30th birthday trip
Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. This is rather exciting, largely because I no longer need to pretend to like nightclubs and I can justifiably be a spelling Nazi.
For my birthday, I shall be going away somewhere. I know it’s in Spain, because I tricked my girlfriend into revealing that much. But I don’t know where in Spain, or what we’ll be doing there. This irritates me immensely.
Travel for a living
This is partly down to a classic travel writer’s dilemma. When you travel for a living, it’s difficult to have a holiday. There’s always the temptation to search for more stories, cram potentially reviewable hotels and sites in, and look at everything through a critical eye. I find it almost impossible to properly relax and take things in as a common tourist.
Pretty much the only place I can visit without going into travel writer mode is Sydney. And that’s only because I lived there for nearly five years – it’s going home rather than exploring somewhere new.
Travelling without laptop
Well, this week I’m going to have to chill out, relax and just have a good time. I’ve not organised a thing; my girlfriend is choosing where we go and what we see, and I’m leaving my laptop at home. I will almost certainly end up wracked with torturous guilt.
How to switch off
I would love to know how other travel writers (and travel industry professionals) deal with this. Do you have some way of switching off, or a point where you simply down tools and go with the flow? Or is the travel writer state of mind unavoidable? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below. In the mean time, this blog is officially on holiday until next week. Hasta luego.
Tags: birthday, Spain, Sydney, Travel Writing
Even if you leave your laptop, notebook and even your camera behind, you can’t switch your brain off, and that’s going to record impressions you might write about one day.
Still, your observations make a refreshing change from the ‘travel writers are always on holiday’ mindset.
A holiday is staying with friends or family when you don’t have impending deadlines and can relax a little. But an actual holiday without a laptop or wi-fi device to check email? Doubt it, because for us there are always stories or photo shoots to be organized and magazine lead times (the good magazines) are months ahead, so you’re always pitching stories. But you already know that.
It always amuses me when hotel people tell us to just relax and enjoy the facilities when we check in. Our first thoughts when we get to a new hotel is “cable or wi-fi internet?”, pretty sad, but that’s the truth. We’re business travellers, in the business of travel.
For us, going back to our ‘home town’ of Dubai firstly means checking out the new hotels, bars and restaurants so when editors ask us for a story we’re up to speed on the latest places. It would be the same for Sydney.
To completely switch off, it would have to be a several-day wilderness hike without cameras, but we’d still be taking notes!
So while you’re on holidays sans email-checking devices, we’ll be stealing the potential stories that come in. Just relax and enjoy your holiday
I agree this is a problem as a travel writer – I’ve been saying for over a year now that I really need a holiday, ie a trip on which I take no notes, no images, interview no-one, and meet no PR people.
I think the only way to achieve this is to go somewhere that you’ve been before and have no urge to write about. I had a go at doing this last year, choosing Apollo Bay – a nice seaside town on the Great Ocean Road, but somewhere I’d been before. We also agreed to make it a technology-free stay.
Although… I did write about the concept of the “techno detox” holiday later, on my blog:
http://aerohaveno.blogspot.com.....t-all.html
… so I don’t know if that counts as work.
It’s not the travel writer state of mind that’s unavoidable – it’s the freelancer state of mind. The odd day of not working is fine, but not working for more than a long weekend starts to get me twitchy. A week, and I’m positively crabby.
Part of that is money worries – if I don’t work I don’t get paid – but part of it is also that I can’t not write. I want to write. Writing isn’t a job; it’s me. A day without writing is a bit of a waste; a day without thinking about writing just never happens. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to make a living doing something I love; why would I want a holiday from it?
I’m with Matthew. Since I started working for a web and social media company 4 days a week I have found it much easier to just down tools – be that on holiday or just at the weekend… it’s all about money at the end of the day once you get to the old crabby state I am in (ie just hit 40!!!)
I am taking my family away for a few days this week within the UK.
I’ve learnt the hard way that taking the family on work trips often doesn’t work and they need me to a normal person every now and then – not doing interviews, looking at hotel rooms or needing to be somewheer at a certain time.
It is very hard to switch off sometimes, and I always look at things with a ‘work’ eye, but my advice is to leave the laptop this time and experience some time off as the people you write for would.
I think part of it just comes from the desire to do what we love. Whether it was my job or not, travel photography is what I love to do and I pretty much find it impossible not to lug all my gear with me. Although in Singapore a few weeks ago I did manage to go for a walk to the local markets without my cameras! And in Sapporo last year I managed a three week holiday with only a couple of days of photography. I was impressed even if my family seemed to be pretty nonplussed!
Some of the best pieces emerge from supposedly being ‘on holiday’ (off duty) when you can just let things happen, and you’re not mentally structuring a story with every sip of wine or whatever. I usually end up taking notes too, think I just enjoy it. Switching off (apart from the notes) is easy when staying with friends, but stick me in a hotel room and I’ll start whingeing quicker than they can quote their wifi rates
I have exactly the same feelings running a travel company. Even if holidaying somewhere that has no obvious link to my own product I’ll get sucked into thinking about their service, marketing, staffing, uniforms, potential margin etc etc etc within 24 hours. Recently had a week at home pottering about locally and it was bliss – first time I’ve closed down the brain properly for years!
It’s really about boundaries isn’t it? When you don’t have to drive down a highway to get to an office, then going in your pajamas to the next room to start work represents just how conflated personal and professional territories are in the freelance life. A blessing, and also a curse depending on how you’re managing it. I’d say use the periods in your life when things seem most in balance and work is as close to regular as possible to do some self-imposed mini-breaks. When you let yourself lie fallow for a bit like that, you’re also recharging and even reconnecting both with yourself and the things in the world that engage you most deeply.
Feliz cumpleanos y muchos mas!
Viva Espana!
Thanks all for these comments, and my apologies for being late in replying to them. I was, of course, on holiday
You’ll be pleased to know that I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, although I’d be lying if I said the notepad didn’t come out a couple of times…
Some really interesting viewpoints here – it’s good to know how other people deal with the same problem.
@annie – I totally agree with you; a lot of the best pieces do come when you’re on holiday. Or certainly when you’ve booked everything yourself, and you’ve no commissions in advance/ no PR contact – you can just do what you want.
@matthew – I think I have a very similar mindset to you. I love discovering new places, and I love writing. I’m very bad at just sitting/ lying still, and I think the best approach is to accept that is who I am, then run with it. We may seem a little odd to others, but we’re better off embracing who we are and the seeming inability to put things down that may entail.