This blog will generally be a travel blog, but there will probably also be posts on music, books, and the hilarious misadventures of my life in Chicago. I’m opening this up to the (what I’m sure will be tiny) public so we can exchange ideas, tips, ruminations. Do you write about travel–why, and how, and for what audience? Do you travel a lot–what kind of trips do you take, how often, with others or by yourself? Got practical tips and advice, a funny story, or a rambling reflection on why we do what we do? Have a follow-up to something I’ve written? Please share.

Without further ado, here are the big questions I’m pondering:

Why travel? Why write about traveling? How do I answer these questions without diving into the murky waters of self-importance and clichés?

Okay, so maybe I don’t answer those questions, or at least not right away. But it’s time to start considering them in a serious way, and to start writing about what I figure out, because it’s T minus three years from my trip around the world, and I’m not going to set off on a trip I’ve planned for 10 years without feeling confident that I’m ready for it. And by ready for it, I mean ready for the adventures, the mundane details, and my sincere involvement with the people I meet and the places I go. I don’t mean ready in the sense that I’ll have plenty of money or have every minute of my itinerary planned—that’s ridiculous and sad (okay, not the money part; that’d be kickass). I mean I want to be prepared for anything, because that’s what’ll happen. I mean I want to be prepared to change a bit, because that’d better happen. I mean I want to be prepared to engage with people in a real way, and not simply check places visited off my list, because being fully engaged is the best that can happen.

I’m starting to read some travel blogs and travel writing tips websites, and I’ll check some books out of the library. Let’s see what the pros do, what the dedicated amateurs do, and where I might fit in. There are many ways to cock it up, but some quick notes to self: My viewpoint is central to my life and no one else’s, so I shouldn’t discount any of my own emotions or thoughts, but I’d sure as hell think twice before expressing them in person or in print, to make sure that they have value for others. Even though I can get very list-oriented and methodical, I enjoy my spontaneous moments and need to leave plenty of room for them on my travels. This also means that I need to shift some of my thinking from checklists (“where are you going?” “Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia…”) to a compilation of experiences. How do I write about my own travels as a privileged white American woman in this world without falling into the traps of racism, classism, nationalism, etc.? How do I travel without falling into those traps? How do I travel in a conscionable manner, giving something back to each place I visit, without getting a bit noblesse oblige? How do I expand my own horizons without making it all about me, and how do I make my writing reflect that?