Recovery and Reset - Wanderlust Weekly 2/6/25
No more listicles from this travel writer. Choosing to celebrate my authenticity and individuality. Time to use my voice.
I think my voice has finally returned after last weekend. My husband and I, and my friend Lori Helke, talked to hundreds of people at the Travel and Adventure Show. If you’ve been to one, it can get quite loud with all those excited travelers looking for their next great destination (or, in my case, their next great read).
This show was particularly fun because I got to spend time with Lori and another travel writing friend, Veronica Bareman. The three of us have a special bond after road tripping to Kansas City together in 2023. Coincidentally, Veronica stayed in the same hotel Lori and I were at in Rosemont, so Saturday night we got comfy and solved the world’s problems.
It was great to talk with people who know what’s happening in the travel writing industry. Honestly, it’s become increasingly difficult. Google made some algorithmic changes beginning in fall 2023, unironically called the “Helpful Content Update.” This update was anything but, bringing Quora and Reddit results from 2012 to the first page and burying sites like ours. Now that ChatGPT searches the web and every single platform is using AI, it’s harder and harder to reach an audience. And forget about actually making a living.
We all love this industry. We love finding cool places to visit and sharing them. We’re just doing it a little differently now.
Fortunately, we three had already been making changes. From the time we went to KC to now, Veronica’s published her second book, Lori’s published her third and fourth, and I’ve published six more for a total of fourteen. I’m speaking more, with 32 engagements in 2024 and several, including the Mensa Annual Gathering, scheduled for this year. Veronica’s photography and videography skills make her a whiz with social media, and Lori’s going gangbusters promoting solo travel for mature women.
Personally, I won’t be writing any more of those “things to do in {insert destination}” articles. I’ve written my share, and I tried to make them entertaining as well as useful, but I’ve never loved that style.
I’m a storyteller. I want to tell stories, and writing “listicles” is about as much fun as copying entries in a phone book.
I almost said copying entries in a dictionary, but that truly is a lot of fun for this word nerd. Etymological rabbit holes, anyone?
One of my goals for 2025 is to write my third travel memoir. This will be about a three-week solo trip I took in 2022, an experience that was truly transformative. To celebrate that, I’ll be re-releasing the first two Two Lane Gems books, and I’ll probably share excerpts from those here.
I’ve also got about a gazillion other places I want to tell you about. Frankly, I barely wrote any travel stuff last year (except for my book project with Geary County, KS) because I was figuring out how I was going to move forward. I wasn’t quite paralyzed, and my fiction is proof of that, but I found myself struggling to figure out what to write. Every time I’d think about writing another “10 Things To Do” or “Best Places to Eat” I’d freeze and feel a little sick to my stomach.
So, no more of that. Writing is my happy place. It brings me joy. So why would I sacrifice that joy for something that literally makes me want to vomit?
It feels like we’re living in a dystopian thriller, and I refuse to contribute to that feeling of helplessness by doing things that aren’t authentic, and just making that decision lifts me up.
So I guess it’s true: my voice has definitely returned.
Until next week…
Love and Wanderlust,
Theresa Goodrich
