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.
Showing posts with label why I started Cool Travel Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why I started Cool Travel Guide. Show all posts
Sunday, December 13, 2009
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. 
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Happy 1st Birthday Cool Travel Guide
I forget everyone's birthdays. Even my own. So it's not surprising that I forgot (only by a few days) the first birthday of my Cool Travel Guide. It was a year ago that I started this blog, and you can read about my initial motivations on my first post Aleppo: No Practicalities. The blog grew partly out of a sense of frustration with certain aspects of guidebook writing, one being the fact that when we wrote for Lonely Planet we couldn't include a POI (Point of Interest) if it didn't have practicalities, i.e. a phone number and street address. We'd not long finished research in Syria for our recently-released Syria and Lebanon guidebook and I remember being frustrated at not being able to include wonderful places I'd wanted to, such as the cane shop (featured in the first post) and a coffee stand in Aleppo Souq. I wanted (and I still want) to create a new style of guidebook that allows us to write about these places, and write about destinations in a way that hadn't been done before, but in a way that inspires people to travel. And it's still a dream of mine to develop that guidebook one day. But then there were so many other things I wanted to reflect upon and think about, from places my husband and co-author Terry and I had travelled to and loved, to the very nature of travelling itself. I wanted to write about this stuff in a form that was unrestricted, that didn't fit into the format of the books or stories we normally get paid to write. I also found myself wanting to comment on travel writing, the travel media, travel trends, travel publishing, and the travel industry. And to share my feelings, develop my ideas, and vent my frustrations over certain aspects, annoyances, issues and problems related to the profession, such as the Lonely Planet scandal that became known as the 'Thomas Kohnstamm Affair'. From time to time I also felt a need to deconstruct lazy or bad travel writing (and Terry also joins me in this exercise), and then soon after I began to get questions from other writers (established and aspiring) about how we made a decent living out of being travel writers, and so I started sharing tips and advice. But one of my original objectives in starting the Cool Travel Guide was very basic. I wanted simply to write about the things I found cool about travel, the sights that stopped us dead in our tracks, the experiences that made us catch our breath, the things about travel that delighted us so much, and excited us enough to motivate us to travel again, that is the things that inspired us about travel, and the things that inspired us to travel. One year on, I ask myself if I've made any in-roads... but then I have to remind myself that one of the coolest things about travel is the journey itself, not necessarily the destination. And, look, let's face it - everything is cool about travel. I'm still enjoying the ride. Are you?
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