Defining the field

The thing about librarians (although I prefer Information Scientist) is that we have an innate drive to organize, categorization and define things. Travel writing is no exception. And so, without further ado here's my first attempt:

Definition: Travel writing is a broad category of writing concerned with various aspects of travel.

Types of travel writing:

• Travel guides - ala Rick Steeves, Lonely Planet, Fodors
• Travel books - think Paul Theroux.
• Travel literature- books about places or trips, generally from an outsiders perspective. The work must have a coherent narrative, or insights and value, beyond a mere logging of dates and events - Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail exemplifies the type. As he walks the Appalachian Trail Bryson talks not just about the trail highlights, but about it's challenges, the people, the meaning of the AT, and America's and his own relationship with wilderness.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it's travel literature that draws me. Books where the place is an important character within the author's journey from ignorance to knowledge. Place, setting, location - go a long way to forming who we are, for some even more than their social setting. Going somewhere else, i.e. traveling, exposes us to other places, other potentials of who we could be, even as it exposes us to who we are based upon where we've lived. I never realized how American I was until I went to Europe, never knew that the dense forests of New England kept my perspective local, until I hiked in the Southwest deserts, never felt Connecticut's reserve until coming to a four way stop in Iowa and waiting for everyone to signal everyone else through. There are some writers who can convey this - and those are the ones I like to read.