New Beginnings

Recently I have found myself a travel blogger without a blog, estranged from WordPress and content instead to limit any writing to 280 character tweets and the odd pun on Instragram.

That’s not to say I haven’t missed it. In fact, I’ve pined for something to opine about. I was inspired to begin that original blog while teaching English in the Komi Republic and later used it to document thru-hikes of the West Highland Way and Great Glen Way. It encapsulated a certain chapter of my life—my twenties—a disjoined decade in which jobs, friendships and interests rarely lasted. Everything felt new and exciting because it was, at least to me. And I was still young and naive enough to think that’d automatically be the case for readers as well.

But as I waited for my next adventure the posts became less frequent and the updates less urgent. Even when I dogsat for friends in the Cote d’Azur, started volunteering at my local nature reserve and travelled to Poland, Luxembourg and Switzerand I couldn’t seem to find the words. So I found those of others instead—people who’d gone further, gone native, gone professional. Suddenly I wasn’t in the company of bloggers anymore but of authors, editors, influencers, podcasters and journalists. Where once I thought my experiences and opinions were intrinsically interesting, I started to believe they were anything but. I was just a thirtysomething hobbyist on holiday, and who wanted to read about that? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write about it.

So what’s changed? Why begin again? Well, because why not? I’m a different person now and, if nothing else, that deserves a rebrand. A global pandemic can change a guy. Politics can become personal, raise questions about national identity and impact not just the perception of travel but the practicalities of it. Hell, the world’s second richest billionnaire could bankrupt Twitter tomorrow and deprive me of the only platform I have left. Everything feels different now. Not new, exactly, but fundamentally altered. I’ve travelled since Covid, since Brexit, since Russia invaded Ukraine, but each subsequent trip has felt increasingly precarious, expensive, complicated. Now that I’m due to depart again, next week, on a trip that would once have seemed second nature, I’m instead having second thoughts.

I’m unprepared, apprehensive, even a little bit reluctant. I thought I’d found my niche, at least where travel was concerned—easyJet, rucksacks, hostels—but now I’m not so sure. It’s a new normal, a strange sensation, an inciting incident. And maybe one that’s worth writing about. So I’m once again a travel blogger with a blog, but do I still want to travel?