Those of you who have been around this site for any length of time probably recognize the fact that if I was only slightly more unbalanced I could easily become an official member of the Tim Cahill Stalker Society.
For anyone new here at the bar or unfamiliar with Tim Cahill – Tim, to his good friends (thus, Mr. Cahill, sir, to me), is the one of the preeminent adventure travelers and most recognized names in the world of adventure travel writing.
And he’s damn good at it.
His words create colorful and clear pictures of distant places and his descriptions of people and events are evocative to the point of placing us there with him.
It’s kind of like getting to travel to third world countries without having to get any shots.
But for every 100 twenty-something vagabonds with a backpack that has his or her own travel blog, there may be one quality writer in the lot. If you are lucky.
And the same could be said for every other age group, including fifty-something aging rural hipsters.
Good writing is apparently like common sense; it’s just not all that common.
But we all seek the words by that special writer that can touch our soul, elicit a laugh, and make us wish we were there, wherever that there is.
Nonetheless, many of us travel, whether we can write well about those treks or not, or even wished to.
What made me think about the travel writing was a question that came to me recently:
“Why do we travel in the first place?”
We travel to transcend our daily lives.
To remind ourselves that we are part of a bigger picture and put mundane annoyances in their place.
We travel to touch purity, yet we know that by doing so, we threaten to undermine the very essence we seek.
That’s the paradox of enlightened travel.
We’re happy to share these experiences with visitors who move through the world with their eyes, arms and minds wide open.
Now be honest. Is that or is that not one of most poetically clarifying descriptions of why we travel?
Don’t you wish you could write with such clarity of voice?
Well, I sure do: wish I could write like that.
But in this case, that well thought out and nicely written prose came not from me…but from a damn advertisement.
Yup, Page 29 of the November 2008 National Geographic Adventure magazine in an ad for Ecuador.
As I read that last night, I thought, gee, here I am pedaling as fast as I can on the road of a wannabe travel writer and some ad sounds better than anything I could write.
Oh well. Maybe if I head down to Ecuador I can have a memorable travel adventure AND learn how to write like that.
In the meantime…anyone know where I might find Tim…I mean, Mr. Cahill, sir???
Restraining order–what restraining order?!?
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The blue dudes? I love their shows!
Same here, Jenny,
The drumming is un-real and you got to love the scrolling marquees.