Of the many people who travel, I am thinking that most do not then turn about and invest several more hours of their lives in writing down their experiences and observations along with editing literally thousands of photographs. The reason I do this is ultimately self-serving on several fronts. The process started because much to my surprise, given that I think of myself more or less as a misanthrope most of the time, I have a rather large circle of friends, acquaintances, family, and former co-workers who either genuinely are interested, or at least pretend to be, in my travel experiences and want to hear about them.
After returning from Antarctica, the requests from different people to hear about the trip was becoming overwhelming in some senses, especially for a brain tissue challenged sort of guy like me, so I started copying and pasting a response sent to one person and used it as a standard template response, tweaked to be vaguely personal to the requestor. This seemed to work pretty well, so I tried out the process of taking notes during a trip (seriously, I don’t remember yesterday) on a spiral bound pocket notepad (no one thinks anything an American does is odd) and then producing a full narrative summary, starting with the trip to Romania I believe. This was very well received, or my friends and family were incredibly kind, with suggestions regarding publication submissions and other favorable commentary, so it became a practice I continue to this day.
For a complicated welter of reasons, I don’t pursue the concept of travel writing for profit, or even for "break even" purposes, but via this web site, I can share my perspective and sense of things, even with those who might find me and my perspective annoying or outright wrong. To use the terms of another era, this site becomes my electronic "stump" from which to harangue and hopefully entertain any who might stop by.
Enjoy!