Better Travel Writing for a Better World
Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels
In response to being told “stories by women do better when they’re domestic,” I conceived of a magazine that would amplify the voices of women living boldly in the world.
But being “undomesticated” doesn’t just mean stepping out of gender-based domestic roles or traveling outside our own countries: It means learning to see beyond our narrow national perspectives.
Despite most of my work being set abroad, when it comes to writing about place and culture, I haven’t always gotten it right. In working to change that, I’ve attended panels, read books and articles on the subject, and have asked other writers for guidance. I’ve generally been told things like, “Just have an open heart and you’ll be fine.”
I believe I have an open heart, but I know there is more to it: There are tangible, practical steps we can take, and real resources we can consult, to help us to do the right thing.
Thanks to a grant from the Arizona Arts Commission, I, along with my Undomesticated co-founders Yi Shun Lai and Susan Blumberg-Kason, have been able to take one of these steps: We’ve directly explored topics in responsible travel writing by commissioning stories and interviews with writers who are working to pursue a new kind of authenticity.
As the writers’ stories have come in, we’ve delighted in reading them and speaking with the authors, but editing those stories hasn’t been easy. Every single piece has sparked lively conversation and highlighted our own shortcomings.
In this post, I will share
A few of our key takeaways on ethical travel writing
Our favorite resources for further education
The questions we’re still asking
A Few of Our Key Takeaways
Even around like-minded friends, conversations about race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, can get super uncomfortable.
There is only one real solution to that discomfort: Get used to it. Dr. Anu Taranath, who will be contributing to this series in a few weeks, focuses much of her social justice and equity work on getting people to be okay with discomfort, telling us it’s not about being right. It’s about having the conversation. “Being uncomfortable or not knowing is part of what it means to be human,” she says.
We’re all embarrassed by some of what we’ve written in the past. But that, too, is a good thing. If you’re not embarrassed by earlier work, you’re not growing.
Everything is colored by our own perspectives. With every single essay we edited, our track-change comments responded to each other with things like, “I didn’t read it that way at all!” We were each confronted at least once per story with how our reading was influenced by our individual histories, cultural backgrounds, educations, prejudices, and interests.
Diversity has to include the dominant culture if we’re to make any progress. A panel discussion, for instance, about diversity and inclusion will just be an information bubble if we don’t have audience members and panelists themselves who can represent the mainstream’s thought processes, concerns, and questions.
It’s time for a new type of adventure. As travel has become geographically and logistically more accessible, at least for those with the privilege of money and the right passports, being intrepid increasingly means taking the challenging emotional journey. It means opening ourselves to experiences and topics that make us uncomfortable, and challenge us to do better for the world.
No one has all the answers. As poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Live the questions now.”
A few of our favorite resources:
The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, Dolly Chugh: Chugh’s compelling, friendly read gives every reader tools with which to see our own biases. She also takes the pressure off of being a “good” person—strive for “goodish,” she says. That simple change allows for a much more compassionate way of seeing life–and our own foibles.
Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World by Dr. Anu Taranath: One of Oprah magazine’s “26 Best Travel Books of All Time”, Beyond Guilt Trips compassionately and accessibly helps travelers traverse difficult topics around race, culture, and inequity. We’re thrilled to be bringing you an original story and interview with Dr. Taranath in the coming weeks.
“I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” TEDx talk by Stella Young: In nine minutes, Stella Young’s smart, funny, and utterly compelling talk will make you see our world and the experience of disability differently.
Ethical Traveler: Founded by author and photographer Jeff Greenwald, this nonprofit organization seeks to inform and empower travelers to protect human rights and the environment. Their website offers travel news, guides to ethical travel, and recommendations for small group tours “that adhere to the highest environmental, fair trade and human rights standards.”
Voice of Our Nation Arts foundation (VONA): Since 1999, this organization has been educating and lifting writers of color through courses, mentorship, and platforms for community engagement. We’re looking forward to publishing a new essay by Faith Adiele about what she learned while founding the nation's first workshop for travel writers of color through VONA.
Conflicted, Ian Leslie: Ian Leslie’s recent text on how to embrace debate and conflict is a compelling argument toward more discussion and fewer echo chambers. Using case studies and drawing from sources both recent and historical, Leslie makes a good case for more discussion–and more discomfort–in our day-to-day meanderings.
Writing the Other a Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. This enduring guide is the current gold standard for writing about people with backgrounds unlike your own. Although primarily geared toward fiction, it offers valuable instruction to the fiction writer and nonfiction writer alike, and should be on every travel writer’s shelf.
Third Culture Kids of the World: Exploring Sustainable Travel Mindsets, Priyanka Surio: In Surio’s book, she offers sound advice for traveling in the era of climate change and a global pandemic. Traveling should involve more mindful decisions, like “volunteering in the community, visiting wildlife conservation centers instead of zoos, buying at local markets instead of malls, and traveling by train instead of a plane” when possible. She also has great advice for social media influencers: be mindful of what you post and set a good example for others to follow. If travel is all about the next Insta shot or disregarding public health protocols, it might be time to reassess one’s purpose.
Twenty-One Years Young: Essays, Amy Dong: A recent college graduate, Dong wrote her collection of essays when she was still in college. She questions the purpose of voluntourism and writes other thoughtful meditations on what it means to travel as an American and why it’s often more important to enjoy the journey rather than focusing one’s attention completely on the destination. Her lessons on traveling mindfully are relevant not only to her own generation but also to people in middle age and in their twilight years.
The questions we’re still asking:
How can we experiment with elements like story structure or character development while still engaging Western readers who might be used to only one tradition’s formulas?
How can we point out ill-informed aspects of our work or others’ without discouraging writers and publishers from taking risks
How can we accurately or adequately translate or interpret terms from other cultures and languages?
What can writers learn from other fields of work?
How can we encourage a greater number of diverse voices to contribute to the travel writing field?
How do we ensure that a commitment to publishing diverse voices isn’t treated as a passing trend?
We’ve been lucky enough to speak with many amazing writers and have assembled a series of stories we look forward to sharing over the coming weeks.
Keep your eye out!
Some of our links go to Bookshop.org, which helps support us and local bookstores. If you make a purchase from our link, Undomesticated will receive a small commission to help us fund more stories. We do not accept compensation for reviews, and we pay our contributors. All recommendations and opinions are our own.