travel writing

“Stunning! Breathtaking!”: The Chatbot’s Guide to Portugal

Published January 2, 2023 | By Clark Norton

You may have heard about a site called ChatGPT, where you can try out an artificial intelligence (AI) writing tool. Depending on the user, the technology (created by OpenAI) has generated a combination of excitement and fear.

Almost like magic, you can give it a prompt and, within seconds, the chatbot will spill out prose about any subject imaginable, in the style you request. You can even ask it to sprinkle in some typos and grammatical errors if that suits your purpose.

Seventh-grade theme paper about the significance of the Battle of Hastings, complete with a run-on sentence or two? Piece of cake. Outline for a dystopian mystery novel set in Victorian England? No sweat. Presentation on the importance of widgets for your next Monday meeting? Take the weekend off — you’ve got it covered.

And since it’s original copy, more or less, teachers, editors, or your employers theoretically can’t… Continue reading →

Travel Tips in the Time of COVID

Published December 1, 2021 | By Clark Norton

By Bob Waite

There are tragedies far more consequential than the inability of a travel writer to travel.

It’s just that I can’t think of any at the moment.

My travels ended in late January 2020. As related on this site, I visited Japan, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The month prior I had been in China.

Then the world shut down.

Subsequent planned trips to France, Jordan, Israel, Ecuador, and Panama were all postponed or cancelled. My travel was largely confined to trips to the kitchen for subsistence; to my office to teach my college students remotely; or to the family room to watch sporting events or movies.

The highlight during this period of enforced stasis was the rearrangement of the condiments in our fridge alphabetically, A-Z. And then reversing them.

But — Omicron variant permitting — brighter days have arrived. I have begun traveling again… Continue reading →

Posted in Airline travel, airports, Baby boomer travel, travel documents, travel economic impacts, Travel safety, travel tips, travel writing | Tagged air travel safety, airport security, baby boomer travelers, COVID travel requirements, Post-Covid travel, Post-pandemic travel, travel documents, travel tips | 1 Comment

Travel Writer FAQs: All You Need to Know

Published September 21, 2016 | By Clark Norton

Whenever I tell someone I first meet that I’m a travel writer, I’m almost invariably asked the same questions.

They usually involve some variation on “What’s your favorite place in the world?”, “How do I get your job?”, and/or “Can I come with you?”

Depending on my mood at the moment, I may give one answer — or another — because some answers invariably lead to further discussion, while others almost always cut it short.

So here is my list of travel writer FAQs — with sometimes varying answers.

What’s your favorite place in the world to visit?

If I have the time and inclination to talk, I say “Yap.”

I pick Yap because not only do I like it a lot, but hardly anyone has ever heard of it, so it leads to stimulating conversation.

Yap is a group of small islands in the far western Pacific… Continue reading →

Posted in Baby boomer travel, Blogging, travel writing | Tagged Land of Stone Money, Nigeria, Togo, travel blogging, travel writing, travel writing cliches, Yap | 6 Comments

According to government and private surveys:

Leading-edge baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1955) and seniors account for four out of every five dollars spent on luxury travel today.
Roughly half the consumer spending money in the U.S.--more than $2 trillion--is in the hands of leading-edge baby boomers and seniors.
Baby boomers (born 1946-1964) travel more than any other age group.
When asked what they would most like to spend their money on, baby boomers answered “travel” more than any other category, including improving their health or finances.