Wanderlust

This project has encouraged me to think of the relationship between travel blogs and travel writing and how this online form has affected the writing style of travel narratives in general. Through the research of secondary sources and the inclusion of analyses towards a few exemplar travel blogs, we can see that travel blog writing has transformed our traditional modes of communication, both written and oral. This is demonstrated in addressing the characteristics associated with blogging as well as the unique features that can only be found in travel blogs. For example, the motivation for travel blogging being voluntary which can illustrate the intentions of travel writing as not always being related to the tourist industry. The format of travel writing has also been transformed since the internet has allowed flexibility for its authors to have options that offer you a multitude of themes that present the content in different ways.

For instance, I used Postach.io and Evernote to present this material in travel blog fashion. Postach.io is still a new platform in the blogosphere, therefore there are a few technical issues that need to be addressed in order for it to become more widely used among bloggers. One of my biggest obstacles was how I cannot arrange my posts in chronological order. On Evernote, I am able to change the order of my notes in various ways but Postach.io does not allow these changes to transfer onto their website. It is difficulties such as this one that have commonly occurred between the two platforms, especially since Evernote is an older platform and has fewer errors whereas Postach.io is brand new. However, I still encountered some problems with Evernote. One of the main issues is how you need a reliable internet connection in order to save your progress while you are writing on the platform. There have been instances where my internet connection was weak and Evernote was unable to automatically save the content therefore all the new writing would be erased as soon as the page refreshed itself. A lot of technical difficulties were experienced throughout the construction of this project, but these are a few of those issues that were most persistent.

Overall, engaging with a new and unfamiliar platform added experiential knowledge to the project. For the most part, I understood the concept of travel blogs through my experience in creating one and additional secondary research assisted in the clarification of certain grey areas in that matter. However, to manually insert the written aspect of the project onto this website I was encouraged to think more about travel blogs’ interface and design. I found the presentation of my work to have equal importance to the content itself. Pictures and the formatting of one’s writing affect the reception of the travel blog. Therefore, I was adamant about how Postach.io presents my project because I want to make the definition of travel blogs to be as clear to my audience as possible.

In conclusion, I hope this project has influenced you to think about travel blogs in a different way and to encourage you to take a closer look at how travel writing is produced in this method.

The introduction and increase of online diaries introduces new terminology into the digital humanities research field in terms of how we study online culture and blog content. Examples of new terminology are "digital ethnography, a research method focused on telling social stories", netnography or netblography, which analyzes first person online stories while also collecting data from tourists in order to understand their consumption during their travels. And lastly, technobiography is a “method for studying digital experiences in general, and the relationship between online and offline lives" by “examining online lives in offline contexts" (Banyai & Glover 274).

However, the two common analytic methods that researchers use towards travel blogs is content and narrative analysis, according to Banyai and Glover's research. Content analysis looks at the activities performed at a destination, the positive and negative outlook of the destination, the overall impression of the destination, the demographics of the author, and identity creation in terms of being in that destination (Banyai & Glover 269). Narrative analysis involves gaining insight into tourist-constructed identities, how they associate with their experiences, how they identity the temporal and spatial aspects of the trip, characteristics of travel experience, and deconstructs the story into quotes and episodes in order to “examine the involvement of technologized storytelling in the creation and manifestation of identities" (Banyai & Glover 271). I will apply the different characteristics from both analyses to complement my own analysis of the following three travel blogs: "Studying Abroad in Birmingham, England", "Travelling the World Solo", and "12hrs".

Demographics:

I am a 22-year-old female from Richmond Hill, Canada. However, my blog does not address this through a profile or 'about me' section. The only indication of my age group is through my title, "Studying Abroad in Birmingham, England: An exchange student from the University of Guelph". This title does not make my age or identification completely clear to my readers and I believe that a lack of this information affects the relationship between the author and readers. As previously mentioned, blogs create a sense of community and if the readers have no access to who the person is behind the blog, it creates distance and makes it more difficult to establish a community.

Layout:

I chose to use WordPress as my digital platform because I found their format easy to write in as well as useful to create a simple design for my website. My theme focuses on pictures in terms of illustrating the images found in my weekly posts into a grid format. In order for the reader to view a blog post, they would have to click on the desired picture. This emphasis on pictures demonstrates how travel writing is commonly complemented with the usage of photos, which can include the blogger in them, and can explain their travel experience in a way other than with words. In my actual blog entries, the writing is fragmented into small sections that are usually separated by a photo that illustrates an attraction or moment that was mentioned in that fragment. This choice of presentation exemplifies how travel writing can branch from lists or prose into a combination of the two, short sections of writing. I find that short blurbs of text encourage the writer to identify the main point of the narrative. With longer prose, I tend to ramble about insignificant travel details that can diminish the main experience I am trying to retell to my readers. For example, in my week 6 post I ramble in the beginning about how I have an unexpected reading week which leads me to talk about the excitement in having a month for Easter break. The point of the blog was to illustrate my first time travelling outside of England on my own. By not conforming to my usual short fragments I discussed mundane details that did not contribute to that experience.

Overall Content:

A lot of the content focuses on cultural experiences throughout my study abroad semester. There are a lot of pictures and descriptions about food, monuments, and other touristic activities. However, I excluded my shopping trips which I find to have taken up a significant amount of my trip. Souvenirs were always on my radar and while visiting monuments, I tend to find souvenirs for both myself and friends. This decision to exclude the commercial element of my travels portrays how online travel writing does not always have to include commercialism. I voluntarily created my travel blog therefore I had no desire to advertise products or companies because I was not being paid for it.

Style/Tone:

The writing style is informal in comparison to entries that I have written in actual notebooks. This decision can suggest that I find online blogging to be a more relaxing and lenient space in comparison to notebooks that are filled with lines and structure, which gives me the impression that I need to be more formal and serious with my writing. In relation to this, WordPress allows me to include “emojis" into my writing which has encouraged me to use them more as my travel blogs progressed, and can also contribute to the suggested informal environment.

Demographics:

A 22-year-old female who resides in Adelaide, Australia is indicated through the author’s inclusion of a ‘bio’ which is displayed in a list of links at the top of the website, as well as a preview of this profile in the right column under the recent blog posts. This openness to her identity that the author makes accessible for her readers shows how she wants to connect with them on a personal level. In order for readers to gain the full travel experience, it helps to know who the traveller is because the environment can alternate the traveller’s identity. As mentioned in narrative analysis, tourists can construct new identities when going to another country and the author’s decision to make her profile visible allows readers to create their own judgements about whether this rings true.

Layout:

Her blog is also constructed using WordPress, but uses a different theme in comparison to my own. Her layout presents the links bar in a clearer way and makes it easy for the reader to look for her bio, trips completed in other continents, and travel tips. However, the layout relies on pictures as the first impression, which is similar to how my theme functions. The reader would have to click on a photo in order to read the related content. The travel blog content is interestingly set beside other modes of communication, such as a link to her Instagram, Twitter, Facebook page, and biography. This illustrates how the inclusion of other social networks is integral into presenting your travel experience, words are not the only mode of communication that we need to rely on. The blog content is separated into smaller fragments which are also separated by photos from the trip. However, the photos act as prompts for the following sentences, whereas I would place my photos after I describe them to the audience. This layout decision illustrates how the readers can make their own first impressions of the photo. If the audience is exposed to the photo after the author’s interpretation, the reader’s impression can be biased and consequently takes away a part of the travel experience.

Overall Content:

The overall content focuses on the activities and sights that the author endures throughout her trip. What was most intriguing to me about the blog posts was at the end, it included a list of travel products used in the duration of the trip. This includes the clothing worn in the photos, the travel agencies used to create the trip, the cost of the trip, and the type of cameras used. This illustrates how consumerism is a huge influence in travel writing. Travel blogs are a mainstream distribution channel where a large audience can be reached so advertising other products and companies would be an effective marketing tool. This shows how describing one’s travel experience is not the only aspect when it comes to travel writing.

Style/Tone:

The author’s writing style is formal in terms of having complete sentences, zero emojis, and proper grammar and syntax. Travel blogs vary in how their content is portrayed, from bullet point lists to random observations in no sense of order, but her writing resonates with the kind of writing you find in books or journals. However, it does not exclude playful tone, which is portrayed in posts such as her Greenland trip when she encountered “HUSKY PUPPIES!".

Demographics:

There is no biography included in the blog, but it does include a ‘contact’ tab as well as a link to their Facebook page which describes it as a local/travel website and can imply that it is a business-related travel blog. However, if the user scrolls down to the bottom of the contact page, it says “MADE WITH LOVE BY ANNA PEUCKERT & SØREN JEPSEN". This is the only indication available to readers about who the creators are. When I first encountered the website, I discovered the authors completely by mistake. This discreteness shows how the blog can be impersonal, readers do not have access to who the authors are or what they look like. Their photos appear to be professional therefore only include models, and not themselves. The Facebook page also does not present viewers with their personal Facebook accounts. This privacy can show how travel blogs can be as anonymous as they want to be.

Layout:

This is a professional travel blog and is presented using their own website, unlike the previous two blogs using WordPress as their platform. The blog content is portrayed in a variety of ways; there are travel guides, newsletters, photo stories, and journals. This implies that an audience can prefer to read about travel experiences in other ways than just writing. These options provide different approaches for sharing travel experiences. The guides act as the travel blog where the authors write about their daily routine for a specific city. For example, in their Copenhagen guide, it is similar in style to the previous two travel blogs by presenting images and then blurbs that describe the image.

Overall Content:

They also include information about the attraction as well as a link for the reader to refer to if they are interested in adding it to their own itineraries. It presents a similar consumerism atmosphere as the previous blog, but a unique feature about the guides is that they include the time that they performed each routine. It focuses on temporality in a different way other than presenting a date or the number of the week when this trip occurred. In terms of their journal entries, they include descriptions of commercial establishments. For example, their “Lidkoeb" post is about a bar where they include the address, hours of operation, and brief history in how the bar was created. This venture puts a different spin on the definition of journals. I associate journals with personal memoirs and inclusion of information that pertains to the individual, I never would have associated it with advertisements. Therefore, travel blogs can be interpreted with various meanings, such as promoting a favourite bar, and does not have a strict format or guideline in how a travel experience can be interpreted by its authors.

Style/Tone:

Overall, the writing style is formal and includes business-related terminology. Their guides still refer to the ‘personal’ when they say “We are starting our day in..." but revert to commercialism by including restaurant names along with the prices of certain meals, such as “Breakfast bowls start at only 35 DKK". This choice of style and tone indicates a push-and-pull relationship between the author and readers. A glimpse into the ‘personal’ through their daily routine builds on the relationship with their readers but is cut short with commercial statements that can deconstruct this relationship. Readers can be treated as customers when reading through these posts and offer a different perspective in how readers can be implied by travel blog writers.

Travel writing’s main purpose is to introduce us to the concept of the "Other", as well as how we engage the Self with the world (Calzati 2). This is portrayed through personal thoughts and commentaries on a destination, personal travel stories, and details of the trips, such as daily routines (Akehurst 54). One unique writing style that I tend to use for my travel blogs, but not for any other writing, is the “Hemingway" style as described in https://draftin.com. I type all of my thoughts at once without pausing to backtrack and fix grammatical errors because I feared that I would forget small details the longer I waited to write them all down. This is one advantage of the internet because I can type my sentences faster than I can hand write.

A typical travel blog is an electronic first-person story that includes individual entries pertaining to planned, current, or past travel plans that are linked together to a common theme, such as 'Travels to England'. A travel blog can be seen as similar to online diaries since it is commonly written by tourists to notify friends and family of their experience (Banyai & Glover 268). This brings up another characteristic of a travel blog that I prefer over handwritten postcards or writing in a travel journal, you are able to broadcast your travel experiences to a large audience through the use of one platform, such as WordPress. You do not have to create multiple versions of writing and then send them to different places, a travel blog allows you to post it in one location which you can distribute to as many people as you want.

Travel blogs are mostly written voluntarily by fellow travellers. Your publication typically does not give you profit, unlike travel guides or other travel literature found in bookstores. Bloggers are able to choose when and what to write and how they want their content to be displayed. It can be as unstructured as they want it to be, but usually conforms to a chronological order at least (Panteli et al. 366). Travel blog websites also allows travel blogs to include “comments, suggestions, advice, directions, maps, photos and videos, links to related web sites and to external information, links to other travelers, RSS, trackbacks, taglines, archives, permanent links and blogrolls" (Vrana & Zafropoulos 596), which can explain how travel writing can be seen as a hypertext. The inclusion of multimedia and other features to travel blog content permit readers the ability to refer to outside sources to comprehend one’s travels. The content is not just limited to the blogger’s perspective because we can view the photos and videos and make our own interpretations of these various travel destinations. However, word-of-mouth communication and tangible travel writing materials can only provide us with the speaker or author’s point of view and experience, which can be limiting to the audience in terms of comprehending travel experiences in objective ways.

A disadvantage of travel blogging is that it becomes a chore to regularly update your web log and can often lead to the content remaining static for months (Akehurst 57). I have personally experienced this with my own blog where I originally thought that weekly posts would be an easy task. After a few weeks, I started to get bored with the whole idea of a travel blog and found that some of my travel experiences were ones that I have experienced for myself and grew too lazy to share with others. Going to visit a famous monument such as the Stonehenge is a prime example. I feel like reiterating my initial thoughts and feelings about the experience can be insincere and consequently discourage me from including it in my blog. However, despite these initial feelings, I continued to voluntarily write the rest of my blog until the end of my exchange trip. This experience illustrates how blogs, especially travel blogs have a short life span (Akehurst 56). Every trip has an end and once you reach your home country, there is no purpose in continuing the blog. Once I returned to Canada, I ceased to post new content to my blog despite going on other travels later in the summer. I created my travel blog with the intent of including experiences from my study abroad semester and once that was fulfilled, I found the blog to be complete.

In addition Chen et al. state how “a blog can be seen as an asynchronous and many-to-many channel for conveying travel-related electronic word-of-mouth" (787). We used to view travel agencies and country representatives as a main method for retrieving information about travel advice, however travel blogs have transformed that for us. It acts as a digitized word-of-mouth device. This notion is supported by travel sites such as www.tripadvisor.com and www.travelpod.com, which provides a space for experienced travellers to include “diaries of travel experiences". This illustrates how a non-typical blogging website can include elements of travel blogging. But most importantly, some travel book publications have expanded onto the internet, the most famous example being www.lonelyplanet.com, which started out as a single travel guide book in 1975 and expanded into a series and then a webpage where users can include their own travel stories in travel blog form (Akehurst 54).

In the 1990s, many popular travel blog websites such as www.travelblog.org were created (Akehurst 54). Today, travel blogs account for approximately 20% out of the hundred million blogs (Banyai & Glover 267). It is important to note that travel blogs differ from posts made on virtual communities, such as Facebook, and review sites, like TripAdvisor, based on their communication scope. Virtual communities promote the exchange of information through networks, whereas review sites promote qualitative and quantitative reviews of travel products. However, travel blogs “are online diaries and stories meant to provide information and engage the reader in the travel experience" (Banyai & Glover 268). This observation illustrates how digital platforms can have distinct effects on writing and its distribution of information since they provide different spaces for writing as well as layouts of the information. The focus of Facebook is on status updates and photos. I use this platform to document my own travels through status updates on my current location, where I am able to ‘check in’ at a variety of locations, or photo uploads with the occasional short blurb for a subtitle. Thus, Facebook has transformed travel writing to remain as short fragments and to rely on other multimedia to chronicle our travels. In regards to review sites such as TripAdvisor, I also used it during my travels but more so for the comments about restaurants or to add additional places to my itinerary. I believe this platform is used more for the quantitative aspect of travelling where you can write posts about your own travels but in terms of hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Websites such as TripAdvisor has transformed travel writing in a way where it can solely focus on tourism and products, as well as a way to promote particular destinations to other travellers. However, websites such as WordPress, which can be used for travel blog purposes, is a place that allows me to write an extensive amount of information about my travels in a variety of ways. Not only can I show all of the places that I have been to through status updates or photos, or the restaurants and museums I have frequented because of reviews, but I am able to incorporate all of these things as well as philosophical thoughts and other miscellaneous details about my trip.

Travel blogs differ in their content, target audience, and approaches (Chen et al. 788). For instance, my travel blog is personal therefore all of the content is user-generated, whereas corporate blogs are created by professional bloggers for commercial purposes. Nonetheless, “travel blogs reflect the linear nature of travel itself. There is a beginning, middle, and end to any trip" (Pudliner 54). The blog content reflects the traveller’s interaction with objective tourism products and the kind of meanings that they assign to them (Banyai & Havitz 235). These characteristics can also be found in travel writing books and this shows how travel writing online still holds true to the foundation of travel writing as a genre. However, there are characteristics possessed by travel blogs that differ from traditional travel writing, especially in its intent to form communities and to be interactive while also informal in their use of language, and thus are more geared towards creating a collective knowledge rather than an isolated personal expression of experience, which travel writing tends to associate with (Panteli et al. 366).

“The internet has opened up and improved communications, distribution channels, and transactions in ways which could not have been imagined even at the beginning of the 2000s"

(Akehurst 51-52)

Photo taken in Birmingham, England

The increase in social networking has influenced how people communicate and share information with others (Banyai & Glover 267). If we are to think of the traditional modes of communication, face-to-face interaction or handwritten notes, we can observe how different these modes of communication are in comparison to online communication. For example, face-to-face communication can only be accomplished with those in our current vicinity. Writing and other handwritten artifacts can be distributed to a wider range of people, through letters and postcards that can be mailed to different regions. Writing can also be portrayed in books which can be circulated to stores throughout the world as well. However, both of these mediums require a period of time before they can be received by another party. In comparison, the internet offers a solution to this temporal issue regarding the delay of receiving a message. We are capable of disseminating information, in a global context, with a push of the button that takes a matter of seconds. The internet has not only changed writing and how we distribute information, but has redefined the meaning of a personal diary (Banyai & Glover 274), which many people choose to illustrate through blogs.

In 1997, the term ‘weblogs’ came into being, which has now been abbreviated to ‘blogs’ (Akehurst 52). There are approximately a total of 102 million blogs on the web, with 175 000 new blogs being added each day (Akehurst 54). About 70% of all blogs account for personal journal types (Chen et al. 788). These statistics illustrate how we now turn to the internet as a medium where we chronicle our lives. “The author defines weblogs and the act of blogging as the compilation and construction of lists in relative links, personal commentary, observations and filtering of pertinent web content by the website author" (Pudliner 47) and most importantly, “encompasses social and psychological aspects such as group norms and the personality of the blogger" (Panteli et al. 366). Panteli et al. also state how blogs are hybrid since they include social interaction while simultaneously allowing the bloggers to control their communication space in terms of what and how to write and how frequently they will make contributions to their blog. Blogs can also be interactive by allowing their readers to post comments and give feedback to the writer (Akehurst 54). This comment feature can be seen as similar to the function of a discussion forum, which is all about sharing experience. It is this inclusion of the audience and the bloggers’ consciousness of their audience that introduces the social aspect into the bloggers’ individual thought process (Panteli et al. 365). This hybridity is what makes blogs so different from your typical journal or diary. Journaling is always seen as an individual process where the writer is the only audience. There is this isolated thought process where the writer would not get any feedback on their thoughts, whereas in blogs it is all about sharing information with others.

Blogs have become a popular form of digital writing among many internet users. One of the most popular are travel blogs. Travel blogs have carved out a place of their own in the blogosphere, generating their own customs and tropes. I have engaged in travel blogging through my own study abroad experience at the University of Birmingham, which explains my intense interest in the subject. While thinking about travel blogs as a form of digital writing, a question comes to my mind, “how have travel blogs transformed traditional modes of communication, specifically face-to-face conversations about travel and travel writing, as a form of digital writing?"

As previously mentioned, travel blogs are a distinct form of blogging, so “what are its features and how do they contribute to this substantive question?" I will address these questions through the integration of secondary sources throughout my blog posts, as well as various analyses of several travel blogs to complement the academic content. These blogs include my personal blog, “Studying Abroad in Birmingham, England" (https://notallthosewhowanderarelost2015.wordpress.com/), a blog that I personally follow, named “Travelling the World Solo" (https://wwellend.wordpress.com/), and a professional travel blog called “12hrs" (http://www.12hrs.net/). My research, analyses, and comments regarding this project will be portrayed in a similar fashion to that of travel blogs. This will include a fragmented writing style in chronological order (if my digital platform will allow it), the inclusion of multimedia wherever applicable, as well as other features that will be mentioned later on in the project.

Therefore I will illustrate how travel blogs include social aspects to build a community, present travel experience in different forms of writing, and include multimedia sources to portray travel writing as a hypertext.