Explore! Do it!

So this weekend was the Explore! conference at the Royal Geographic Society, the meeting that tells you everything you need to know about planning and running an expedition to the ends of the earth. The speaker's list is pretty intimidating; probably >50% had climbed Everest, and the ones that hadn't were too busy walking across Antarctica in the winter with only a t-shirt while dragging a Land Rover behind them and juggling penguins. No, not really. Here's a video from last year giving an idea of what it was all about.

But it was an amazing and inspiring group. Within a few minutes of talking to someone, it would come out that they were planning a trip to Borneo or Mozambique or Nepal to do some field science or raft a wild river. Then they asked me what great trip I was planning, and it was a little anticlimactic.

One of the sessions was a panel workshop about writing for magazines and newspapers, with the idea that one would want to publish experiences from an expedition. We talked a little about blogs vs. "real" articles, and whether or not physical magazines and newspapers are soon to be a thing of the past. I think they will be around for a while. This blog entry, for example, wouldn't be published by any self-respecting magazine in a million years - there's no cohesive story, poor grammar, not much of a real point, etc. But that same informality is exactly what makes a blog appealing, I think. The immediacy of the medium is key - these aren't particularly organized thoughts, just what's on the top of my mind, and I think we can all relate to that. But certainly magazines have a role in all of this - for people who actually want their information in an organized vehicle where quality is assured. In talking to the editors and writers on the panel, it also became apparent that bloggers do it as much for their own benefit as for their readers. So far in my illustrious blogging career, I'd have to agree - it's helpful to get thoughts down on paper...or computer hard drive...and consciously approach events with the aim of getting something out of them.

It takes a lot for me to ask questions at these kinds of things, but I gathered the nerve and asked the panel what some unpardonable cliches in travel writing are. A partial list:
- describing the color of water as "azure" or "aquamarine"
- saying a tropical location has "a palm-fringed beach"
- saying that a city is "a place of contrasts"

And alas, the workshop was over, and as I ventured out into the concrete jungle, I reflected on these sage morsels of wisdom. I walked along the oak-lined avenue past buildings that have stood sentry since Victorian times in South Kensington, a vibrant place of contrasts and contradictions, dreaming of emerald green forests and aquamarine lakes.