TRAVEL WRITING: WHY GO SOMEWHERE WHEN YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT?

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything by Elizabeth Gilbert I’m not one for generic city guides or guided tours – I feel like they drag the joy out of travel, turning it into a factual overload, something akin to a comprehensive school history or geography lesson. So, when I wanted to find out about travelling Bali back at the beginning of 2020, I turned to literature and came across the gem that is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. Gilbert’s eloquent memoir of self-discovery, spiritual en-lightenment, and solo adventure provides vivid descrip-tions that help readers get to know the three countries she visits through the page. Gilbert’s aim is to examine one aspect of her own nature against the backdrop of three different countries. We see her learning about the study of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and art of balance in Bali.

Thanks to Gilbert’s memoir, before arriving in Bali, I understood the deep spiritual and cultural heritage of Ubud. Her passages about this beautiful place and the kind people she met there particularly resonated with me, and after visiting the town myself I can only commend Gilbert for the accuracy and vibrance with which she captures its aura.

Eat, Pray, Love proves how travel can benefit independ-ence, self-love, and overall happiness. Through her book, Gilbert shares her journey and all she learnt from it with her readers. Tied to university timetables, travel is not always possible, so perhaps it is time to combine our travel bucket list with our TBR list – delving into a travel memoir like Gilbert’s is the next best thing to stepping off the plane.

Words by Eve Davies

The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley

Being a culturally curious child who aspired to travel, de-spite not yet having the opportunity to do so, I was always daydreaming about my future escapades. Throughout my teenage years, I eased my ambitions through read-ing. When I first picked up The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley, the first of a series by the same name, I entered a new phase of my life: exploring the world through travel literature. At 12 years old, I had stepped into the world of travel, inspiring my wanderlust while I bid my time until I had the opportunity to travel. As a teenager, I contin-ued to read every book in the Seven Sisters series, until it came to the most recent, The Missing Sister - I was able to read Riley’s detailed descriptions of the Southern French landscape while travelling in the South of France. Albeit, the protagonist’s chosen vehicle was a lavish convertible while I was shoulder to shoulder with strangers on a Flixbus.

Travel literature has given me insight into I world I wouldn’t have otherwise known existed. I grew up with travel writing assisting my travel aspirations while I wait-ed patiently until it was my turn and grow up into some-one that spends a month alone in Europe. Travel litera-ture has opened me to a whole world of adventure. Now, being a young adult and covid restrictions have loosened, I get to slowly retrace my imagined steps in the destina-tions I have read of while waiting for the opportunity to do the same in real life.

Words by Jasmine Dodd

Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop

It was only a few years ago when I was aimlessly browsing every inch of Waterstones with the intention of finding something to read out of my usual choice of genre, this ultimately led me to discover Victoria Hislop’s Cartes Postales from Greece, to which it quickly became a per-sonal favourite. The book introduces Ellie: an ordinary woman who receives numerous postcards that are solely signed by ‘A’, showcasing breath-taking images from vari-ous parts of Greece. After realising that the postcards are addressed to the former occupant, Sarah Ibbotson, Ellie piles them together and gets ready to return them to the sender but essentially fails when she notices that a return address is not included. Intrigued by the scribbled mes-sages, beautiful photographic images and a journal filled with travel stories that drop through her letterbox, Ellie decides to travel to Greece for two reasons: to see the beautiful country and reunite the evocative journal with the mystery man.

As someone who grew up and lived in Greece, I was in awe of how accurately Hislop portrayed the rural, more traditional parts of the country, especially her acknowl-edgment of fascinating cultural insights, facts about Greek history, ways of living, Greek traditions and many more that I, myself, have experienced first-hand. Cartes Postales is a series of exciting but poignant short stories with a captivating description of Greece, that is definitely worth a read if one has never been to the country or sim-ply to explore the authentic side of Greece without even visiting!

Words by Nikoletta Saroglou

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