Where travel writers stay when they go on holidays

Which hotels do travel writers check into when they go on holidays? That's what Mark Hudson, a writer himself for The Sunday Times, among other publications, was keen to know, so he asked 50 of them (including myself) and published their recommendations, 'Where travel writers pay to stay', on his site 101 Holidays. I've been meaning to share this one with you for a while. If you're a regular Cool Travel Guide reader, you'll know (from this post and others) that I've been increasingly frustrated with user-generated content of the kind you get on Trip Advisor, and find myself looking more and more for recommendations by experts, so I was pleased to see Mark do this. Ah, but you say, aren't all hotel reviews in magazines and papers written by experts? Well, yes they are, but they aren't always the kind of hotels that the experts actually stay at when they have a choice. Sometimes hotels are reviewed because they're 'hot properties', newly opened, relaunched, or because an advertiser/business partner has asked for them to be reviewed. Pictured above is a detail from the sitting room at the Novecento, a hotel we stayed for pleasure, not work, when we attended the Venice Biennale in June - it's not new and not 'hot', but it has loads of charm, is in a wonderful location, and the staff are some of the best around.

Cool Travel Guide's Posting Policy

While the vast majority of comments I get on Cool Travel Guide are wonderful and warmly welcomed, I've received a few comments over the last year that have caused me to reflect upon what Cool Travel Guide is all about and what I'm prepared to post and what I'm not and to come up with a posting policy. Here it is: while I welcome comments in response to posts I've published on Cool Travel Guide and other comments that might be slightly off-topic but touch on subjects this blog covers (see this post 'What is Cool Travel Guide?' to find out what those are), there are some comments that I won't post and won't address and they are:

1) spam, including friendly on-topic comments across multiple posts where it's obvious you're just leaving comments to try to sell your timeshare apartments or cheap flights. The only exception is where I know you and you are writing from a business address, but even then if you're spamming, I'm sorry I won't post your comments.

2) comments that are abusive, defamatory and obscene. If you have a problem with me or something I've written, then email me directly. But unless you identify yourself and write in a reasoned, calm and considered manner, don't expect me to answer. Life is too short and I don't have time to write to my friends, so don't think I'm going to waste my precious time answering abusive emails. 

3) persistent off-topic comments, especially those across multiple posts that verge on stalking. If your comments are off-topic *and* anonymous, then there is no way I'm going to post them. Again, if there's something you want to discuss then email me directly and identify yourself. Bear in mind I'm not going to respond to people who accuse me of being an apologist for Dubai nor am I going to get into discussions about things like the human rights of construction workers there. This doesn't meant I don't care, it just means I don't care to discuss the subject with you on Cool Travel Guide.

4) comments that relate to content I've written for other publishers that has nothing to do with Cool Travel Guide content. For example, an anonymous person recently left an angry comment in relation to a review I wrote on a hotel for a Lonely Planet guidebook because their experience differed remarkably to my own. If you have a bad experience at a hotel, my advice is to complain to the hotel manager during your stay. There's nothing they can do about a noisy hotel room after you leave or if you leave an anonymous comment on Cool Travel Guide. If you've maintained your anonymity, I can't even follow it up with the hotel manager to find out what happened. Complain to the manager at the time of your stay and they can probably move you to another room or help find you alternate accommodation. If I didn't mention the noise in my review, then I obviously didn't experience it myself, but don't question and criticize my reviewing skills nor expect that I'll upload an anonymous comment that does so.

HOW YOU CAN EMAIL ME: click on VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE under ABOUT ME (right column) and click on 'email' under Contact, however, I can't reiterate enough: don't expect a response unless you identify yourself honestly and provide real contact details. 

What is Cool Travel Guide?

One of the reasons I began Cool Travel Guide was to write about the things I couldn't write about in the highly prescriptive guidebooks I made my living writing. My first post 'Aleppo: no practicalities' explained my motivation and my desire to have a space where I could write whatever I wanted to write. I'm inclined to reiterate what Cool Travel Guide is about and explain my posting policy after receiving a few comments in recent months that I decided not to upload. But first of all, what is Cool Travel Guide? It's a personal travel blog written by a full-time freelance travel writer, that is essentially about the things I find cool (and not so cool) about travel, places, people and culture; about travel writing, the travel media and travel publishing; and about the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. It's a place where I can reflect upon my work as a writer, the places I get to travel to, live in and write about, and the things that affect, impact, inspire, excite and even anger me as a travel writer. Essentially, it's a space for me to write about anything and everything I want to, from hotels, restaurants, airports, planes, museums and beaches, to the actual process of research, writing, pitching, editing, and publishing. Sometimes my writing will be fairly straightforward and my content practical, while at other times my reflections might be more abstract, about the very nature of travel, and why we travel. This is partly because I've worked as an academic and began a PhD on film and travel some years ago, so I'm also interested in the theoretical side. My passion for travel was ignited at age four when my parents moved us from Sydney to Perth for a year, and it developed years later in my teens when they dragged us around the country in a caravan for five years, so occasionally I get nostalgic and reminisce, but it also means I like to ponder the journey and how we move. I moved to the United Arab Emirates with my husband Terry in 1998 to teach film, writing, production and media studies to Emirati girls at a women's university, and I've authored and updated (often with Terry) almost a dozen guidebooks and scores of stories on the country, especially on the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. That's why you'll find lots of posts on those destinations here. I love the UAE and make no apologies about that. I'm also fascinated by the media's coverage of Dubai, and how it's promoted, perceived and reported on as a destination. If you want to comment on my posts, or just write to me about any of those or other related topics, I'd love to hear from you. Really.

In print and online

There's a reason I haven't been blogging much these last few months - or rather, lots of reasons. Terry and I have been busy travelling, mainly through the Middle East - to Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon - on commissions for a number of magazines, and squeezing in some assignments at 'home' in the UAE in between. We continued to do a lot of writing for in-flight magazines, especially Gulf Air's Gulf Life and Jazeera Airways' J Magazine (as I told you last time I wrote one of these updates in October), mainly because the editors are so easy to work with, and the magazines are fun. In Gulf Life's November Heritage issue, we had a piece on Doha's stupendous Museum of Islamic Arts, and in the latest edition, December's Food issue, we've got a feature on our experience behind-the-scenes with Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire in his kitchen at Reflets, Dubai (which I blogged about here), and small pieces on Jordan's cupcake king and owner of Sugar Daddy, Fadi Jaber, Amman's heavenly mussabaha, hommous, foul and falafal place, Hashem, Kuwait's best burger joint, Slider Station (pictured), and Dubai's colossal sweet shop, Candylicious. In December's issue of J Magazine, we've got a feature on Kuwait's fabulous four women politicians and Aleppo's food biz family and their matriarch Dalal Touma, the woman behind one of the city's best restaurants, Zomorod. You'll also find Terry's lush images illustrating our stories and lots of our reviews of restaurants, cafes and shops in the magazine's Destination Guide. One of my reviews went up on i-escape, on Kangaroo Island's Southern Ocean Lodge (and you'll see a lot more of my reviews soon on the site on properties in Australia and Syria), while our review of Doha's Four Seasons hotel went up on Travel Intelligence. We've got a lot more pieces coming out in early 2010, everywhere from Asia's Connect to the Ritz Carlton magazine, and I'll let you know about those as they appear.

The affection that comes with familiarity versus the energy of an unfamiliar destination

Only two of the nine countries we visited in the last six months were new to us, places we hadn’t been before and were experiencing for the first time. Obviously, as travel writers, it’s inevitable that we end up returning to places time and time again, particularly as we develop expertise in certain places, as my husband Terry and I have with the Middle East where we've been based since 1998. But while I love the excitement and energy of the new and relish opportunities to get out of our comfort zone and go somewhere we haven't been before (there’s nothing quite like that first drive from an airport into a new city, is there?), I also enjoy returning to places we’ve been before, some times many times before. Because there is a certain affection that grows over time as you become more familiar with a place, don’t you think? The more you visit, even if you’re not exactly besotted by the destination, the more you come to develop a bundle of warm feelings for it. And when you return… well, it’s just like seeing an old friend again. Love them or hate them, you just want to hug them! What do you think? Know those feelings? Which do you prefer? The familiarity that comes with the known or the excitement of the unfamiliar?

Pictured? Dubai, the closest thing I have to a home, and a place I love more and more each time I return after being away.

Are you a once-in-a-lifetime traveller or a creature of habit?

Are you a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ traveller? That is, every country you visit you consider it to be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience and treat it as such? Do you go to a place thinking you may never get back there again so everything you do is a special adventure? Do you go with the idea that you won’t even dream of returning because there are simply too many other amazing places to explore in the world? Maybe it's more of a financial imperative? Or, do you travel thinking you are definitely going to return some day, so you take it easy, kick back, and don’t put too much pressure on the trip? And in doing so, you find you appreciate the place and the little experiences and everyday moments more? Indeed, if this is a place you end up liking a lot, you won’t have a problem returning the next year, and the next, and perhaps the one after that… so that by the time you’re 80 you could be leaning over to the diners at the next table one night to boast “my husband/wife and I have been coming here every summer for the last 30 years”, as a very contented woman told us one evening in Capri as her beloved husband sliced a ripe juicy peach for her after their meal – a habit that seemed so matter-of-fact, he’d probably been doing it for 30 years… So, which traveller are you? Do have one travel preference over another? Or do you mix it up with destinations you treat as once-in-a-lifetime experiences and favorite holiday spots you return to every year? I'd love to hear your thoughts.