Meet My New Hero

Perhaps this is only interesting to my fellow travel writers, but here goes...

"Skyrocketing fuel prices. Unmanageable airline budgets. A declining U.S. dollar. International instability and America's increasingly dismal reputation abroad. The new age of travel is about more than waiting in line so that a sixty-year-old TSA biddy can wave a security wand in front of your crotch. In coming years, the way we travel will change significantly. Where all this leaves travel writing is an open question, but one thing is certain: the overly sentimental, cautious, and commercial tenor of travel writing is satisfying to almost no one beyond the navel gazers who write it and the 'hospitality' advertisers who sponsor it." --Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson

While I'm loathe to be called a naval gazer, I know all to well the b.s. of which Thompson speaks--and I've only been in the travel industry for two years, compared to Chuck's 10. It's a sad day when you realize how disgustingly the rest of the industry looks down on the genre you once so badly wanted to be a part of, not only because you wanted to travel the world, but because you wanted to tell stories, for better or for worse, of the things you saw. Instead, you're assigned to write articles constructed of sentences that end with, as Thompson points out, "a phone number, web address or other transparent plug for whatever tourist board happened to be picking up the tab."

Because today's travel "journalism" articles are mostly fluff pieces written by aging freeloaders who will put the entire contents of dinner's bread basket in their bag once you're not looking, I will never feel at ease being called a "travel writer." I sometimes wonder if pursuing this path did nothing more than brand myself as a talentless hack.

Photo: New York Times

UPDATE: Doree Shafrir manages to pull together everything I've been whining about this past week much better than I ever could. Please read.