Comments on: The digital future of travel writing

By: Checking out of Twitter « New media, travel & tourism

Checking out of Twitter « New media, travel & tourism — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:59:56 +0000

[...] The digital future of travel writing READ: Jan Moir, poker and headline writing READ: My digital catch up: what’s been happening in [...]

By: The science fiction of online journalism «

The science fiction of online journalism « — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:08:19 +0000

[...] The digital future of travel writing READ: Police shooting at Southwark tube station, and more citizen journalism Possibly related [...]

By: Travel take note: Online, nothing goes unheard «

Travel take note: Online, nothing goes unheard « — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:40:45 +0000

[...] The digital future of travel writing READ: Twitter marches on – but who has the most marketing [...]

By: Don’t get sucked in by mobile technology «

Don’t get sucked in by mobile technology « — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:27:02 +0000

[...] promo video above), and since then I’ve blogged now and then about capturing the moment or citizen journalism… But for 18 months, I’ve had the misfortune of owning a so-called smart phone. An MDA [...]

By: Video mash-ups help get the message across «

Video mash-ups help get the message across « — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:10:42 +0000

[...] was impressed with the Soho fire video of the tag cloud in my last post on the digital future of travel writing. But now the stakes are raised – have just come across the below video, which has highlights of [...]

By: Melanie Gow

Melanie Gow — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:58:37 +0000

There is room for web 2.0 to track modern journeys, Twitter and Stephen Fry were a perfect unison, for example. Hundreds of thousands of people went along for that ride.

Now there is one man, Ed Stafford, attempting to be the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon river from source to sea. This makes facinating reading on Twitter http://twitter.com/amazonwalkers.

It is a real mix of the oldest human endevour of a great adventure with the latest tech. phenomenon.

This is not necessarily great travel “journalism” but it lends itself very well to Henry Miller’s adage that “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

And a great example of the audience and the medium coming together symbiotically.

Thank you for writing so well on the debate

By: matthewparsons

matthewparsons — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:46:04 +0000

Thanks for comment. Totally agree – the web is a resource. That’s the information part.
For inspiration, is there a difference in following live updates, or reading something? If a writer is good, no matter what medium, they should be able to evoke something in the reader.
But here’s where the technology helps. Features are heavily cut, and limited in pictures. Online, there’s no limits, and generally when you read something, and there’s a URL at the end of the piece, how often do you make an effort to have a look?
The audience is there, and is increasingly online. Perhaps the message part is the tricky – getting the balance between bombarding people with updates, and making sure a writer has the relevant followers?

By: David Whitley

David Whitley — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:22:48 +0000

There are lots of interesting possibilities for travel journalism. But what people want in terms of news and what people what in terms of travel are not necessarily the same thing.

A live blog of someone’s trip? I certainly wouldn’t bother reading it and I’m not convinced others would either.

My personal belief is that people go to travel writing for two things: Inspiration and information.

The first has a certain timeless element about it – it doesn’t really matter if they’re on the ground as it’ll more than likely be read afterwards.

For information, people are looking for certain details. In a way it’s what the internet was born for. Someone wanting to get a ferry from Malta to Sicily, then head up the coast to Syracuse is looking for ferry timetables, how to transfer from the ferry terminal to bus and train stations, and then bus/ train timetables. They probably want a map of the area around the stations/ terminals too.

In this regard, my belief is that the future of travel journalism in the digital age is largely about old fashioned donkey work. Provide information, solve problems, assist with trip planning. (I’ve mused about how travel writers can make money writing for the web here – http://www.grumpytraveller.com/2009/07/11/how-travel-writers-can-make-money-writing-for-the-web – incidentally)

There’s certainly room for new technology, but we have to be careful not to use it for the sake of using it. The audience and message are more important than the medium.