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Wanderlust has hit us hard, but since we’re staying busy in our offices, we got in touch with Sara Benson, Lonely Planet Travel and Outdoors Writer, to give us an idea of what it’s like for your job to be travel. And if you’re in the mood for some travel of your own, be sure to check out the newest edition of Lonely Planet California coming out in February.
How did you become a travel writer, and what is it like?
I have always wanted to be a writer. When traveling became a way of life, I luckily found a way to do both. After college, I worked and studied music in Japan for a few years, then went backpacking around Asia. As my savings ran out, I sent a brash letter to Lonely Planet, whose guidebooks I’d used for years. I cheekily suggested that they should hire more female writers who spoke Asian languages since they didn’t have too many of us. Incredibly, they gave me a shot, after first putting me through a writing, photography and cartography test. I wrote my first Lonely Planet travel guide in a chilly Nepalese guesthouse with no hot water. What I remember most is a deadline race in an auto-rickshaw taxi to the Kathmandu airport to mail my first manuscript. Somehow, that taxi made it to the airport on time despite all of the goats jamming the city’s twisting, narrow streets.
Since then I’ve written and contributed to more than 75 non-fiction books, including travel, hiking, and national park guides. The biggest misconception everyone has about travel writing is that it’s all mai tais on the beach, glamorous hotels and fabulous free meals. In reality, a Lonely Planet writer pays their own way, gets lost a lot, stays in cheap hotels, eats street food, and spends far more days at home writing in their pajamas than traveling.
What projects are you working on right now?
These days, I work closer to home in California. I still have plenty of wanderlust, but an accident in South America more than a decade ago limits what I can physically do. Though I no longer travel as much internationally, I know far more about my own country than ever before. My assignments take me around the U.S. West, to national parks and more off-the-beaten-path places. Hawaii is another favorite destination – it feels like visiting another country, because that’s what the islands once were (and someday could be again, Hawaiian sovereignty activists say). I just finished coordinating Lonely Planet’s coastal California travel guide. Right now, I am working on feature stories and essays, including for travel anthologies and global food and drink guides.
What is your writing process typically like? Do you have a set system or routine that works for you?
When I started, I would agonize over every word. I’d meander through each book manuscript's pages at a desert tortoise’s pace. Then, right before deadline, I’d pull frantic all-nighters with the help of endless pots of coffee. Eventually, I wised up and made a project schedule for each new book, with daily word counts and budgeting enough time to polish a final draft. After about a dozen books, I learned that before any major deadline, a personal or professional crisis was certain to pop up. Treating writing like a 9-to-5 (or more truthfully, a 10-to-8) job may not match the romantic ideal of a writer’s life, but it works for me. While I’m on the road researching a book, I take colorfully detailed notes. I photograph everything: restaurant menus, hotel rooms, bus schedules, hiking trailhead signs, etc. For me, details set good travel writing apart from bad. So does the knowing judgment that comes from having seen thousands of shabby hotels, cookie-cutter restaurants, and tourist traps before.
What is the best book you have read lately?
Though I’m a travel writer, I confess that I don’t read too many travel books. I only have time to read about two thousand more books in my life, so I want every one of those books to be phenomenal. When it comes to travel, I’d much rather do it than read about it.
But one exceptional travel book I read recently is All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World by Zora O’Neill. You can tell the writer has spent a lifetime thinking about and exploring Arabic-speaking countries. She tells honest stories about the challenges and the advantages of traveling solo as a woman, something I relate to. She also writes with warmth and insight about Arab cultures, which many of us – myself included – need to learn more about. The next book I want to read is The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks by Terry Tempest Williams.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?
Especially when it’s not for work, traveling is still my favorite thing. On vacation, it’s hard for me to turn off the travel writer's instinct, so I find myself making mental notes even when I’m not writing about a place. I’m also an outdoors nut. Camping, hiking, and backpacking always make me happy, whether it’s in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or the volcanic landscapes of Hawaii. My most memorable trips recently were to the Canadian Rockies, the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest and the New Mexico desert. I’ll be visiting maritime New England soon and hopefully, Scandinavia next summer.
How can fans keep up with you on social media?
Since I started graduate school, I’ve neglected social media. My blog, The Indie Traveler (http://indietraveler.blogspot.com), has virtual dust on it. On Twitter (@indie_traveler), I still tweet quirky news and interesting finds about travel, books, food, beer, and nature, especially national parks. (I used to be a seasonal national park ranger, which was the best job I ever had besides travel writing). I’m active on Instagram (@indietraveler), especially when I hit the road. At home, I scroll through my Instagram feed daily to find out where in the world my travel-writer friends are and what amazing things they’re experiencing today. My favorite travel photographer on Instagram is Chris Burkard (@chrisburkard) – he has 2.7 million followers and counting. I barely have 500!
Do you have a favorite library memory?
For me, libraries have always been a sanctuary from the outside world. I was a shy, nerdy kid who didn’t have many friends, but the warm-hearted children’s librarian in the small Midwestern town where I grew up always made me feel welcome. She introduced me to some of the classic books I most loved to read growing up, like the Madeleine series and The Wind in the Willows. Every summer, I’d join the library’s reading club and read as many books as I could. Even now as an adult, I am still a huge fan of public libraries, where I sometimes get invited to give travel slide-show talks.
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