18 Mar 2015

Another travel site?

Just as I had settled in on Thessaloniki’s lustrous promenade, my peace was disturbed by a scary thought. Staring into the sunset over the bay and puffing on my celebratory cigar I was startled by the question “What if my friends forget about me?”

Before my departure some of my friends had indeed asked for regular status updates on my trip and/or whether my head was still attached to my shoulders (Day 1: yes).

Cleary keeping my friends informed one by one seems like a lot of repetition. It’s likely that I would eventually start neglecting that task and lose touch. I can easily remedy this by putting regular updates online at a central location.

However I don’t really like or trust Facebook anymore, so putting all my stuff on there didn’t exactly appeal to me. The obvious consequence then is a website, something I had discussed with some of my friends as well. Here is the problem though: Since I am now traveling, my site would be a travel site.

I don’t like travel sites.

Whilst preparing for my trip I had skimmed through many travel-related sites. Quite simply too many of them were shit. Most of them seem to consist of listicles (a topic worthy of a rant of its own. Spoiler: I don’t like them.), “me at the beach” type pictures and rather heavy-handed prose. I’m positive that’s not the kind of writing I would want to spend time on. Partially because of my drastic aversion to listicles, partially since I’m way too pale to be photographed at the beach. Lastly, I’m not under the delusion that I’m any kind of Hemingway. So what is this site going to be then? Hopefully not a travel site!

As much as I enjoy traveling, this undertaking was never meant to be about the travel itself. Instead, I wanted to have the freedom and energy to immerse myself in topics I find interesting. I could have gone the formal-education route and lined up for another degree, tuition fees and a set curriculum. Instead I decided to pursue those interests on my own. That way I can spend the money saved at locations which are all a) sunnier, b) cheaper and c) friendlier than my birthplace. And if that’s the idea, why limit myself to one location? There, that’s how it accidentally turned into a trip. So ideally, this site will be mainly be growing on articles on the topics I’m researching (and of course various vitriolic rants).

But despair not, ye of little faith, I will surely write the occasional bit on my whereabouts (and yes, the status of my neck). Prepare for pictures of beaches, wine-glasses and my horribly sun-burned mug. Hell, I might even take a shot at some destination-related articles with a bit of substance.

Since writing here is also a desperate attempt to build some sort of self-discipline, please feel free to give me a friendly nudge between the eyes if I’m getting too lazy.

So let’s start this experiment then, shall we?

Until next time,
Arne