Travel writing has a way of being perishable

Vagablogging :: Rolf Potts Vagabonding Blog

“Travel writing is perishable. I find that when I’m reading a book of bygone travels I become irritated with curiosity about what the place is like today — can you still swim in the river, as the writer did? Can you still eat the fish? Are the houses still roofed with thatch? This problem has to do not only with travel writing but all nonfiction. If you look in the Classics or Literature section of any bookstore you’ll see mainly works of fiction. Nonfiction is about the physical world, and over time the physical world tends to disappear.”

–Ian Frazier, in They Went: The Art and Craft of Travel Writing (1991)

Original article can be found here: Travel writing has a way of being perishable