hours are short, you end up spending a lot of bag-time, which gives way to strange thoughts and images. You imagine all the other living things hidden away where you can’t see them: mayfly larvae under frozen rocks. Black bears denned up in the crags.

I wake to the beeping alarm. Right away I see the snow has stopped. Dark clouds race past the moon, but strangely, the air at ground level is calm. Each time another cloud passes, moonlight flashes through the woods.

“Should we just go for it anyway?” Corey says.

“Hell, why not? I’m super-awake now.”

“Me too.”

We light our stoves and pull down the food-bags.

“You get hit?” I ask. (This is our standard good-morning greeting, referring to the state of our food bags. The mice are fearless along the A.T.)

“No, looking good. You?”

“Good to go.”

We each dump several packets of oatmeal into the hissing pots. Then we dress and eat breakfast while still in our sleeping bags. This is our daily ritual, getting ready for the cold rush of packing, then throwing on the frozen boots.

We creep 50 yards through the snow with our headlamps on, then switch them off. The moonlit snow makes for super good visibility. We hike for the next several hours in total silence.

The night air becomes darker and denser as we drop into the Cumberland Valley. The land is flat and sectioned off in wide fields. All of it blends into the same damp color, as if we’re walking into a cloud. Across the fields are a few farmhouses and barns with streetlamps glowing above various tractors and farm machinery.

Pennsylvania. Photo: Nicholas T

It feels like dawn is almost upon us, the sun somewhere just below the horizon. I ask Corey, “What color would you say the sky was?”—the first words in several hours, or days, it seems.

“Beats me.”

Our words seem to break something, and then we’re back into silence again.

Two hundred yards across the field is a dark stand of timber. It’s blurry, but we both see a form, almost a shadow. We stop instantly, but it’s not fast enough: the form freezes with its head cocked towards us.

Its color and size are hard to distinguish, but the way it had moved is unmistakably feline, and for some reason, female. Some kind of unspoken communication passes between Corey and I, and we slide off our packs, then begin stalking towards her. She watches us take three slow steps before vanishing into the trees.

For the next half an hour we track her prints through the snow. From the shape of the tracks–the four smooth toes and the fat heel pad–we decide she’s a bobcat. Grinning to each other, we follow her path over logs, around patches of dogbane, then stop at a final launching pad where she had crouched, then jumped over a barbed-wire fence and disappeared.

“She’s up in some tree watching us,” Corey says.

I stare at the forest on the other side of the fence and into the fields beyond.

“Yeah,” I say. “You can feel it.”

We stand there for another minute or two, not saying anything. A light snow begins to fall. Then we go back for the packs.

Community Connection

For those interested in learning more about the Appalachian Trail, please check out this article on the 100 Mile Wilderness.

Have you had any good night hikes? Share it with us in the comments below.

Notebook of Jenny Williams. Feature photo by: Elleinad

Recently we’ve been publishing more narrative pieces, especially in our series Notes From the Road. The original idea with that series was to publish short, raw pieces, writing pulled directly from one’s travel journal. A good example was the piece “I had fully crossed the line,” originally sent as an email, the kind you have to just sit down and write before the feelings go away.

We’ve decided to extend this series to the next logical place: literally pulling out excerpt from people’s journals and sketchbooks. We’re now accepting submissions of photo scans of:

• journal entries (text only)
• sketches
• mixed sketches and notes
• anything else directly from your journal that seems relevant to travel + place

Submission process

Please send your work directly to david[at]matadornetwork[dot]com with the photo sent as a .jpg attachment. Please make sure your photo is at least 1000 pixels wide. Bios and cover letters are not necessary. Please put “journal pages” in the subject line, plus the title.

Response times are generally within a week. If you do not hear back from us within a week it means that your piece did not fit our specific editorial vision. Please do not take this as a judgment of your skills or talent, but simply a question of the type of pieces we’re trying to publish.

Payment is the same as a regular matador network article. $25 via paypal.

Final note: works previously published on the internet or print are not accepted, however if you’d like to rework something you’ve already published at your matador blog, that’s fine.

We look forward to reading your submissions. Suerte,

While it might not mean the difference between acceptance and rejection, using these tricky words correctly will make you sound more professional, more credible, and endear you to your editors.

Photo: Dotbenjamin Feature Photo: Nics Events

Affect and Effect

Rule of thumb: in most cases, “affect” is the verb (meaning “to influence”) and “effect” is the noun (meaning “a result”). This gets complicated, since “affecting” something usually results in some kind of “effect.”

Edward S. Casey says, “Where you are right now is not a matter of indifference but affects the kind of person you are.” Or to paraphrase: the kind of person you are is an effect of your travels.

To complicate things further, affect and effect both have other meanings (and either one can be a verb or a noun), but if you stick to the general rule of affect/verb, effect/noun, you’ll usually be right. And when in doubt, look it up!

Lay and Lie

Photo: Thompski

This pair is triply tricky: they have similar meanings, “lay” is the past tense of “lie” (as well as its own verb) and Bob Dylan is working against you—if a copyeditor had got hold of an early draft of “Lay, Lady, Lay,” it’d be “Lie, Lady, Lie” (and for that matter, Joan Didion isn’t doing you any good, either, with her novel Play it As It Lays).

But you can get it right (at least until you become another Dylan or Didion, and then you can do whatever you want).

Remember that “lay” (past tense “laid”, past participle “laid”) always takes an object: I wipe a tear away and lay a flower on his grave. She finished the article and laid her head on the desk.

“Lie” (past tense “lay”, past participle “lain”) never takes an object: His dictionary just lies on his desk; he never uses it. I was sleepy, so I lay down.

Then and Than
I hear from Matador Super-Editor Julie Schwietert that there’s been a rash of then/than mix-ups in recent submissions. But this one’s easy.

Then refers to time: I had one more beer and then I left. He shows up now and then.

Than is for comparisons: Her Mandarin is much better than mine. Our arrival generated more excitement than it actually merited.

Its and It’s

Okay, folks, if you don’t have this one down by now, it’s (not its) about time.

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is”—hence the apostrophe. “Its” is a possessive, like “his” and “hers”—no apostrophe. No excuses!

As boring as getting these details down might be—and as unimportant as they seem when you have an incredible story to tell—the less work you make for your editor, the more likely your work is to be accepted over and over. And that many more people will be able to read your incredible stories.

Community Connection

Which words do you hate to see misused? Which ones do you struggle to use correctly? Let us know in the comments.

Now that you’ve got it’s and its down, it’s time to start querying. Check out Matador Editor David Miller’s tip for writing an attention-getting query.

Feature photo courtesy of Hope Clark. Photo above by Seth W.

Hope Clark had a job as an administrative director for a federal agency, handling grants and loans.By night, she wrote book reviews for a website, starting in 1997, when the internet was still relatively young.

She didn’t know it then, but Clark was beginning a career path that would see her become a freelancing guru for thousands of writers around the country.

Her online book reviews gained a following of readers, who began complaining to Hope about the costs of computer-related items like internet connections, printers, and ink that they encountered as they pursued freelance opportunities. Based on her experience at her day job, Clark offered the kind of money-making advice that came most natural to her – she gave them tips on how to find more opportunities as writers for hire.

Photo courtesy of Hope Clark.

The readers started emailing her at home, and word started getting around within circles of friends. Clark wanted to write a book, not type out dozens of emails, so she put together a weekly newsletter.

The idea continued to catch fire–the newsletter grew to 1000 readers within a few months–and Clark found herself with a unique problem on her hands.

“Actually, I kept trying not to do the newsletter because of my desire to write a novel,” says Clark now, looking back on the origins of a newsletter that now reaches 21,000 readers a week. “But I kept getting drawn to the newsletter and the continuing emails for assistance.”

The newsletter became known as Funds For Writers, and was officially born in March of 2000, nine years ago, becoming the first real resource on the web for writers looking to make a living on their talent.

The original newsletter is free, and the service has grown to include a newsletter for lower-paying gigs, a beefed-up version that costs only $12 a year, and even a newsletter for kids that includes outlets where they can submit their work, which is heavily used by teachers in schools across the country.

Clark retired from her federal job in 2003, and has devoted herself full-time as a writer and the force behind a service that has started countless readers down their individual journeys as writers. Her list of success stories is as long as one of her newsletters.

“One young lady attended a year long fellowship in Germany. One won a grant with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Some have found publishers. One established a series of children’s books. But the ones I enjoy are those who published the first time or won their first award,” Clark says.

Clark says that she is motivated the most by thanks from her readers, and even though the service has grown larger than she had ever anticipated, she works hard to maintain the intimate feel that was present when she was answering emails one at a time.

Photo by wetwebwork.

“Anytime I think that I’d like to move on to other things, I receive a flurry of thanks from several readers who elaborate on how I’ve made a difference in their lives,” she says.

“A lot of people and entities have a web site and slap up information on it, with little care for the reader. Since I appreciate the personal touch by any business I deal with, I feel it necessary to be helpful to my readers. Too many businesses are way too cold.”

Though some talking heads have called our current economy a “gig-based” one, Clark isn’t necessarily buying the new designation.

“Writing is gig based. All I see in this new economy is more people testing their hand at being a freelance writer,” she says.

The waves of recent layoffs and general unemployment could be leading to the swelled ranks of freelance writers, but Clark knows how tough it can be out there, and it’s only getting tougher.

“Those stepping into the arena now, since they’ve lost some other line of work, are entering a highly competitive marketplace,” says Clark. “Many magazines are going under and hiring fewer gigs. As a result, compensation to writers is decreasing. Once upon a time a writer could stumble along for a while, learning the trade as they became established. That’s harder than ever before now.”

Clark offered some tips for writers trying to keep their heads above water while doing what they love:

• Spend as much time studying the business and the markets as you do writing.
• Make writing as habitual as brushing your teeth. Sporadic writing yields sporadic results.
• Look for criticism. Join a critique group and participate with vigor.
• Prepare a professional-looking web site and/or blog and keep it updated.
• Join professional writing organizations. They provide contacts and current information on your field.
• Don’t write safe. Dare to struggle and test yourself with deeper characters, different genres, harder markets. You don’t grow until you’re challenged.
• Keep “13” in play. Hope keeps 13 queries/submissions outstanding at all times. When a rejection or acceptance comes in, she stops what she’s doing and submits more to maintain the 13. Any number will do, just stick to it.

Community Connection

For more on Hope Clark, please visit her website, Funds for Writers.

Photo by the author

It had to be 30 degrees. Fog everywhere. A runner passed by on the sidewalk next to me. Lying there wearing all the clothes I had with me; a couple t-shirts, a waffle neck, a button-down collared shirt, and a hoodie, I looked ridiculous.

I was freezing. I was full out shaking. Trying to get my composure as I stood and I looked up, there it was: The Eiffel Tower.

I don’t think it had hit me yet. I was in Paris. Sleeping. Outside. In front of the Eiffel Tower. Who does that?

We were studying Spanish in Salamanca, Spain and had a free weekend. My buddy Landon had found 60€ tickets to Paris and convinced me to go for the weekend. Why not?

At this point in my 21 years of life experience, I had traveled a bit, but there had always been a specific reason (build a house, take Spanish classes, go the beach). I had never just traveled for the sake of traveling. There was always a plan, a purpose, a mission. Something about that morning changed that.

Too cheap for a hotel or even a hostel, we slept in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. We didn’t have a cell phone, a guide book, or a map and neither of us knew anything in French beyond “bonjour.”

We’d wake up early, try to warm up by walk the Seine until a shop opened up where we could sit down and warm up with a cup of coffee. We spent the next few days simply walking around the city. Taking it all in. There was no schedule. No obligations. No worries.

We ate when we were hungry. We slept when we were tired. We’d go visit the Louvre if we were bored. We saw the sights and sounds of Paris in a unique way. In our way.

There was this new world. It was open. It was vague. It was liberating.

As we packed up our things that morning and placed them in our backpacks, I knew something would never be the same. As the fog began to disperse and the sun came out, I knew there was more. I knew this was just the beginning.

Community Connection

This piece is the latest in our new series Losing Your Travel Virginity. Please see our original submissions call at Matador if you’re interested in submitting your story.

For those wanting to follow in Joel’s footsteps, here’s a guide on How to Move to Paris with No Money.

Photos by Tom Gates.

Gare Austerlitz

Paris Austerlitz Station at dawn. A security guy roams the building on a Segway, thus stripping himself of any authority.

The coffee shop contains one employee breaking open bags of filters, her face giving away the disbelief that she’s pulled this crappy shift. Two late-teen looking girls clutch their bags with a remember-what-dad-said look. The board is lit up with departures but no gate numbers. The hall is train-less.

This is the best time to travel. Back at home, I have a terrifically difficult time pulling myself out of bed before ten. Out here I book morning trains and force myself out of bed. The jump from the top bunk always marks the moment that I am asleep (up there) and the moment I am awake (when my gross motor skills jar to life, in an attempt to save my life as my feet hit the cold floor.)

A conductor is whistling, destroying the quiet vibe of the big, hollow room. The clock strikes six. I yawn and everyone follows suit. The whole thing is more of a mingle than it is a morning rush. I count ten people eating croissants. I am definitely in France.

Paris To Cahors

I board the train, pushing the button that opens the doors with a wheeze. I will push through Chateauroux, Limoges and Brive, at which point I will switch to a second train. Five hours, door to door.

You could not have paid me to fly. I’m a Theroux-ist, falling for these big beasts that rock and sway and creak and arrive where you want to go, not thirty miles away at a deceivingly-named airport. Every promise about plane travel has become a lie, with the exception of the time you make up in the air. The day that I pay extra in an exit row is the day that I invent a time machine and be done with it.

The Eurail Pass made things simple for me. I had imagined agents rolling their eyes at my mangled French and instead got a lightning-fast transaction, my booking complete in seconds. The train was rather gorgeous and “stoked me out”, as my friend Brian likes to say. I fell back into my chair and basked in a tray table that was big enough to simultaneously hold my coffee and laptop, which is all that I want out of life.

We rode through misty fields. Little houses with chimneys and men who looked like Girard Depardieu. Enough goldenrod to make anyone reach for a Zyrtec. Castles that looked too fake to be real. I fell asleep and dreamed about being at the bottom of a well.

Toulouse To Girona

Another station. Rap plays through the speaker of a teenager’s phone. It sounds tinny and I lament the death of fidelity. The artist raps in French and mimics American hip-hop, sounding just as big a clown as ours do. He wants money. He want cars. He wants fame. He demands it. What a goddamned bore.

At the counter. I hand her my Eurail pass and try my French. She laughs and makes my booking in English, trying to teach me how to say things in French at the same time.

She shows me how to talk with phlegm in my syllables. She is more than a booking agent. She is my savior. I will never see her again.

I get on the train and listen to Husker Du really loud and consider losing ten pounds. Then order a croissant from the trolley.

Girona to Parpignon

Another early morning. A flap of skin hangs from the top of my mouth. Nobody told me that tapas could be hot, too.

I’m on board the SCNF, which is wonderful and punctual. I sit across from an elderly couple. The man yells as he talks and the woman hushes him after every fourth word. I don’t need to speak French to know that they’ve been together for years and years. She smiles as she shushes, looking at her man in a way that suggests the kind of toleration that comes with adoration.

The train is magnificent, a real sleek beauty that doesn’t befit my CBGB’s t-shirt. Ruby carpets and black, pinstriped seats. It pulls out exactly on time, rolling past the graffiti that accompanies just about any stretch with concrete walls. Much like the French rappers, any retard with spray paint seems to tag nowadays. I strain to see some genuine art and come up short. Just lots of names and initials and wasted paint.

Parpignon to Montpelier

How did people survive travel before the advent of the walkman/discman/iPod? They are next to me, talking nonstop. Three American girls.

“Like. Like. They like. Ugh. Seriously.” The poor dear can’t even get three words out. “Like, I know Greg. I mean, I KNOW him, you know? Seriously.” I catch the rhythms of their inflection, a sing-songy bastardization of English.

“I am sitting in traffic” (up) “and there is this guy behind me” (up) “ and he is like freaking me out.” (down) “Like, have you ever just been creeped out by someone for like, no reason?” (up) “Seriously” (down).

I have the backwards seat, the solo one that pits my knees against the opposing traveler’s shins. They are two sleepy girls with airline sleepmasks. I can only hope that their eyes are closed by behind the masks, because their mouths are puppy-like and drooling. Their bags lay unattended, passports out in the open. Somewhere, their mothers are worrying, and not needlessly. Their daughters are idiots.

The train is a Talgo. It smells like the sawdust and ammonia that is used to clean the Tilt-a-Whirl after somebody spews a funnel cake.

The girls across the way don’t stop talking for three hours. They’re from a reality show generation. More talking means more screen time. “Dave Matthews. I like, can’t even put him into words.” The earphones are in her ears, the music playing as she talks.

I am certain that they are what keeps me from returning to America. I tell myself that it wasn’t the sinkhole that had become my life. It was these girls. It was their fault.

Community Connection

Need more info about the Eurail? Here are Craig Martin’s Top 10 Tips for Eurail Passes.

Walk. Photo by: Robert S. Donovan

We were waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Green Lake Drive and Wallingford. There were no cars, no traffic in either direction, but we still waited. It seemed dumb. I would’ve gone but I was with Lau and Layla.

There was a kid, maybe 25, standing next to us too. He wore paint-splattered Carharts and a t-shirt. He had one of those triangular-shaped pizza boxes that holds a single slice. I wondered why he didn’t go.

The kid didn’t seem to notice that Layla was asleep–or almost asleep–in Lau’s baby sling. When he started talking I could feel my face twisting into a look that was like ‘come on dude, can’t you see we’re trying to walk this baby to sleep.’

“This intersection is usually pretty safe,” he said. He said it loudly and in this tone that seemed to assume we weren’t locals, which seemed strange. Then he said, “But it’s good to be cautious. It’s a Saturday night, you never know.”

“Yeah man, you’re right,” I said.

The light changed and we crossed, leaving him as we turned up the hill. “Why did you answer him like that?” Lau said.

“I dunno. Was I being rude? Couldn’t he see that we were trying to walk Layla to sleep.”

“You don’t think like that until you’re a parent,” Lau said. “Besides, he was probably alone and just wanted to talk to somebody. Didn’t you see that little pizza box? He was going back home to eat by himself.”

Becoming a Better Observer

The lesson here is that while I just quickly ’scanned’ this kid, talked to him for a second, and then walked on, Lau had, in the same amount of time, picked up on certain details and was able to make observations and connections. Which brings me to the point: if you only see people on the surface, chances are that what you write about people will be superficial as well.

For writers then, learning to observe more closely–let’s call it active observation–means everything.

Active Observation

What we hear by accident often has more credibility than what is said to us directly.
–Ann Beattie

Active observation is trying to see the connections between what’s visible in someone (their expressions, clothes, what they’re doing) and invisible (their histories, upbringing, dreams, desires). This is key, because within the gap between what’s visible and invisible is often where the deepest, most credible, and most interesting stories are found.

Exercising Your Observation Skills

My wife Lau is a natural when it comes to listening and observing, but she’s also had training, both as a journalist and in film production. When we talked about this–how to become a better observer–she specifically mentioned 3 exercises.

Excercise # 1: Stories out of Photos

This exercise is more fun to do with a partner or in a group, but you can also do it yourself. Basically just find a photo with at least two people in it. Spend 10 minutes observing every detail in the photo and writing them down. Then spend 15 minutes writing a short paragraph or story on these two people, what they’re doing, what their relationship is.

Once you’ve written the story, an interesting follow-up is to go back sentence by sentence and question why you thought the way you did. This can lead to interesting discoveries about the way you think, or certain prejudices you might have that you weren’t aware of.

Excercise # 2: Analyzing how Relationships are Expressed in Film

Even before people begin talking, how is it that we ‘know’ the relationship between them?

Recently I alluded to studying scenes in film as a tool for narrative essay writing. Because movie scenes utilize specific visual cues to help show relationships between people, you can build observation skills simply by studying the way scenes are put together. The key is to look at them not as you typically would, but actively observing each detail and asking yourself:

• Why did the director choose to include this?
• How does this detail show relationships between the characters?
• What is being left out of the scene, and how does this affect our perception of the characters?

Excercise # 3: Active Observation in Daily Life

Once you’ve practiced with pictures and movies, move to active observation in real life. Bring a notebook with you. Good places to observe can be found anywhere. As you watch how people interact, note every detail you can, especially things that point to deeper stories, such as:

• Is their body language in contrast with what they’re saying?
• Are they listening to one another or just ‘talking over’ each other?
• Do they seem comfortable or uncomfortable in the situation?

Once you’ve taken notes, follow up with a story and then challenge yourself on what you wrote by asking why to each observation, similar to exercise 1.

Finally, it’s important to remember that the people you’re looking at are just that–real people. While you can empathize, you can never truly know what they’re feeling. Remember that when you’re writing. Observations and assumptions are very different things.

Community Connection

How do you observe people and write about them? Let us know in the comments.

These days–since swine flu hit–on a good day, twelve people show up. On a bad day, the guides and ticket takers wait out their shifts without seeing a single tourist. At the nearby artisans’ market, it’s the same story.

Many vendors haven’t even bothered to open their stands lately. Those who do can hope for one or two sales on a good day–for a total of around ten dollars.

This woman and her husband both have clothing stands in the market near the ruins. Other members of their family cut and stitch and embroider the blouses and shirts. The daily earnings from the stands are divided among several people. These days, each person’s cut is enough to keep tortillas on the table, not much else.

Fortunately families here look out for each other, even in hard times. Whoever has a little more spreads it around. But this can’t go on forever.

Mitla’s economy is almost entirely dependent on tourism. Which means that right now, nearly its entire economy is at a standstill.

The few–and mostly national–tourists who do arrive have the ruins to themselves, and get rock bottom prices on clothing and crafts. They are much appreciated.

Everyone here is hoping that by July, for the high season of the Guelaguetza festival, swine flu panic will die down and things will pick up.

Until then, it’s tortillas and beans for dinner.

Feature by ebotunes/ Above Photo by Marcus Crowe

Here’s your guide for eating for free in hostels, one thing we definitely might consider an ethically dubious way to save money on the road.

Schmoozing and Flattering the Staff

The standby technique. Lurking around the kitchen, nonchalantly reading the paper while making salutations to all who enter and complementing the aroma of their food. Sometimes a hungry stare is helpful, but for many charity is abhorrent. They’d rather feed a happy, healthy dog, than a desperate-eyed mangy mongrel.

The Grab and Go

If such groveling passivity is too distasteful (or slow) there are other methods. A box of wine sitting on the fridge top for a couple of days, half full, and an empty box sitting on the table in front of you, is an opportunity to enact the Indiana Jones switcheroo.

And when the proprietress leaves out a bit of yellow rice, a couple of drum sticks, chunks of moist potato . . . if she planned to eat it later then she’d have put it in the refrigerator, right? We’ve got to do our part to prevent waste in this world.

Hydration

When you can‘t afford clean water and the thought of boiling water is not appealing (or worse yet – the staff is threatening to lock up the kitchen), kneel down in front of the refrigerator and have a slam bam sampler of pineapple, orange, and apple juice, while the manager is busy text messaging.

Photo by Tom Gates

Pillage in the Caribbean

Sometimes sampling isn’t enough. And sometimes it’s not just the hunger that make you want to pillage the fridge, but the incessant noise and meatheadedness of frat boys and sorority girls, at certain Party Island type hostels.

Watching the door, while Silenus rampages through the fridge, “Not much here.” A gaggle of girls coming down the stairs. He tries to ram a half loaf down his tight pants. Hurry. He gets it down the front. The girls enter, giggling. They go into the next room. We join them, chat a little.

Silenus makes a sojourn to take the bread out from his bulging crotch. I slide a bottle of hot sauce out of my pocket and into his. I grab a couple of cold beers.

There was a sign, after all, warning, “Food not marked with name and date WILL BE EATEN.” It was our civic duty to enforce the rules.

Photo by Marcus Crowe

The Free Shelf

Some travelers leave prodigious rations behind. You may find a partial bag of pasta, an overripe mango, Tang, condiments, handful of rice and beans, crackers or chips. Sometimes a miracle: You’ve been salivating over the partial carcass of a pig, browned and succulent, waiting to rip a hunk off, when you watch someone nearly dump it in the garbage can. Egad!

Speak casually. Remember, nobody likes a desperate man. Hey, are you throwing that away? “Yeah, you want to try to get some more out of it.” Sure.

Soup, perhaps. Boil those shreds of clinging meat off the bone. Or just scrape it off with a knife, use a slab of lard to fry up the rice and beans, scrape the saturated onions from beneath the carcass, snag a chile pepper, mix it all together in a skillet.

Even if it turns out as a grey sludge, and what looked like meat was mostly ligament, tendon, cartilage . . . well, choke it down, and start scavenging again.

Community Connection

For more on hostel etiquette, please be sure to check out Tim Patterson’s classic Hostel Sex: A Practical Guide For Backpackers.

Image: psmithy

Earlier this week I was reading an article about an imported goods shop in New York City.

The author seemed to want to give the reader the sensory experience of being in the shop—a tiny space with lots of character, stacked from floor to rafters with barrels of olives, tins of tuna, and ropes of locally cured chorizo.

At the same time, the writer wanted to put a face on the family-owned business, and here’s where she got into trouble:

“‘Whatever you do, don’t miss the chorizo,’” Angelica beams. “‘The heart of our business is our chorizo.’”

Here’s the problem: Angelica doesn’t beam. Really, she doesn’t. The verb the writer was looking for was simple: “says.”

So often, writers worry that they’ve use “said” or “says” too much and they go looking for a substitute word. The author clearly wants to convey emotion here, but beams doesn’t seem believable. It’s just not a word we use in daily speech.

There were some other lines that showed how much the writer was struggling to find the right words:

“‘In the first years we sold 2,000 pounds of chorizo per week. Now it’s 12,000 to 15,000 pounds,’ Marcos says, smiling wistfully as he remembers his former partner, who passed away in 2001.”

Smiling wistfully?

On another note, while it’s nice to remember the former partner, neither his life nor his death drive the purpose of this piece at all and the detail is better left unmentioned. It’s an irrelevant aside because there’s nothing else about the partner in the article.

“‘When our eyes begin to water, we know the fresh onions are being chopped for the morcilla,’ ” laughs Angelica, proudly explaining why the sausages are so good.”

Angelica isn’t laughing out this information proudly. Again, the author’s trying too hard here. Show, don’t tell. And keep it simple to avoid stilted language.

Community Connection

So how do you write quotes and dialogue well? Check out David Miller’s study on How to Develop Convincing Dialogue for several examples of taking quotes to the level of an art form.

What about if you need to quote characters speaking more than one language? Teresa Ponikvar wrote a great piece recently on 5 Techniques for Writing Bilingual Dialogue.

What examples of people sounding ridiculous have you found in your reading or writing? Please share them below in the comments.

Cutthroat trout.

My fingertips are bleeding, sliced raw by the sharp little teeth of wild cutthroat trout. The fly I’m using is all chewed-up too, a hopper pattern that’s been reduced to a little yarn and loose thread on the slim shank of a barbless hook. Dew is dry and the mountain sun has climbed high over the rim of the Lamar valley.

Still, the fish keep biting.

Fly-fishing can be an art, but my tactics are industrial. I’ve only got one leader, the thin piece of monofilament to which the fly is tied. That’s not enough line to allow for changing patterns, and with camp still five miles up-trail, there’s no time to bother about fancy casts.

Instead, when the trail curves close to the river I set my pack against a dry pine log, change leather hiking boots for rubber water shoes and pick my way to the middle of the stream.

There’s no one to help if I slip or turn an ankle, so I move carefully across the riverbed, concentrating on each cold braid of current.

All I hear and sense and smell and feel is water and air and the dull musical growl of river rocks tumbling downriver in summer snowmelt from the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

Lamar River cut.

I’m utterly content and totally alone.

Firm-footed at the head of a riffle, I loosen a loop of line and let it drift downstream so that the fly sinks deep into the pool below.

Two red-tailed hawks wheel overhead.

Three times they cry before I begin my retrieve, stripping line home with smooth pulls, alert to the flash of gold on blue that marks the commencement of frantic communion with pure wild energy, beauty and fear.

The trout hits. Everything tightens. Heavy and confused, it turns in the current, then leaps clear.

I raise the rod-tip, taking in slack as fast as I can until the fish catches sight of me and shoots downstream in a panic once more.

When the fish is played out I hold her for a moment in still water by the riverbank. She’s a handsome cutthroat, nearly 18 inches long, the blood-orange slash under her jaw so vivid it seems to pulse.

Captivated, I unhook the fly and gradually loosen my grip on the fish.

As time shifts back to normal we both hold still, slowly returning to ourselves, recovering in this moment of release.

The trout finds her freedom and darts back into the flow.

I sit in the sun until my feet are dry. Then I put on my socks, lace up my boots, hoist my pack and set off down the trail, yelling “YO!” at intervals to let the bears know I’m coming.

Buffalo by Cache Creek.

The Lamar is a tributary of the Yellowstone River that forms a broad valley in the Northeast corner of the National Park.

A lot of people visit Yellowstone, but few venture far into the backcountry. The Lamar valley is one of the wildest areas of the region, home to herds of buffalo, the Druid wolf pack and several grizzly bears, including one notorious silver-tip known as the Tent Smasher.

Although I never encountered a bear, the presence of Ursus Horribilis permeated the atmosphere of my trip, making me jump each time a manic chipmunk skittered through the underbrush.

While hiking I kept a canister of pepper spray strapped to my belt like a sidearm. At camp I hung my food well away from my tent and lay still for a time before sleep, alert to the noises of the night.

Lamar valley.

The pine forests of this valley went up in smoke during the epic 1988 Yellowstone fire and are now in an early stage of rebirth, making the valley feel like an overgrown Christmas tree farm.

The regenerative landscape is perfect habitat for buffalo and grizzly bears, but mostly, the Lamar valley is perfect habitat for fly-fishermen. I honestly didn’t think trout fishing got this good outside Alaska or New Zealand.

The river is just the right size for fly-fishing, big enough to hold large trout, but small enough so that even novice fishermen will have a pretty good idea where the fish are holding.

The Park Service has set up designated backcountry campsites along the river, each complete with fire-pit and bear-bagging station. These campsites are set far enough from the trail to feel isolated – not that crowds will be a problem.

The only people I met in the backcountry were Park Rangers, who made sure I had the proper permits.

Near Livingston, MT

Notes on fishing the Lamar River:

The most logical way to approach the Lamar is by way of Livingston, Montana. Have a Moose Drool draft in the bar of the Murray Hotel then walk down the block to Dan Bailey’s fly-shop to buy whatever gear you need and pick up a Park fishing license.

The Coffee Crossing in downtown Livingston is the spot for a mean Espresso. I also need to give a shout-out to Mark’s In & Out Beef-Burger Stand, the perfect place to stock up on calories before hitting the backcountry.

From Livingston, drive South through the Paradise Valley to Yellowstone country and the entrance town of Gardiner. This is your last chance to buy any gear you forgot to purchase in Livingston. The entrance fee for the Park is $25 per vehicle.

Park Headquarters are located just down the road from Gardiner in Mammoth. This is the place to pick up your backcountry camping permit.

You’ll need to tell the ranger where you’ll be camping for each night in the backcountry. There are several sites on the Lamar, and when I went mid-week in July most were available.

Permits are free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis, but it’s also possible to reserve a site in advance for a fee of $20.

When you pick up your permit, the ranger will give you the low-down on
bear activity, fire danger and directions to the trailhead. It’s about a 40 minute drive from Mammoth to Soda Butte, where the Lamar trail begins.

Here is a link to Park Service information on fishing in Yellowstone. The fishing season in Yellowstone runs from Memorial Day to early November, but the best time to plan your trip is between July and September.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Matador loves Montana travel.

Check out articles on cycling Montana, hiking Montana, kayaking Montana and the best spots for spring fly-fishing in the Big Sky state.

Photog’s note: “Children hang around the Ghatts selling baskets of small hand-woven leaf bowls. Each bowl contains a candle in a bed of flower petals, an offering to the Ganges.” Photo by: judepics

A long wooden oar dipped below the surface of the river. It disappeared, emerged, disappeared and emerged, slow and steady, past unrecognizable debris.

It avoided contact with floating objects with a precision that marked familiarity, acceptance, and indifference. It was an indifference that my mind could not connect to the froth and parts of buildings floating on the surface of the Ganges River near Varanasi, India.

Photo: snikrap

It was sunrise. The world was thick with smoke heaving off fire pits of cremated loved ones. A woman doused her sari and body in the water carrying an ancestor’s dust downstream.

A family hoisted a platform onto their shoulders. It carried a loved one that would soon return to the earth as smoke and dust.

I pulled a scarf tight around my nose in an attempt to block out reality. That was the difference between me and the woman that continued to scrub her golden sari. She accepted life. I accepted a glamorous paragraph about a boat ride down the Ganges.

The smell from the flames was pungent and frightening. It was “my world” unveiled. It left my small bubble of a world lying in a puddle on the boat’s floor.

Community Connection

Editor’s note: We recently put out a call for stories of “losing your travel virginity,” and I made a few notes about losing my own.

Congrats to new Matador Community member Jackie Poinier for being the first contributor in this new series. Stay tuned for more stories soon.

I began writing because I was a horribly shy, introverted child. It was a way to get my thoughts out of my head without having to endure the hideous ordeal of leaving my room and talking to an actual person.

Photo: author

But like any discipline that we approach with dedication—be it meditation, carpentry, cross-country skiing, or bee-keeping—writing has a funny way of teaching us just what we need to know.

This is some of what I’ve learned:

Pay attention.

I used to walk into mailboxes a lot. Mailboxes, lampposts, bushes…it was a family joke. I was so wrapped up in the world inside my head that I forgot all about the one around me.

It’s hard to write much more than a diary from inside your head, though. As I became more serious about writing, I began to look around me a little more: “hmmm, what can I write about?”

I realized the world was pretty interesting. I started leaving my room more often. I even, hesitantly and awkwardly, began talking to people, asking questions, taking risks.

Now instead of daydreaming my way down the street, I hope someone will fall into step next to me. Maybe they’ll have a story. Maybe I’ll write about it, and maybe I won’t. But, what do you know, this interaction thing? Kind of cool.

Photo: indi.ca

Get over yourself.

Is there something inherently narcissistic about writing? Maybe. But, paradoxically, writing is also a good way to learn humility.

For one, you have to learn that most people have no interest in reading your diary. That one was hard for me. I used to leave my diary conspicuously around the house and tell my brother, “Don’t you DARE read it!” He never took the bait. I was always miffed by his lack of interest, but eventually learned that “HEY LOOK AT MEEEEE!” is not a good excuse for a piece of writing.

Photo: h3_six

You also have to learn to write something good—a glorious metaphor, a pitch-perfect sentence, a brilliantly-reasoned paragraph—and then throw it away.

It’s so good! You want to share it with the world! But for one reason or another, it doesn’t work in the piece. You throw it away. (Back towards the narcissistic end of the spectrum: you know you can write a hundred other things just as good, or even better.)

It’s all material.

Many of the writers I know have remarkably good attitudes about just about any inconvenience or misfortune they encounter. It is, after all, hard to write an engaging essay about a time everything was easy, perfect, convenient, and drenched in sunshine and rainbows.

So the writer settles in to wait for the plane that’s delayed twelve hours, already happily mining the experience for material, while nearly everyone else vents their frustration on hapless airline employees.

The writer endures a bout of poison ivy or giardia, maybe not with a smile on her face, but at least distracted by the knowledge that this will make it into her book, someday.

Symbolism is not just a literary device.

Okay, it sounds a little bit crazy, but it’s true. Writing personal essays forced me to notice that symbolism isn’t this arty, writerly thing you make up. You take it from your life and place it in the essay where it belongs, like a puzzle piece.

Photo:author

There are symbols that just rise into certain moments, and you can learn to read their messages: “You’re on the right track.” “This is a key moment.” “You took a wrong turn there.”

Often in writing an essay I’ll be surprised to note how smoothly the symbols fall into place: “yup, I was heading for danger with that decision and, look at that, there was a rattlesnake in the bushes.”

In Natalie Goldberg’s book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, she tells how writing has helped her tune into the magic of words, to the point that she’s able to run her finger along a list of racehorses and choose the ones that will place.

Sounds woo-woo, I know. I certainly can’t do that–though I don’t doubt that Natalie G. can. But I am learning to tune in to the symbols that let me know when I’m on the right track. Who knows what sort of magical power you’ll draw from your writing practice?

Have I made it sound like writing is some sort of guru-therapist-oracle-fairy godmother?

Well…no lie…it kind of is.

Community Connection

What kind of magic has writing worked for you? What have you learned from your writing practice? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Check out David Miller’s thoughts on self-awareness and writing.

Writing not quite enough to get you through the day? Take a look at Christine Garvin’s spiritual keys for dealing with catastrophes.

Image above: Remko va Dokkum / Feature image: cambodia4kidsorg

I’ve never lost any critical files myself (knock on wood). Lost a couple emails, maybe some MP3s, sure. But I’ve worked in the IT industry long enough and have had enough users whine to me about losing data to know that it’s common and it’s a major problem. The thing is, we usually only have ourselves to blame.

As Google rolls on with their Earth domination plans, many of us are becoming more and more reliant on their online services. We at Matador use Google Docs to store articles and to collaborate with other writers and editors.

But what would happen if Google just up and died? However unlikely that is to happen, it’s very possible. They don’t have an unblemished record. How about Gmail going down for two hours back in February? And this recent news item: “Google suffers major failure“?

If you’re a heavy Google Apps user, your eyebrows better be raised right now.

So what do I do?

We can’t rely on Google to keep our documents safe. It’s up to us. We need to get a copy of all those files onto our local hard drives and into our control. LifeHacker has some great tips in downloading Google data. I’m gonna share with you the method I used to get my Google Docs down to my computer.

It’s true you can save each file, one-by-one, but unless you have a lot of time on your hands or love monotonous work, you’ll prefer to do it all in one go. This may seem lengthy, but after the initial setup, each backup after will be a two minute job.

First off, get on the Firefox bandwagon

Firefox has some wicked and useful plugins, such as the ones we’re about to install. So, I’ll give you five minutes to download and install Firefox…..okay. Done? Let’s go.

Install the GreaseMonkey plugin

1. You can do this right at the Firefox GreaseMonkey plugin page

2. Click Add to Firefox, then Install. Restart the browser and you should now see a cute lil monkey face in the bottom right corner.

Next, install Google Doc Download (a GreaseMonkey script)

1. Visit the Google Doc Download page

2. Click the Install Now! link, then Install

3. After restarting Google Docs, you’ll notice a new option — Download Your Documents — in your Google Docs control panel:

Not done yet. We need to be able to download all the documents in one fell swoop. Keep reading…

Last, install the DownThemAll! plugin

1. Go to the DownThemAll! plugin page and click Add to Firefox, then Install.

2. Restart Firefox. That easy.

Now the cool bit

You’re now ready to back up your Google Docs. If not already, log into Google Docs.

1. Click on All Items to display all documents.

2. Near the bottom, click on Select All so that all your documents are highlighted.

3. Click that shiny new option I mentioned earlier — Download Your Documents — and choose as Microsoft Office Files.

4. A new tab will open up titled Google Docs & Spreadsheets Downloads and will list of all your documents. In Firefox, click Tools > DownThemAll! Tools > DownThemAll!

5. Choose your destination folder in the Save files in part and then click Start!

Now watch in wonder as all of your docs get downloaded into Microsoft Office files.

One last step

This is optional, but since computers are known to crash, a good idea. Now that you have all your docs on your computer, back them up to another medium such as CD, DVD, external hard drive or USB memory stick for safe keeping.

Since this is not an automatic backup process, you’ll have to make it a habit to manually do this every now and again. Obviously, the more often the better, but once is better than none.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Do you have any horror stories of losing precious documents? Or more tips on safeguarding our data?

Please share below!