Places vs. People: The Great Debate of Travel Writing

***I want to start by saying that while I'm fairly certain that nobody actually follows this blog other than my mom, I sincerely apologize to anyone who could have possibly been disappointed in my lack of posts the past few months. To any readers out there: you're beautiful souls and I promise to get my $^&* together and start posting :) Without further ado, here's a post I made for a class blog that I keep for one of my writing courses. I wrote it at the beginning of the semester so I updated a couple of sentences, but I think it's still a good summary of what I've learned about myself and what kind of writing I want to do for the rest of my life:

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I've wanted to make a career out of writing about places for as long as I can remember. As a preteen, I spent Saturday mornings curled up on the couch watching “Samantha Brown’s Passport to Europe” on the Travel Channel. On Sunday mornings, I ate breakfast at our cramped kitchen table and read Rick Steve’s travel column in the Chicago Tribune between mouthfuls of whatever fruit/yogurt concoction my mom had made for me that day. My 10-year-old self wanted nothing more than to grow up and be like Brown and Steves. I envied them for getting to see the world and earn a living by sharing their experiences, and I vowed to find a way to do the same.

Right after I started this blog during my freshman year of college, I sent the URL to my high school Enriched Print Communications teacher. He was the first person to introduce me to the field of journalism, and I wanted his feedback on this new type of writing that I was trying to familiarize myself with. I’ll never forget the comment he left on one of my first posts:

“I think you’d make a great travel writer. Would you write about people or places?”

At first, this struck me as a somewhat ridiculous question. Places, obviously. Why would a travel writer focus on anything else? My 19-year-old self believed that places are what defines a travel writer’s experience.

Today, after living in Reims, France for four and a half months and traveling to 10 other countries, I can say that my opinion has completely changed. It’s the people that you meet in a new place that really allow you to experience your surroundings fully. 

Sure, I fell in love with the rolling hills and chipped red-colored roofs of the Tuscan landscape when I took a train from Florence to Rome last May. However, it was the charismatic waiter who gave us free Prosecco and took 50 percent off of our bill that I’ll remember more vividly. I’ll never forget the beautiful courtyard of my French school where I would lie and eat my daily brie sandwich in the late spring sun, but what I miss the most is the people I sat with for hours, laughing and dreading the day when we would have to say goodbye and return to our four different home continents.

Just a few of my favorite humans who I gallivanted around Europe with.

Readers want to hear about places, but they’re more interested in the characters that reside in those backdrops. I could reel someone in with a beautiful description of the Reims cathedral, but I’m more likely to get someone to keep reading if I tell them how deeply moved I felt each time I walked through its doors, or about how the people who stood and reveled in its grandeur beside me have made me a better, happier person.

The past couple of months have helped me remember why I want to make a career out of writing, despite all the times I wanted to bang my head against the wall/all the late nights I've lain awake worrying that I'm going to be unemployed and living on my mom's couch for the rest of my life. The deeper I delve into my mag classes and the more feedback I get on my writing, however, the more sleep I get.