I was just reading 
I'm all about living vicariously through others who travel. Bali, Thailand, Europe, etc., when you read about someones travel experience in a different part of the world, it lets you get a taste for something you've never seen yourself. The thing is, what you'll read and see is without a doubt a very edited, clean, cropped and filtered look at a travel experience and location.
Let's take a trip to Bali, for example.
We've all seen these photos. They come with articles detailing a heavenly retreat experience to a far away place.
"...it was an exciting and surreal experience."
"We spent three days here chasing the sun, lagoons and infinity pools.
" Sipping on some coconuts and cappuccino’s, do a little reading, and relax in some pools and hammocks."
"...breathtaking views, amazing restaurants, a yoga class or two, some shopping."
Have you guys travelled much? I'm not sure about you, but in my experience it can really be a stressful, unglamorous, at times sweaty thing. Missed trains, lost tickets, sunburns, getting lost in a strange place, not knowing the native language. There are so many raw and gritty details we leave out when we write about our trips. I've been guilty of it too!
When I first joined Steemit, I wrote a post about My 24-Hour Layover in Seoul, South Korea. In the post, I shared things about the public transportation, the cuisine, the palaces-- all the musts' of a travel post, including beautiful architecture and glistening pastries. There are so many things that I left out, conveniently cropped, quickly filtered. And I did it all almost without thinking. I didn't mention how jet-lagged we were, how confused we actually were by the train system, or how ready to kill each other @AustinHopper and I were that day. Everyone back home could assume we had a 100% flawless time.
Which is just what we all want, isn't it? We want other people to see our travel experiences as flawless and fulfilling voyages. If you just conveniently crop out the crowd of locals in ragged clothing, leave out the detail of how smelly the beach was that day, or how bad your feet hurt, then you'll fit the travel blog style.
The proof is in the success of our social media channels. There, you're see photos of the lush, tropical oasis that Bali is at its finest. The gorgeously groomed rice fields and holy temples are all we're seeing in our feeds these days.
What we aren't seeing are the photos like this:
The truth is, our actual, human, imperfect experiences are being style-washed as more and more writers try and conform to the popular mode of travel writing. Our travel stories are very often an incomplete glimpse at another part of the world, featuring only the highlights we think people want to see. So what if we gave true representations instead? What if we talked about the number of times we had to pee squatting over a hole next to a goat? In my opinion, travel writing would be way more interesting and also more honest about the place an article is said to represent.
