Inspired by the world’s first travel blogger

The book store had just recovered from the busy Christmas shopping spree and had not that many books left, but thankfully I was not looking for Scandinavian “noir “ nor biographies about people in their 30s.

No, I needed a travel book, something to remind me of the outside world and how indifferent you, me and everyone is to the universe.

Sounds grim?

Well so is January in Iceland.

The book I chose that day after some careful evaluation was Travelogues: The Greatest traveler of his time 1892-1952.

I had heard the name of Burton Holmes about a year before. Burton was a Chicago born adventurer who traveled the world with his camera, coining the term “travelogue”. He financed his travels by selling tickets to his lectures which were based on his photography and also later, moving images that he shared with an audience all over the United States during the “roaring” 1920s.

He was basically the first travel blogger.

Burton Holmes traveled the world, that same world that you and I live and breathe in. But I found out that Holmes belonged to another era; a world that was.

That made me think.

Imagine, his first great voyage across the Atlantic took him months to prepare and plan how to get from Chicago to his first stop, Norway. Which at that time was very different from how it is now, required meticulous planning and took over 10 days for him to reach.

I could be in Norway before dinner if I wanted to.

Holmes crossed the Atlantic ocean and ten days later he jumped on land in Norway and had to rely on his research and planning. Holmes went to town, hired an interpreter, a local guide and set out to explore and experience, carefully documenting everything with his camera.

This lifestyle became his life’s work and he would travel further, to every corner of the world.

As technology developed he would return to Chicago and show his audience moving images of local people, like Bedouin horsemen, Japanese samurais. Buildings and landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal and European cities at their cultural peak in the world they belonged to, before the first war.

Before the world would try to annihilate itself twice.

One could imagine that Holmes saw every country in our world, and the reason I knew his name was because the first known footage of Reykjavík, my home town was shot by Holmes and his cameraman when they came by in 1926.