“Explore your literary imagination,” says the site’s tagline. And, even though I disapprove of people who spell “traveller” with only one “l” (them that pays the cheques rule, sez this writer), I must tell you that there’s plenty of great reading on this site, if you’re a lover of both travel and books.
Literary Traveler’s main offering is articles about writers and the places associated with them. Some are obvious: Hemingway and Pamplona, Robert Louis Stevenson and Samoa, Neruda’s Isla Negra in Chile. Others less so, like James Joyce and Trieste, or the “dismal swamp” that Robert Frost almost never came back from. The quality of writing is high and most articles come with links to more information on the location or the writer. You can search according to the places written about, or check the authors’ names to see if your favourites find a mention. The site attempts to earn its keep with ads, yes, but they’re not intrusive, and you do get the feeling that it’s one of those increasingly rare animals, a genuine, old-fashioned labour of love. One assumes its founders also get revenue from their listing of Literary Tour Operators (you can, if you choose, do a Jane Austen tour or wander the haunts of the Beat poets in the San Francisco Bay Area). Oh yes. There’s also a newsletter to subscribe to. Quibbles? The locations and authors covered are mainly in the USA, with some representation from Europe, with the rest of the world, and its literature, going largely unrepresented.
Published in the October edition of Outlook Traveller, in a column called Cybertrack
Tags: Outlook Traveller, Cybertrack
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