Travel

Seems like the first few decades of my life I pretty much stayed in my little bubble of the American Southwest. We didn’t have much money for travel with my parents raising four kids on a schoolteacher’s salary. In my late teens we ventured further afield, all the way up to Colorado and across the Great Plains to Iowa, then down the Mississippi to Louisiana. I finally reached the East Coast a few years later for a college roommate’s wedding. I didn’t make it to the West Coast until I was in my mid-30s.

Why am I taking this trip down Travel Lane? Because traveling has affected my writing. In more recent times I’ve been able to venture further abroad, seeing the world from a different perspective. Having a vivid imagination always helped me understand there’s more to the world than my little part of it but seeing it in person made it real and not just theoretical. I’ve taken places I’ve been and incorporated them into my writing, such as Prague and Dublin in Assignment Day, and Boston in Next Time. I wonder if I tended toward writing science fiction because space is unknown and I could write whatever I wanted in whatever setting, whereas stories set on Earth are tougher to write if you haven’t been to the place you’re writing about. Tougher, but not impossible. Especially these days with Google Maps and a wealth of information. Beyond the benefits to writing, travel is fun. Five stars, would highly recommend.