When I read travel writing, I tend to lean towards more controversial and thought provoking pieces. I’m interested in a writer’s experiences: Did he or she change? What caused the change? What about the people? Who are they? What are their thoughts on tourism?

When I travel tend to focus on the people, culture, and history: what is going on around me and within the country/city itself. I have been always drawn to more controversial writings — they make you think. Then again, I do enjoy a good read about art and culture and festivals.

Now those are the stories the writing life should be made of. Unfortunately, for me it’s more like sitting in front of the blank page with a bag of ruffles and a beer trying to make something happen.

I read somewhere–I think it was Hemingway–that the first draft is for the writer, the second for the reader.

Annie Dillard was one of my favorites early on as well. I’ve read some funny letters as well–sent to her from Ed Abbey. Old Ed got after her for her ‘flowery-ness’ or something, but in the letter you could tell he admired her, or maybe was just trying to seduce her?

To throw in my two cents, I think the key in writing and traveling is being aware of oneself without being obsessed with oneself…there’s an anecdote that always comes to mind when I try to describe this, from Annie Dillard’s An American Child (Annie Dillard is my favorite writer of all time). She describes how at a certain moment in childhood she could feel herself separating from herself, could feel the shadow of her body meeting her body as she dove into a swimming pool, could feel her mind floating outside of and reflecting on herself. And I think traveling and writing should be some sort of balance between the two, being completely immersed in oneself and then being able to drift outside a bit…Being able to rein oneself in when things get a little carried away.

Maybe I could phrase it this way: how can you really see, without being super-contrived and only conjuring up what you want to see, or without being so detached that you lack any real, intuitive vision?

@Julie – yeah I hear you. The emo self-absorption can get super asinine and annoying just as much as anything else. I guess what I’m really trying to say overall here is to take chances.

i haven’t read Augusten Burroughs or Jeanette Walls so it’s hard for me to place your comment exactly.

@ Christine – ‘know not everyone has the same sense of humor, but I think that making wry observations about oneself (I know that isn’t really a word) in the context of their experiences of the world is what really connects me to what they are saying.’ that’s right on.

Important observations, and while I agree, I found myself reading this and thinking about “Yes, but” scenarios.

Just as it’s important to insert oneself unapologetically to “keep it [the writing] real,” I also think it’s important, in some sense, to be somewhat vigilant against hyper-emo transparency. A question that’s worth coming back to once in a while is, “What’s the purpose of this piece I’m writing?” And some others: “Who is my audience? What are their needs and expectations?” I think about these questions, for example, when I think about the writing of Augusten Burroughs and Jeanette Walls. While I recognize that their books have been important and liked by many readers, as I read them, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the writing was simply an exercise in catharsis that had little merit beyond the personal emoting.

And I think the relevance of these questions to travel writing is particularly important because within this genre there are so many sub-genres. Can a piece that’s intended to be informative include personal experience and emotion? Yes– it must. But not, perhaps, to the extent that other narrative travel wriitng might.