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Latest News from TravelJournaling.com
Just Announced: Travel Journaling Safari in Botswana!
 Looking
for a unique adventure? In January, 2010, Dave Fox author of Globejotting:
How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time
to enjoy your trip!) is teaming up with African
Wildlife Expert Bill Given for a writing safari through rural Botswana.
Say hi to the lions, elephants, and wildebeests; discover the culture
of the Kalahari Bushmen; and learn how to write about your experiences
in vivid detail!
On most mornings and late afternoons, Bill
will lead game drives in the Kalahari Bush and Okavango Delta regions
in search of Botswana's diverse wildlife. During the heat of the
day, when the animals are snoozing, Dave will teach journaling and
essay writing classes to help you capture your adventures in personal
travel diaries or essays you can publish. We'll sleep in environmentally-friendly
luxury camps, and travel between game reserves in small planes or
land vehicles. This one-of-a-kind excursion is open to travel journalers
and essayists of all skill levels. (Beginners are welcome!) Space
is limited to 12 participants. Find
Out More....
Travel Journaling
and Essay Writing Classes
To learn about Dave Fox's travel journaling
and essay writing classes and tours, or to hire him to speak to
your group, please visit the Classes
page on his main website, or subscribe
to Dave's free e-mail list.
Globejotting
is Here!
 Several
years in the making, Dave Fox's new book about how to write more
meaningful and exciting travel journals has arrived! Globejotting:
How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time
to enjoy your trip!) teaches
you how to write travel diaries that capture your journeys in vivid
detail... and how to simply find time to write when there's so much
else to do in the middle of an exciting vacation. Packed
with innovative techniques, fun exercises, excerpts from Dave's
own travel diaries, and a hefty dose of his irreverent humor, Globejotting
will help you bring your travel journaling to a higher level and
keep you entertained at the same time. Find
Out More....
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Welcome!
 Every
journey has two parallel experiences — the external, in which we
observe the world around us, and the internal, in which we visit new places
within ourselves. When we weave these two journeys together through our
writing, we end up with vivid accounts of our trips — keepsakes that
help us remember our travels for years to come. A travel journal is the
ultimate souvenir.
The word, "souvenir," comes from the French verb
for "to remember." A souvenir is a memory. What do we usually
think of when we think of souvenirs? I think of the T-shirt vendors who
hang out outside the Colosseum in Rome. For five euros (or the equivalent
in US dollars or Japanese yen), they'll sell you a T-shirt with a sketch
by Michaelangelo or a picture of the Colosseum. Tourists go crazy over
these cheap "souvenirs." They think they're a bargain. Then
they take them home, put them in the washing machine, toss them in the
drier, and when they take them out, their souvenir shirts have shrunk
so much, they won't even fit a cat. And we call that a memory?
Travel journals don't shrink. They endure. They help our
journeys resonate in our minds for years to come.
When people travel, one of the most important items on their
packing list — second only to clean underwear — is usually a
camera. We travel to new places and we want to bring back memories. I
have always loved photography, but on a trip several years ago, I realized
that my camera wasn't enabling me to document the full experience of my
travels. Taking pictures deals exclusively with what we see. When we journal,
on the other hand, we can write down all of our senses — not only
what we see, but also what we hear, smell, taste, feel, and so on. We
can describe the people we meet and the places we visit. And more importantly,
whereas photography allows us only to look outward, in a travel journal,
we can also capture what's going on in our mind.
This website is designed to help you get more out of your
travel journaling. After you read through the articles here, there are
travel journaling exercises you can try at home to help you practice,
and hone your writing skills before your next trip.
The articles here are rough drafts from my new book. Globejotting:
How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (And Still Have Time to Enjoy
Your Trip) is published by Inkwater Press. Autographed
copies are available from this website and at great book stores
everywhere. (If your local bookseller doesn't have it in stock, they can
special-order copies through the Partners, and Baker & Taylor book
distributors.)
For more information on my upcoming travel journaling classes,
or to hire me to speak at your group's event, please see my Classes
page. And for all of my latest articles, classes, and more, sign up for
my free e-mail newsletter.
The links on the left will take you through the articles
and exercises on this site. The "Resources" section consists
of books I recommend for travel journalers.
All types of journaling can teach us a lot about ourselves.
But as you'll read in these pages, travel journaling is special. Travel
changes us and frees our personalities in ways that don't happen when
we're at home.
I hope you enjoy these articles and exercises. If you have
questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Send
me an e-mail!
Peace,
Dave Fox
About Dave Fox
Dave Fox is an award-winning
travel and humor writer, and a tour guide for Rick Steves' Europe.
He has lived in Norway, England, and Turkey, and visited roughly
40 countries on five continents. "I'm fascinated with the psychology
of travel," he says, "...with how we view ourselves when
we're in a foreign place."
In 2004, Dave won the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Book Proposal
Contest sponsored by the University of Dayton, Ohio. His resulting
collection of travel humor essays, Getting
Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad, was originally
published in 2006 by AuthorHouse Books. A second, re-edited and
improved edition was published in 2008 by Inkwater Press, along
with Dave's second book, Globejotting:
How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (And Still Have Time
to Enjoy Your Trip).
A former news anchor for Wisconsin
Public Radio, Dave has contributed to books by Rick Steves and Lonely
Planet. His work has also appeared in travel magazines such as Transitions
Abroad, Trips, and Big World, Singapore Airlines' in-flight magazine,
and newspapers including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Portland
Oregonian, Dallas Morning News, and Wisconsin State Journal. He
has appeared on the History Channel travel program, Weird
U.S., as an expert on Scandinavian-American culture,
and has been an opening speaker for Princess Märtha Louise
of Norway.
Dave's travel journaling classes have
been recommended in the Wall Street Journal. He is available to
teach classes in travel journaling, humor writing, and a variety
of other topics, and to deliver humorous keynotes that are both
laughter-inducing and inspiring. You can reach him by e-mail at
dave@davethefox.com.
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On
Sale Now!
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Globejotting:
How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still
have time to enjoy your trip!)
Dave Fox's new book, Globejotting,
teaches how to write more exciting and insightful travel journals...
and how to simply find time to write when there's so much else to
do during an exciting trip. Read Chapter One online for free, and
order your autographed copy here!
Find Out More
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On
Sale Now!
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Getting
Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad
Winner of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Book Proposal
Contest
"When you travel, things go wrong." That
might not sound like uplifting advice, but in this hilarious collection
of stories about mishaps in faraway places, Dave Fox proves otherwise.
Find Out More
"Dave
Fox's writing is hilarious. It's rare to find a person who has
such unique stories to tell and can write about them to boot."
--
Tim Bete, Director of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop
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