A New Approach

I have a confession. As any of you who have followed my blog (and I use that phrase loosely since there hasn't exactly been anything to follow) will be able to attest to, I am a terrible blogger. At least for now. I have a tendency to over-commit to my travel writing.

It's probably hard to see that from your side, given the lack of content probably looks more like under-commitment, but basically what happens is the following.

When I travel I generally keep a written diary; you can't always rely on having internet access and sitting around writing in a journal leaves you much more open to interacting with others than being glued to a computer screen. So while I'm overseas, whenever I have some quiet time, I open up my diary to write about everything that's happened since the last entry. And I mean literally everything, from what I had for breakfast, to where I went, and every single conversation and every single thought that crosses my mind. It's a little problematic. One hour and six pages later I start to get a little bored. Day by day I fall behind in my writing, until one day I find myself trying to recall where we went for lunch that one time about a week ago. And then I give up.

In my Sri Lanka diary I started an entry writing about all the new foods I'd tried, this was after maybe three days in the country, and it took up more than one page. Travel is all about new experiences and I've started to realise that it's just not feasible to record every one. Nor is it necessary. I don't need to document every single piece of information. If the experience was significant enough to me at the time I'll remember it, if not, and if I one day decide that I really, desperately need to find out something like the name of that weird, little, spiky red fruit that kind of tasted like a lychee, I'm sure google will be able to help me out (I just tested it by searching for that description, and for the record the fruit I'm thinking of is a rambutan).

What I am trying to allow myself to accept is that I need to save my writing for the information I can't find anywhere else. Not the facts, but rather my own thoughts and experiences and feelings. Not only will this hopefully make it a lot easier for me to stick to writing my diary while traveling, but also lead to a much more interesting blog.

Blogs like Nomadic Matt's have definitely helped me shape that concept. Despite all the time I spend researching everywhere I want to go in a certain city, reading a blog from someone saying "Today we went to the Louvre and it's just like everyone says, it's so busy but definitely worth it! You just need to make sure you give yourself time because there is so much to see. Oh and you absolutely have to see such and such a painting, it's incredible." is just boring because I've already read it a hundred times, and, frankly, I'm jealous that I'm not there. That said, I'm sure I'll do the same because blogs are a great way to keep everyone, especially the family, up to date on where you are - so don't be surprised if you do see the odd post with a list of all the incredible, old buildings I just saw in Rome or how amazing that truffade was that I had for dinner in the Massif-Central in France. If it makes you jealous just consider it motivation to start saving for your own trip :)

Which leads me to the next idea. A new approach for my blog. In the past year, aside from my temporary home, Canberra, and my heart's home, Sydney, I have literally only been to one other place. I'm not exaggerating. On the way back home on New Year's Eve we stopped off for four hours at Wollongong. Four hours outside of my home cities. It's a little depressing! Consequently I've been finding myself reminiscing more and more about my past travel experiences and imagining my future travels. So for the next few months I will be taking a retrospective angle. Trying to pull the interesting bits from those diaries haha.

Oh, and also, I'm moving to Europe for a year. In January. Nothing too exciting :) :) :) So expect lots of updates on that too!