nicolasdecorte.be

Finally I thought I'd found myself a niche. Time to become rich, time to become famous, time to become a travel writer! I would travel the world, write funny stories about it and people would pay loads of money for my books and articles, because come on, how many travel writers can you name?
A couple of five?

Bill Bryson
Paul Theroux
Peter Moore
Michael Palin
Bryan Thacker

And that's about it right?

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."
Jane Howard

If what you create is good, better or maybe the best, do you still need marketing?
Eventually you will be discovered, right?

Maybe, if you're lucky, your career will boost without having to do anything, although I guess chances are quite small.
But it happens.

If we believe the newspaper, or even worse, the advisories of the government, traveling is one of the most dangerous things men can do. A trip of a month through Central America seems only slightly safer than a blindfolded stroll on the highway.

Is paper out?
In this digital age, do we still need paper?
What about the trees? Hey, is the footer of your e-mails not saying "Consider the environment before printing this e-mail" ?

True, why would we still print things? Most people have a PC and wireless networks are everywhere.
You don't need to bring your full size 17 inch laptop anymore, but for a couple of hundreds of Euros you get yourself a notebook, an Ipad or an Amazon Kindle.

Meet Andrzej Dragan, a thirty two year old photographer, born in Poland.
There must have been hundreds of others with that profile, I guess, but I'm sure that none of them have a similar history.
Dragan was a student in quantum physics on the universities of Warsaw, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Oxford. During his studies he won several science awards and in the end he got his PhD Cum Laude.
Next to science he has won several national and international awards for composing music.

This week I have a quite tricky tip because every word of it can easily be used against me. But it's a very important phase in the writing process so it certainly needs to receive the necessary attention.

These days, lots of people take little time rereading their story, one particular part they tend to skip is the spelling check because nowadays we just let our spelling corrector run through the story and every stupid mistake is removed.

We think...

Following to post and post, here are the last two old travel photo galleries (I promise!)

Guatemala 2007

Cuba 2006

Feel free to leave a comment if you like something!

You may or may not remember that some time ago I've written an article called 9 Useless Things travelers tend to pack. If you didn't know, it's quite important that your read it before continuing this post!

What was it all about?
Well, shortly summarized, I was wondering what other people take on their travels, mostly to compare with my own packing list and to see if maybe I could get some tips for lighter or better packing. But what I found out was that people tend to pack the strangest things, and that there's some stuff that many pack but which is - in my eyes - totally redundant.
So I decided to write an article about that.

Why your readers like what you write depends on several aspects. Maybe you provide information that can't be found anywhere else, maybe you have different theories than others - like different impressions of the bible - or maybe your information is not unique at all, but you write it down in a different way than others. People like reading your writings because of your content and your style.

Every traveler has some kind of list in his or her head with specific places they want to visit. Cuba while the embargo is still on, Iceland while it's still suffering from the crisis and everything is relatively cheap, the village of Corleone in Sicily - if that's also on your list, I can assure you that there's really nothing to do in that dust hole, walking the Inca trail in Peru, getting stoned in Amsterdam, go diving in the Great Barrier Reef, go fishing in Canada, celebrate carnival in Rio or walk around for a week in your naked butt at the Burning Man Festival.

What most evidently follows on last week's tip Read read read is of course Write write write. To be a writer, you have to write. I bet you didn't see that one coming.
The thing is that you shouldn't only write a monthly article or a weekly blog post, but you should write much more - daily if possible - only to get experienced. The best way to do this is by keeping a diary or a blog.
I know, I know, the tough traveller inside you thinks that diaries are for little girls, but just give it a try.

Are you tired of heavy backpacks?

Are you tired of dragging around stuff that you don't really need?

Are you tired of paying extra for luggage at airports?

Are you tired of being afraid that someone will steal your precious stuff?

Are you tired of this stupid post that looks like a cheap commercial?

Have a look at my new travel article: 9 Useless Things Travelers Tend To Pack !

Also published on BootsnAll

I have always considered the best way to learn something is by looking how someone else does it. This in mind, I started reading the "classic" travel authors like Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux and Redmond O'Hanlon, not because I wanted to become a travel writer like them, but just because I enjoyed their books so much. Depending on what you expect from a travel story you might also want to add others to this list, Michael Palin for example.

Nah, I'm not going to copy the whole post of yesterday.

Here are two more galleries from my travels to Morocco and Budapest in 2007.

Have fun!

As promised a couple of weeks ago, here are some new photo galleries - Hooray! - from my trips to Mexico and Guatemala.

Actually they aren't really new and you could already see them on the previous site but they're new in here, so shut it and watch them! They have been a bit revised though in Photoshop and Lightroom. I also need to mention that they have been taken with a compact camera - a cheap HP if I remember well - so they might be not that sharp and they aren't going to win any art prices but I hope you like them anyway.

"Oh no! Not another bozo who is going to tell us how to write a travel article. Welcome to the digital age, dumbass, try Google for a change and you might find out that the internet is full of people like you that think they can summarize the life of a travel writer!"

You don't have to deny it, I can hear you all thinking the same: "Why should we read another couple of tips on how to write?"

And you're right, if you perform a Google search on "travel writing tips", you'll find a huge load of results, so why read my tips instead of the once from others?
Because mine are better of course!

Some time ago I was going through the first chapter of The Art of Travel by Alain De Botton, the chapter that handles about expectations we have about travelling and how they are never similar to what we actually experience.

Even blindfolded, I could find my way back in Havana, I can show you around Amsterdam, Lisbon or Barcelona and I can certainly recommend you a couple of good restaurants in Singapore, but drop me off in Liege and I'll be totally lost. I've never been there, although it's one of the largest cities of Belgium and only about 150 kilometres from my home. I even don't have a single clue if there's anything to see or to do over there.

A little bit of Google taught me that there actually isn't that much to see in Liege. It doesn't have an Eiffel tower or a large golden Buddha but it looks like a nice cosy city. The recommended sights are some museums and a couple of churches and the to do list also doesn't seem that big. It is surrounded by nature and hills though.

Have you ever heard about travel writing courses? They seem to be a bit hidden around the net, but when you look further they're certainly there and they're gaining popularity. Reason why? Internet of course. Everybody can be a writer these days, it'll cost you - except for your precious time - about nothing. There are lots of places where you can start a free blog. You just have to type in your story, press the enter button and your story is published. Visible for the rest of the world.
This is a great approach for the hobby writer or for people who just want to share their knowledge with the rest of the world, but if you also like to earn a buck or two with your writing you'll need to go a step further.

Some time ago I followed a class about the photography style Urban Exploration. Which is about taking pictures of abandoned places like old factories, hospitals, tunnels,...
It takes photography to a different level because it's much more than seeing something beautiful and pressing the button. Yes I know, photography in general is much more than just pressing buttons and photographers of nature and animals often have to wait for hours and hours in the cold before they get their shot, but still I find this different. Maybe because it's illegal. It's all about entering an abandoned place, climbing over fences and through windows, the fear of getting caught or hurting yourself.