A giant book bearing the title Italy sits on my coffee table. Truth always be told, I never really looked at the book until the other day. I had flipped through it when I received the Modern Language Award at my college, appropriately deemed “The Dante Award”. Two women, Costanza and Maria Grazia, my Italian professors who inspired much of my love for Italy, gave the book to me as a gift for winning the award.
After spending three months in Italy this summer, a country I have spent years living in, I was somewhat sick of Italy. Reading other travel blogs and articles almost convinced me I needed to step outside my Italian comfort zone and head off to Asia, Australia, South America and even my own backyard in the USA. Florence became routine and I wanted a change.
Just days before heading home, I spent some time in Rome. I fell back in love with Italy and realized I just needed to shake up my Italian cities. I have already gone through those feelings of being a travel cheater, the type that keeps going back to the same place. I guess I am still battling those feelings.
Dante knows about travel pressure and he's not happy
Italian Studies became my life in college. While I was also a Communication major, Italian Studies was my other half, the classes I would look forward to each day. I was Italy obsessed and everyone knew it. Everything about the country fascinated me, the language, the people, the food, the scenery and the history. I know Italy is not a “hardcore” destination to some. It is quite Western in the opinions of most, but for me, much of the country is heavily ignored.
Being a travel writer today, I guess I feel this pressure to cover other destinations outside my expertise. Will anyone stick around here if I just cover Italy and Western Europe? I’m not a RTW writer. I’m not planning on strapping on a backpack and working in a bar for a few months all over the globe. That is a great option to travel for many, but not for me. Since I graduated college, I set out to be a writer. I haven’t had some job I hated and needed a “career break” as they call it. I just began doing what I am doing from the start. With that said, I feel very lonely, quite out of the loop with the rest of the travel world. I guess I’m not as adventurous. I’m not leaving it all behind to travel.
Perhaps there are other writers or even readers out there that love a destination but feel pressured to covered them all. Don’t get me wrong. I would love to see the world, but when did seeing the world become just stopping here and there and not really living that world for a while? In the end, it seems travel interests are fleeting. You may love one destination, but as travelers we try to go where we haven’t been before. I wouldn’t mind challenging that notion, the idea that even if you have been somewhere, you haven’t seen it all.
I face a few options in the New Year with my travels. The world really is my oyster. I can go somewhere outside of Italy and Europe. I can head to places I had never dreamed. Or, I could go back to Italy or Ireland or Germany, places I feel a strong connection to and spend as much time as I can. When I sit down to recreate a moment I had in Italy or Western Europe for that matter, the words flow easily and are thus more powerful to me and hopefully to you. Perhaps my redheaded temperament is calling me to not cover the globe but bits and pieces at a time.
Do you feel pressured as a travel writer to cover the globe? As a reader, do you feel you shouldn’t go back to the same place?
I agree with you. I love learning about a country and not flying hither and yon absorbing nothing, but having great photos to show.
I love Ireland and cannot go enough. Italy is also on the list, have never been there and the food is a real lure plus the beauty of the country. If you haven’t been to Ireland, I suggest you go next year. If you’ve been- it’s on the list for a reason. Wherever you go- enjoy!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with finding a place you love and staying there! Not that I’m an expert in travel writing by any means, but I think there’s a definite advantage/appeal to getting to know a country like the back of your hand and introducing it to the world.
As a traveler, I tend to not go back to the same place more than once (France and Italy so far being the exceptions). But, I have not yet taken time off to travel long-term and instead am limited to one 2-week international trip each year. So I like to make the most of that by going somewhere different each time. I also haven’t been to many places where I leave feeling like I need or want to come back. I’m still looking for that destination that I just fall in love with enough that I want to go back over and over again (or better yet, move there!).
I say follow your heart and go with what you know and love! As you say in your post, those words will be more powerful to you and to your readers. 🙂
I have a tendency to return to countries (and not always countries that I liked the first time I was there — but usually end up liking the 2nd or 3rd time maybe because I’m more “used” to them). I also like to stay in one place for a long time & consider myself more of a serial expat than a “traveler”. It’s taken me a while to come to this conclusion — after 2 months of pretty steady traveling (well, steady for me… which meant switching cities every 5-7 days) and becoming completely burnt out, I’ve decided that’s just not for me. I feel rushed (I know, I know, 5-7 days isn’t that much of a hustle… but it is for me!) and I don’t feel like I’m really getting to know a place.
I think we all have our own travel styles. Sure, we can push ourselves to do something different (and maybe we’ll even enjoy it for a bit), but if your vacation time is limited then why not travel the way you want to… rather than the way you think you should?
Whatever you decide, have an awesome trip!
Everybody travels differently, and that’s completely okay. I don’t think you should feel pressured to travel like others do. Because, if that’s not your style, you’re not going to enjoy it. You should travel the way you want to travel, and to hell with anyone else’s opinions.
If you’ve fallen in love with Italy and only want to travel there for the rest of your life, then go for it.
I’ve written a lot about New Zealand, because it’s been my favorite destination, and the place I’ve spend the most time in. Do I want to travel to other places? Sure. But, if given the chance to go back to NZ, I would probably pick it every time.
Just travel in whatever way feels right to you.
You should follow your heart. I have a tendency to keep going back to places I’ve been already as well and I’ve also been more of an expat lately. It’s the reason I looked at my ‘must-see’ places list and thought, uh-oh…better get a move on. Who says you have to write about everything? Specialists exist in every career path and travel writing is no different! Plus, the more you get to know about a region, the more it will stick with you when you experience that transplanted culture in other places. Whatever you decide – enjoy! =)
I would definitely keep reading your stuff even if you just wrote about Italy! There are so many interesting things there and it’s one of my favorite countries ever. I don’t think I’m alone on that thought 🙂
You should go wherever you feel like it. There is no right or wrong in travel. Part of the fact you’re obssessed with Italy might just be that there’s a lot to explore and write about there. It is, after all, an ancient epicenter of culture and the arts. Maybe you’ll be in love with Italy your whole life. Or maybe, one day, you’ll feel like writing about/traveling someplace different. No need to worry about it until (if ever) you reach the point where you feel like your writing has “tapped out” Italy.
Hehe funny, I was discussing earlier with a friend about maybe doing a trip to Ireland this year,and then I thought “But I’ve already been there…” This is why I hate when travel writers count countries. It’s like saying “Oh, I’ve been to Canada, so I KNOW Canada.” Really? All 34039403 miles of it?
If you know what you love, write about it. Doesn’t hurt to get outside your comfort zone every now and then. Go to Asia and have a blast, but you can still always return to Italy!
In a way, I know the pressure you’re talking about… why go back to a place you’ve been to before when there are still places you haven’t?
But some places have a way to worm their ways into your sub-conscience and it’ll be dangerous not to heed their calls :p And Italy is sooo rich in history and culture, and god-knows-what-else I think you can spend a lifetime or two writing about it and there will still some unknown secrets left to discover…
There are always new parts of a city or country see, so I can always rationalize heading back if I love a destination enough. I can’t wait to get back to Thailand – the people & culture are terribly addicting. I’m okay with that as there is loads more of the country to experience.
Lovely post and a problem I think many of us experience. There are a couple of places I will never tire of, but on the whole I definitely do feel internal pressure to see and experience new things. But as someone else said, you need to follow your heart. Your passion will come out in your writing if you’re in a place you truly love, and that’s what’s important.
I haven’t had a career to break from either. I prefer it that way. I’ve always known I wanted to travel.
Hi Suzy, I do feel pressure sometimes to always visit a new place after reading all of the other blogs out there but I agree with you and that if you feel most passionate about a particular place in the world then you should enjoy every bit of it. Always remember why you travel and not how others are traveling. Every person is different and if you just follow your own path, you’ll always be happy with your writing. I personally love hearing about your Italian adventures!
Don’t sweat it, Suzy. There are plenty of us out here who haven’t chucked it all to travel full-time, and there are lots of blogs that only write about one destination. Travel blogging doesn’t just come in one flavor (thank God). Do what YOU want to do. If you force yourself to do something else because you think you *should*, you probably won’t enjoy it.
The vast majority of the world’s population isn’t either logistically or financially able to give it all up to travel around the world. But there’s a much greater percentage of people for whom a trip to Italy is well within reach–and they need a trusted guide to help them make the most of their time while they’re there. Don’t succumb to the RTW pressure if it’s not for you. Do what YOU love.
I think you’re adventurous. Not that many people spend 25% of the year out of the country by themselves. I personally don’t feel pressured to cover the whole globe. There are some countries that are actually quite popular where I really have no desire to go. And unless my feelings change some day, I won’t. There’s a massive amount of the world I want to see which I still haven’t touched.
In an infinite universe (which we do seem to have), there are no rules. If writing about Italy makes you happy, then by all means write about Italy. I will read it and I’m sure many others will continue to do so as well. For six years I wrote about Turkey and I never ran out of things to say. For the past two years, I’ve been writing almost entirely about Shanghai (albeit with a few detours to Indonesia and Myanmar during school holidays and some side trips around China over long weekends). Am I a travel writer? Damn right! I’ve been travelling for the past 16 years, except reallllllly slowly. And you have your ways of travelling. If you have left your hometown, you have travelled. If you take train ride beyond that, you’ve travelled even more. And that’s awesome. Carry on as you are.