I love reading travel journals and blogs!
My favorite travel journals are the ones where people step past the usual tourist thing of describing their train trip and complaining about the hotel food and the crappy accommodation; I look for the journals where people try to capture a sense of time and place.

I want to get a taste and a smell from travellers’ writing; I want to have a sense of intimacy, both with the traveller and with the destination. But it goes further… I also want to feel a connection with the people that the traveller has visited. I want to glimpse their world and grasp those little things that make it unique; their customs, their language, the way they connect with their families and communities.

The great thing about blogs is their immediacy and universality. I can read my favorite travellers as soon as they post, from anywhere in the world. Fantastic!

But I just love to flick through an old fashioned paper journal, with trinkets, tickets, scraps of paper and menus, things that you can touch and smell, pages that gradually yellow and curl at the corners as the months and years slip by and remind us of the precious and enduring nature of our memories.

My friend and his family just spent 4 months in Greece and they kept the most divine blog that was an absolute joy to read. Man! It was whimsical, joyful, emotional…and it connected me with a time and place and a people whose customs and way of life are inexorably tied to their own advancing years.
For all the beautiful writing, I came away thinking a single, recurring thought…”will this ancient way of life endure once the older generation pass on?”

THAT’s the reason I love travel journals, for that rare, intimate and incredibly personal connection.

So I’m going to connect through to my favorite travel journals; I want to share the ones that work for me, I want to somehow preserve them for as long as possible and I want Macaroni readers to get the same enjoyment out of them as I do.

Here’s a gorgeous story from Jessica, guest blogging at My Melange. She talks about how she first fell in love with Italy…Aah, writing like this makes my heart sing! It’s a real gift to be able to use words so perfectly, to paint such an evocative picture of time and place. Beautiful!

Check these favorites out.
Live Cheap & Make Art - brilliant, personal photography…and a magic, joyous, poetic, perfect story!
My Melange - a funky mix of travel, cooking and rich, dripping, romantic culture. Fabulous!
WhyGo Italy - a travel website jammed full of information. A real goldmine!