Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler (Travelers' Tales)

Product Description:
Two major trends have recently swept the travel world: the first, an overwhelming desire (thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love) to write one’s own memoir; the second, an explosion of social media, blogs, twitter and texts, which allow travelers to document and share their experiences instantaneously. Thus, the act of chronicling one’s journey has never been more popular, nor the urge stronger.Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler, will inspire budding memoirists and jetsetting scribes alike. But Writing Away doesn’t stop there—author Lavinia Spalding spins the romantic tradition of keeping a travelogue into a modern, witty adventure in awareness, introducing the traditional handwritten journal as a profoundly valuable tool for self-discovery, artistic expression, and spiritual growth.Writing Away teaches you to embrace mishaps in order to enrich your travel experience, recognize in advance what you want to remember, tap into all your senses, and connect with the physical world in an increasingly technological age. It helps you overcome writer’s block and procrastination; tackle the discipline, routine, structure, and momentum that are crucial to the creative process; and it demonstrates how traveling—while keeping a journal along the way—is the world’s most valuable writing exercise.

A top pick for any library strong in either creative writing or travel accounts 
This is an outstanding survey of journal-writing for travelers and any who want to capture their experiences on paper. Its survey of travel, personal development, and how to keep a travel journal makes for an outstanding and lively recommendation for travelers and non-travelers alike and is a top pick for any library strong in either creative writing or travel accounts.

writing away 
Good material, interesting stories and a
breezy, funny style that keeps the book flowing.

A very good read and I look forward to her next book

Wm Blaney

Great help. 
A good help for travel journal beguinners. Help me a lot with my first. The price certainly is fair for the bennefit aquired.

Not Just for Journal Writers 

I wasn't expecting much in this book because, for one thing, I tend to think journal writing is solipsistic and boring. But WRITING AWAY was a very pleasant surprise. It is intelligent, witty, and engaging---full of wisdom of life, love, and beauty. Spalding makes the subject come alive and compelling (I'd love to read her journals). My guess is, this will become a classic. It's a book you can curl up with and, based on her brain alone, I wouldn't mind curling up with Spalding, either.

Gypsy Soul 
This book was a treat to read. It was witty, funny, and totally motivating. As inspiring as the book was, to have me dust off my journal and put pen to paper while abroad, it was just as inspiring, if not more so, to get my tokus on an airplane! I loved the sporadic quotes and journal entries from miscellaneous travelers. My copy is now underlined and highlighted, and just a bit beat up. One of my favorite quotes is by Ayn Rand, which starts out, "Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all." And, Lavinia, the book did rock my gypsy soul. Thanks.