This is for all of you that write travel journals, diaries, blogs, whatever you might like to call it. I’m curating something that needs your help. I’ve met you in many places. Sitting at a hostel table in the night trying to get something down before it’s forgotten. Or perhaps in a foreign coffee shop – hoping that they do their cups in this one just the way you like them back home. The scribblers of memory across the globe. And while some of you might go on to post extracts online, for most of you these notebooks remain personal and closed. But there are experiences in there, incredible experiences that should be shared. The places, people, moments that touched you, amazed you, changed the way you think.


It might be said that a picture says a thousand words. But I look back at photos from 5 years ago and realise a couple of things: that the photo was a mere snapshot of the place experience,  and that now much of the experience has been forgotten. It’s one of the reasons I like to write. It keeps things so much alive. And besides, there are many things that can’t be photographed. How do you take a photo of a live changing conversation? How do you capture romance and feeling into an image? Words says so much more than a photo can about how we think and about our lives.


So I’m starting a project. I’d like you to look through those current or old journals and pick something out for me. I’m not looking for a chronological account of your day. I’m looking for something with lots of emotion of meaning. It might be about someone you met  – a new friend, a romance,  a stranger. It could be a place, which coupled with the culture and history, led you to think anew. It might be an environment that blew you away. You can decide.

It doesn’t have to be too long, although it could be. Simply something of length enough to describe what you went though. At a minimum I would imagine that it should be a few hundred words.

I’m thinking that the end result will be an e-book of your collated words. We will see how it all develops. If you’re publicity shy, don’t worry, let me know and you can be anonymised in the final product.

For you none English writers I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to go the extra mile and translate into English. (If it’s in Spanish send the original words along to – it will help me learn the language and maybe you’ll persuade me to do a Spanish version).

If you’d like to get involved, please send me a message or get in contact via the comments.

I’ll update here as the project develops.