A Reflection on Reflection, Or How Not to Write a Travel Blog

It’s hard to believe that it’s been exactly a year since I landed in London to begin two months traveling around northern Europe. I went back and read a few of the posts I did manage to write along the way, and of course am left wishing I had continued the blog the entire trip. I say this in hindsight, of course, as I remember that the posts I made took at least an hour or two to produce, usually. It would have been worth it to spend that time every 2-3 days while on the road, but I cannot discount the value of moment-to-moment living and being fully present for new conversations and friendships I found while traveling.

There’s also the perennial problem of procrastination when you’re writing for an audience instead of just for yourself. Even though this blog WAS primarily for my own benefit, I knew that others (even if just my family) were reading it, so I felt internal pressure to produce high-quality posts. This is just as true now in grad school as it was then; as I read papers, I can jot down notes and thoughts and even write rough paragraphs exploring the logic of certain ideas. As soon as it’s time to write my research or term papers, however, the page (or Word document) manages to remain pristine until the last possible moment.

The biggest piece of advice to myself and other would-be amateur travel bloggers based on my experience:

Don’t set such high expectations for your posts. Travel, especially the wandering, social type of solo travel that comes with backpacking across countries, takes time and work. If I was traveling with a group, perhaps I would actually relish quiet time to process my own thoughts away from my constant companions. This was certainly true when I traveled to Italy with my Latin class in high school. As a solo traveler, when my only company was that which I actively sought out, time spent alone with my tablet necessarily took time away from potential conversations and friendships. It takes work to plan a trip, and I did very little of that work ahead of time. If I decided to go to a new city, any research, hostel bookings, etc. I did had to happen on the fly, and sometimes en route. This was always more pressing than getting out a blog post.

Instead, I should have built my blog with the intention of having at least these two types of posts: descriptive and reflective. I started my blog with reflective posts and wanted to continue the trend by including insightful commentary beyond the “what” and “where.” Reflective posts can be daunting! I would likely have continued the blog more regularly if I’d expressly allowed myself to jot off quick entries just to describe my movements and activities.

So, what to do with this blog now? It’s the summer after my first year of my PhD program, and I’d like to shift this blog over time to reflect more of my experiences and thoughts in science and academia. Still, I’d like to try and broadly recap my trip over the next two months. I have some ideas on packing lists, train tickets, and experiences that are as salient today as they were a year ago that I’d still like to put out into the world. Also, a good friend of mine is also about to embark on a six week backpacking trip in almost the same countries before she also goes off to graduate school, so there’s some incentive for me to publish some of my tips and experiences. It’s also a way to escape the myopia of academia – after nine months spent essentially obsessing about biology, it’ll be nice to be reminded of the vastness of the world outside the tiny corners of science I’ve learned to occupy.