Tourists with typewriters: critical reflections on contemporary travel writing

Holland, P., Huggan, G. (1998). Tourists with typewriters: critical reflections on contemporary travel writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Huggan and Holland’s book illustrates the climate of contemporary travel writing through a series of chapters through the lens of critical theory.  Each chapter engages a specific cultural theory or sociological factor (postcolonial theory, ethnic zones, gender differences, postmodernism, etc.) in order to analyze the effectiveness of individual travel writers’ works.  This book provides criticism of travel writing’s unacknowledged ethnocentrism while working to recognize the genre as true literary form, and it does so with a look at the range between what has been considered the best and worst travel writing.  In the Preface of the book, the authors make this claim: “Travel writing calls out, then, for a sustained critical analysis: one that looks at travel writers as retailers of mostly white,  male, middle-class heterosexual myths and prejudices, and at their readers as eager consumers of exotic – culturally “othered” --  goods” (viii).  Huggan and Holland make the point that the best travel writing  can cross boundaries and create a neutral humanism anyone can enjoy, while the worst can be exploitative and demarcate the lines between socioeconomic groups.  This intriguing work explores a broad range of travel narratives written in English after the Second World War, focusing mainly on writers such as Jan Morris, Peter Matthiessen, V. S. Naipaul, Barry Lopez, Mary Morris, Paul Theroux, Peter Mayle, and the late Bruce Chatwin.  


Although a cross-curricular study, this book examines the same rhetorical issues that I predict also affect travel blogging.  Since it focuses on the spectrum of writing, from best to worst, it gives an effective scope for analysis of even more contemporary travel writing. This text gives an exemplar of the literary analysis techniques I will employ to begin my study of travel blogs, although there will be factors to consider when comparing texts.  Huggan and Holland suggest that “travel writing deserves to develop as a genre” because of its potential for global appeal, and I tend to agree; however, I agree with the authors that such a genre only has a place if we are conscientious of the side effects and implications of such writing.  Taking into consideration the factors they engage as contentious will provide very helpful insight into travel blogs.