What will I pack?

     I am the type of person who would like to be prepared for everything. Luckily I will just be traveling around to different soccer stadiums, so all i will probably need is a backpack filled with some things while i am out and about. First things first I will obviously need clothes. Now the important part about my clothing selection is that on match day I should wear something of the home teams. If i do not want to get beer thrown on me by drunk fans having something that is part of the home team will be in my best interest. I could buy them at the team shop, but I would like to save some money so I will be doing some online shopping. Next thing I will pack is the essentials for personal hygiene. You need your toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, deodorant, and all the other wonderful stuff. Next thing I will pack is a couple pairs of comfortable shoes. If you do not have comfortable shoes then you will have a miserable time walking around everywhere. Also, I will be packing some indoor soccer shoes along with my cleats. Who knows whats going to happen in England, I could find myself playing some important games over seas.
      A rain jacket would be pretty essential in England. It seems to rain more often than not. Depending on the time that I do travel to England I could find myself wearing winter clothing. I would try to pack a soccer ball, but last time I heard about bringing a soccer ball on a trip where they have to check your bags it was a bad idea. So I am not sure if I want to do that. I will also pack my running shoes. I want to try and stay fit while I am over there. I do not think the walking will keep me in shape. One of the last things I will pack is a camera. I do not want to be taking crappy pictures with an iPhone camera. I want great pictures of each stadium so I can frame them in my house. You will not be able to do that with an iPhone camera at all.

Same but different

     The two travel styles that I want to point out are spiritual travel and border crosser's. They both have similarities and they both have their differences. While Iyer is spiritual travel there are many border crosser's like  Kapuscinski and Russel. Faithful travel will open the mind body and spirit while a border crosser might be more for the adrenalin junkies. I feel like people who want exciting travel will want to read about the border crosser's and the travel where they have gone to get a rush of adrenalin. Then the spiritual travelers want a more peaceful trip and relaxing trip to open their mind and get away for however long they want to.
      Now some similarities is that people of spiritual travel are still crossing borders. Iyer still has to cross into a place that in unknown to him just like the border crosser's do. Then the border crosser's do get a spiritual aspect out of their trip as well because at some point they will take a rest and just ponder upon what they are actually doing. It might not be spiritual, but during spiritual travel you want your mind to relax and that is what the border crosser's are going to do when they take their break. 
      As I stated before the border crosser's and the spiritual travelers have to travel to somewhere unknown or somewhere they have only read about. They both get different experiences out of their trips, but they do go to a place with a goal in mind. Whatever their goal is they both want to achieve it. I believe that during travel you want to have goals set up for yourself so you are just not wandering around everywhere. Now there is another type of travel like that where you put the books down and just take a map and wander around. That type of travel is more of a spiritual aspect to me, but it is a little different. Each type of travel has similarities and differences.To me spiritual and border crosser's both cross a border and those travelers have goals in mind to complete. Their differences are getting excitement out of the trip like the border crosser's and opening your mind like the spiritual traveler.    


 

Travel Borders

     I believe that all the writers that we have read about have crossed physical and mental borders, some that are harder than others. Then there are others who try to cross spiritual borders as well. Iyer is one of those travel writers that try to cross that spiritual border and he is one of my favorite writers from this class. Steves is another travel writer who crosses that spiritual border. Shukman had to cross a great physical and mental order when he traveled to Chernobyl. Seriously who would even want to go there? he had to have some great mental strength to even think about going there. To even go to a foreign place you have to overcome some great mental borders. You do not know very much about the place and you are going to travel to some place new.
     I believe that I am going to come across physical mental and spiritual borders. This summer I am going to Cancun with my family. That is going to be a very different experience for me and it is a physical border that I am going to have to cross. Now the mental border I might not have to cross because I see where we are staying and I am happy about free drinks. The spiritual border I might have to cross as well because I am going to have to determine if some of the shenanigans I could get into is ok.
     The one border that our writers have crossed and the border that I know I will have to cross is the physical border. It is as simple as stepping into a new country, but it can be as tough as jumping across a five foot break on a mountain where I could fall to my death. I hope I do not come to that point, but who knows what will happen. All of our writers have crossed that physical border and I know I have a lot more borders to cross before my time is up on this planet. 

The Competition

      I see benefits with a competition, but I also see some cons with a competition. Having a competition to see who gets the most outrageous trip can be very dangerous. If you want to have an outrageous trip you are going to have to push your limits as a person in your mind and your body. I do not think you can have an outrageous trip without pushing the limits. If you want a very interesting travelogue then it has to be something out of the ordinary.
       If you want your travelogue to be interesting you have to do something that has rarely been done. If you do something many people have done the people will read it and say "I know how this one ends already." Pushing the limits is dangerous. It can sometimes lead to death, but some people live for that excitement and actually live to see the next day, which is an amazing story to hear about. I'm sure some of you remember the guy who walked on a rope across the Grand Canyon. That is something amazing that everyone wants to see and read about. Now I know there is at least one person trying to do the same thing, but on a bigger stage and a harder course. If that person is not experienced enough then he could potentially die. That is what is dangerous about the competition.
        Competition fuels us as humans to be better than before. That's why America has some of the best athletes because we fuel each other by trying to be better than everyone else. If we did not have competition we would be settling for boring normal lives. competition is very important in our lives and it would make a great travelogue if you do something out of the ordinary, but pushing the limits too far is very dangerous.

Humor

     I do believe that humor is important in travel writing. I think that everyone does enjoy a little humor while they are reading up on something important. It is always nice to put humor in all things, but it does have to be used at the right time and in the right context. I think it is hilarious to have someone write something tragic that happened, but then throw some humor in there to make people laugh and let the readers know everything was fine. Comic relief is very important in writing. It can make your piece more appealing to your readers and make them want to read even more of your travel writing log.
     Some pros to having humor is that it can make your piece more appealing and get more people to read about your experience. If it is not used in the right context it could make some people angry with you though, so that is a con to having humor. Another pro to having humor is that people will have more drive to experience something that you experienced. You can make someone want to go travel to the places that you have been to see if they can see something you did. One more con with humor would be that if you make remarks about a certain country or place then that could turn some people off on your writing. Leave making fun of countries to the comedians.
     Humor has always been an important aspect in my life. I always seek out humor in all situations no matter what it is. I am always a guy that tries to lighten a situation up by saying something funny and sometimes it does not work, but I am okay with it. As long as i try to make someone feel better or a group of people feel better about a situation I am happy. With travel writing you can make a lot of people travel to a certain place that those people feel skeptical about from the start. Using humor in travel writing is important and I think everyone should use it. I understand that some situations need to be taken seriously, but people do need to find humor in some things as well

Border crosser's

     They both do cross a border, a border that they have never crossed before. They both go to places they have never seen or experienced before. One is going for politics and the other is simply going there as a writer. Kapuscinski is very nervous when he heard he was going to India and he never thought he would be the one chosen to go there. "The editor in chief was summoning me to her office. "You know," she said, as I stood before her desk, he are sending you. You'll go to India" My first reaction was astonishment And right after that, panic: I knew nothing about India. I feverishly searched my thoughts for some associations, images. names. Nothing. Zero." He did not know very much about India. He also did not know where or what to start writing about when he got there. "During all those days after my arrival in Delhi I was tormented by the thought that I was not working as a reporter, that I was not gathering material for the stories that I would later have to write... But I found myself emptyhanded. and feeling incapable of doing anything, at a loss even to know where to begin. I knew nothing about India, after all, and hadn't asked for it."
     Russel was comparing Bosnia to her home town a little saying that not everybody has it as well as that town does. She was saying that Bosnia was in worse shape then Dublin and that is why she went to Bosnia. I believe that Russel is crossing the border of near death and it is scary for her. "It's not normal for violence and death to walk hand in hand in the sunshine. Sunny days are for picnics, for lying in the long grass, for taking a bottle of water and setting out to walk across a bog. But then this is not a normal world." As she stated it is not a normal country because there has been not much peace in Bosnia just a bunch of fighting.
     I think both borders matter to me. The border of near death is pretty scary I want to know what is going on in a country before I go and visit it. I want some sort of protection with me as well. As for crossing the border of not knowing much about a country I need to do some research on where I would be visiting. I know my family is going somewhere for vacation out of the U.S, this summer so once I figure out where we are going I am for sure doing some research about that country and checking the ratings on the hotel.

Journal 4

     One source I would use would be from Twain's piece "Roughing It." "I only proposed to stay in Nevada for three months. I had no thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I  could that was new and strange, and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end of that three-month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years" (Pg.2). I want to go someplace different and plan to see a bunch of sites. I do want to see something that makes me want to stay longer than what I originally planned. I do not think that I would want to stay a place for seven years, but staying a month when I only planned for a couple weeks would be nice. I want to see all the English Premier League stadiums and that would take almost a month if I saw one every day. If I go there I feel like I would need to go to different places long the way as well. I would probably want to experience some night life around the town and go to different pubs and watch some games. I want to find something that I have never seen before that makes me want to stay in some place for longer than I had planned.
      "Abroad is the place where we stay up late, follow impulse and find ourselves as wide open as when we are in love. We live without a past or future, for a moment at least, and are ourselves up for grabs and open to interpretation" (Iyer, pp. 13). I would want to stay up late knowing I would have to go to the next town to see another stadium, but the interest of the night life in England would keep me up. Maybe I will stay up late when I would go to the less interesting stadiums. I would have to plan my trip accordingly because I know the nights in Newcastle get pretty crazy and I do not want to miss that. Now my worry about being open is saying something about a soccer match to some Englishman and pushing the wrong buttons in a pub. All of England is really passionate about their soccer teams and I could be a little critical of their teams play sometimes. I do not play professional soccer and I know it is very hard, but some of the plays they make are just inexcusable. They often have you say "I could have made that play."  I do want to get lost in all the history that happened at some of these stadiums and I would be very excited to see The Old Trafford. 

Traveler Vs. Tourist

    I believe that there is a distinct difference between a traveler and a tourist. Iyer says "We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate" (Iyer, pg 1, 2015). As a traveler they tend to get lost in the culture. As a tourist they tend to pick out spots they want to see and that is all they do. They do not go out and explore because they often do not know the terrain. Like we said in class a traveler could adapt to the culture and make a bed out of anything. The tourist needs to have a bed ready for them because they are too afraid to go figure out whats actually out there. The traveler does often lose them self in the culture and the views of the world while the tourist does get lost in the beauty of certain things they do not see everything that deals with where they go and tour.
      In the first section of Twain's piece he seems excited to travel. "I never had been away from home, and that word 'travel' had a seductive charm for me" (Twain, pg. 1-2). Travelers always seem to have that excited feeling when they go to a new place. They are eager to learn about a new culture and a new piece of land. Just like Twain was because he had never been away from home. Some tourists seem to drag their feet when they are going on a trip. I can speak of that from experience. I went to Gettysburg a while back and was not excited about it at all. I wanted to stay home. I did not know anything about the place other than it was a big war zone. Now looking back at the experience I can appreciate everything I saw there. It was truly an amazing place to be. I feel like tourists do not understand that sometimes and do not appreciate where they are actually at while the travelers certainly do.
     In the beginning of Steve's' video he says that he encourages people to become "temporary locals." I feel like the tourists do not do that. The tourists see what they want to see and get out. The travelers can get lost in the culture and stay for a while. Sometimes they see something they like and stay for a longer period that they expected. Those are some of the differences I see between the traveler and tourist. I am sure there are many more as well.

Journal #2

     I believe that Roughing It certainly describes Primeau's idea that Americans have treated the high way as their sacred place, in the pre-interstate times of course. While I was reading Roughing It I noticed that Mark Twain was always excited when he was traveling. The way he described his travels was always in the exciting fashion. If we are going on a true road trip like from Ohio to Florida we are going to have some exciting stories that we are going to tell. We will also have those boring times on the road trip that no one will ever know about though too. Mark Twain told the more interesting stories on his road trip and what he brought. We make a list of things to bring on road trips just like they had to back then so they would not forget anything. It was more important for them not to forget anything because now we can just buy things that we forget depending on the price.

     Mark Twain met people on his road trip in Roughing It just like we will meet other people on our road trips unless you do not like people at all and avoid conversation. The point is that we are going to meet some nice people on the road that we can be ourselves around and have a good time just like Mark Twain did while he was out on the road. We are going to have travelers alongside us to have a conversation with to keep our sanity. They will not be strangers like Mark Twain had to deal with, but there will be people that you can laugh and joke around with. Being yourself is like being in your sacred place only certain people see it and those should be the people you travel with.

     Today an abundance of people get lost in their own thoughts on the highway especially if it is just a long straight road where nobody is around you. I even did it today thinking back to my high school days while traveling home to visit my parents and brother. I was listening to J. Cole as well and he will defiantly get you thinking about life. Traveling is about getting lost in the scenery and having fun while doing it. In Roughing It  Twain does get lost in traveling and tells us all about his experiences with other travelers and him explaining his hardships. We do treat the highway as a sacred place because that is often when we are traveling and get caught up in our thoughts while looking at the scenery. 

travel writing journal #1

Michael Dudics

1/23/15

Ron Scott

Journal #1

Travel Writing

I believe that there are many reasons why we read Herodotus in a travel writing class. One reason is what we discussed in class today. It has to deal with getting more in depth with your writing so that others can actually visualize themselves being in the spot that you were. You want to let other people know what to expect when they travel to the places that you have traveled. If you are not very descriptive with your writing the person might not know what they are getting themselves into.

Another reason why we read about Herodotus is to get an insight on how a great travel writer like Herodotus writes. For rookie travel writers they need to gain an understanding on how to travel write. One of those ways is to read blogs and brochures about the places you want to travel. Once you do travel you can throw your own twist on what you have experienced. The start of travel writing should be reading a professional travel writers blog or articles to get a sense of how to actually write like a travel writer. Herodotus is one of the best travel writers and that is why we read about his experiences.

Herodotus has traveled to many places and experienced many different environments. I think that we read his pieces because it shows that if people want to experience something different and enjoyable they should travel. There are a lot of experiences people are missing out on because they just want to sit at home. Herodotus writes so well that it can get people inspired to go travel and write about their experiences. Of course not all travel experiences will be enjoyable and some may be very hard to experience, but that is why you travel to experience it and gain an understanding of different cultures. If you become knowledgeable about different cultures you can educate everyone else about that culture. Herodotus does a great job describing his experiences and inspiring people to travel and that is another reason why we travel.

One point that we brought up in class was about soft travelers. The travelers that should not go to certain places because they might not be emotionally sound in those certain places. Some of the places that Herodotus traveled to would be places that soft travelers should not go to. If we travel to places and become an experienced travel writer we need to make sure we warn people about places that some people wont be equipped to go to.