I’m Not Your Fucking Travel Guide

“Whether you’re going to Thailand to sit by the pool or blow trannies, I don’t care. Just don’t expect me to tell you how.”

Recently as I’ve been studying to get my commercial pilot’s licence and spending less time on my blog and writing in general, I’ve come to a realisation.

For the first time in a long while, I’ve been at arm’s length to my blog and not caught up in the anxiety of trying to promote and maximise everything. During this process I’ve been able to see why I became a writer and blogger in the first place.

One thing is for certain, I didn’t get started in this game to write shitty articles on the “5 things you must do in this particular capital city which already has 1,000 travel guides…” Or “How to get the most out of your weekend in X while only eating vegan food from biodegradable packaging” or some shit like that.

Yes yes I know. One shouldn’t swear when they have better literary devices available. However, this is my writing and I’m taking it back for myself so I’ll do what I want.

My newfound argument or point of view, however you prefer to phrase it, can be broken up into the two following points:

Travel Guides are for Idiots

A bit different to The Idiot’s Travel guide to X… you can take this statement with at least a few grains of sustainably mined pink himalayan rock salt.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of research, advice and brainstorming about a location that you’re heading to. However, we seem to think that the growth in travel blogs and online guides is somehow distinct and separate to the information overload we receive in everyday life.

Constant push notifications, bullshit news and social media is being rammed down our throats like an unwanted phallical update of everything we never needed to know. Most people are at least partially aware of the ridiculous amount of information inputs being thrust towards our brains, but we don’t seem to realise that the explosion in travel blogs and Insta travel porn is just as bad.

Working memory is dying and now that people are even losing the ability to remember directions in lieu of constantly being guided by Google Maps, we’re becoming far too reliant on being told what to do in new places.

What ever happened to the days when you would be armed with only a few foreign phrases, you would become lost for an entire day and eventually make it back to where you were staying before the doors were locked.

Travel was an education. An informal institution that would allow you to get lost while you found yourself. Now it’s just an opportunity to take photos of particular highlights to prove that you also went to the same places that your facebook frenemy went to last summer.

The best travel experiences come as a surprise and not by following a prescribed plan.

I’m proclaiming my own redundancy as a travel blogger. Put the phone down and get lost. That’s the only advice you could possibly need.

Planning is a Fools Game

I’ve always been a huge believer in, and practicer of goal setting.

If you want to achieve something with at least a small amount of certainty of the outcome, it’s important to focus on it and have at least small steps in place.

This could apply to setting a goal to being able to travel to your dream destination.

However, once you’re travelling, it’s a totally different story. We travel to have new experiences and to be surprised by the world.

If you want to have new experiences and be taken beyond your comfort zone, this concept is antithetical to planning.

Planning is amazing for many things but has often times been the killer of good travelling experiences.

My New Direction in Writing

Expect to see broken links, but less broken dreams as I pull down all the filler type, travel guide shit from my blog and other media sources. From now on, I’m writing for me and if you enjoy it too, well that’s an added bonus.

Whether you’re going to Thailand to sit by the pool or blow trannies, I don’t care. Just don’t expect me to tell you how.