I’ve Always Wanted to Be a Traveler, But Never a Travel Writer

I’ve always wanted to see the world. For as long as I can remember, the idea of distant cultures, unfamiliar landscapes, and lives lived differently than my own fascinated me. Travel, in some form or another, always felt like it would be part of my life.

But becoming a travel writer was never part of that dream.

While I admired the people who shared their journeys online, I never pictured myself doing the same. Writing about my life for strangers to read, judge, or ignore felt unimaginable.

Ironically, it was the slow disappearance of the kind of travel writing I loved that eventually changed my mind. Honest stories are still out there, just not enough. So I decided to start sharing my own.

How I Caught the Travel Bug

I was born curious.

I remember looking out the car window as a small child, mesmerized by the different landscape in the south of Portugal when we took our yearly trips to the Algarve — just 600 km away, but such a stark contrast to my typical surroundings.

I also remember the excitement of going to the Chinese restaurant in the city. Seaweed?! Bean sprouts?! Mushrooms?! Noodles?! Quite the departure from our typical diet of potatoes, meat, and vegetables with the occasional rice dish.

But the most exciting time of the year was late August (yes, more exciting than Christmas), when my aunt returned from her yearly 1-month trip somewhere with gifts and a freshly developed roll of film.

Where did she go this time?

What did she bring me this year?

An atabaque from Brazil, an elephant t-shirt from Kenya, a panda plush toy from China, and many other souvenirs that made my early childhood so special and kept me dreaming of faraway lands for years to come.

But what truly sealed my desire to see the world came at age seven. By then, I was a voracious reader, so my family gifted me a pile a books for Christmas. One of them was DK’s “Encyclopedia of People,” my aunt’s gift that year. Each two-page spread takes a deep dive into a culture with vibrant photography and detailed information.

DK's Encyclopedia of People book summary
DK's "Encyclopedia of People" – Book Summary

It’s hard to describe how I felt, not just the first time that I opened the book, but every time. Trust me, I’ve sat here for nearly an hour trying to put pen to paper (keys to screen?), and the only thing I’ve accomplished has been getting teary-eyed.

Nowadays, we’ve seen it all on the internet. But I grew up in rural Portugal in the 2000s; I had seen nothing, and all of a sudden, I had the splendor of the world in between my tiny hands. I was blown away by the diversity and beauty of humankind.

Every night, I read just two new pages, a spread about a given people. I marvelled at the images and carefully read the whole text two or three times, trying to memorize every detail. It took great discipline not to read more in each go, but I knew that meant I could keep experiencing that feeling for longer. I didn’t want it to end.

After my nightly read, I’d go to sleep picturing myself spending time with the people I had read about, being their friend or even one of them. Dancing with the Gypsies of Romania, free-diving for pearls with the Bajau of Southeast Asia, or riding camels with the Bedouin of the Arabian Desert.

How Travel Blogs Took Me Even Further

In 2008, we got a computer and internet connection in the house. I was 11 and about to start 6th grade. “I need it for school,” I had been pleading for over a year.

It didn’t take long for me to discover travel blogs. After the picture I painted in the previous section, I don’t think I need to describe to you the infatuation I developed for those websites.

Travel bloggers were my heroes, my rockstars.

Every day, I’d rush home after school to open Bloglovin’ and read through my favorite bloggers’ new posts. And yet, while I aspired to travel and be nomadic like them, I didn’t want to be them.

Partially because I didn’t believe it was possible. I didn’t understand how they financed their travels and were able to live that lifestyle. But, most importantly, I couldn’t picture myself posting my thoughts and photos on the internet for everyone to see. Paradoxically, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in reading or seeing them either.

How I Went From Observer to Storyteller

Life took its course. I followed a traditional path and got into engineering school in 2015. I finished my degree and became an engineer in 2020.

But the dream remained in the back of my mind and eventually became reality. How I went from that to working remotely and living nomadically just three years later is a story for another day.

ines silva tavares sitting at the beach in taghazout morocco
A photo of me on the beach in Taghazout, Morocco. My first destination as a nomad, where I lived for five months.

Meanwhile, most travel blogs I used to read slowly went from passion projects to money-first machines, populated only by ads and affiliate marketing-heavy content. They traded the authenticity that made them for whatever the highest bidder asks them to promote.

As big companies started realizing they could get a slice of the money pie, they started either launching their own or buying pre-established websites. This led to travel writing being driven by profit even more. Worse yet, a lot of the content isn’t even written by people who have travelled to that place. They simply research and rehash what’s already out there.

The final blow came with the widespread use of generative AI. This process of “researching and rehashing” can now be done at a much greater scale. I spoke in detail about these issues and their consequences in my previous piece, Why Authentic Travel Writing Matters More Than Ever.

Not to say that there isn’t great, honest writing out there. Lately, I’ve been loving Jule Noah’s Line on a Map, for example. I’ve also come across Bell’s Travel Off Script (who has an oddly similar life story to mine). And a lot of pieces on Globetrotters are great.

But it’s not enough. The Internet needs more authenticity, more human stories. I have a few to share. And, as it turns out, when you find your true self and start living your dreams, you stop caring what others will think or say about you writing online.

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