Where to find good travel blogs (2012)?

I have been occasionally grumpy about travel blogs and am pleased to find your list -- particularly as the only blog on it that I am familiar with is my own -- and I will assume your other choices to be similarly discerning.

I suggest, in a post inflammatorily titled "Paul Theroux doesn't like travel blogs," that there may be a problem with the concept of travel blogs. http://elsewhereandelsewhen.blogspot.com/2011/10/paul-theroux-does-not-like-travel-blogs.html

My favorite blogs tend to be expat blogs, written by long-time foreign residents who are working their way into the culture, but who still retain the sensibility of someone like ourselves. We see better through eyes like our own than through the eyes of others. When we see through the eyes of others we tend to learn more about them than about what they saw, which may be a fine thing, if that is why we read them.

I think, by the way, that it is important that when we read a travel writer that he be someone like ourselves, who will see things as we might see them. Otherwise, their insights, however prescient, are less meaningful to us, as ours would be less meaningful to them. I realize that this is, as the Disciples were wont to remark, a "hard saying" and would require more space than we have here.

But I will now enthusiastically investigate the blogs you have proposed, to the very neglect of my own.

Best wishes,

09.10.2012 by DEK

Here's a blog that's not on your list, but I think has a depth and seriousness to justify some attention:

http://www.oldworldwandering.com/

11.10.2012 by DEK

I fully agree Davis!
I mentioned that blog in my annotated list in 2011 and did not repeat it here. Have a look and be inspired: http://sandalsand.travellerspoint.com/65/

11.10.2012 by Sandalsand

Travelling offers - on a great travel blog: http://jurnaledebord.wordpress.com/ .

14.10.2012 by MariaAR

Hello,
My blog, or blogs, arent really your normal travel blog and probably dont warrant inclusion in this kind of list, but I was told to go tell people about what I do, so here is my spam.
I am organizing a two week railway expedition round 23 Western European capitals. The project's name is The Great Circular European Railway Challenge, although we're also using the title The disOrient Express. The blog is http://gcerc.wordpress.com. There are 13 of us doing the whole trip, with cameo appearances from friends at various stages along the way too.
We've coined the term Tourisme Grande Vitesse to describe this kind of travel. The idea is a development of a previous project I organized last year, The Great Circular Indian Railway Challenge http://gcirc.wordpress.com, where we travelled to the 4 corners of the Indian rail network in 2 weeks, and which was also regarded as quite infeasible before we executed it, but was quite a success. I spent 2 years organizing the India journey, and a similar amount of effort has gone into developing this.
I dont do this for money or anything, I just like putting together daft train trips for unfeasibly large groups. I am far more interested in incomming advice than outgoing PVs. To that end, if you have any advice on what to put in a Norwegian picnic basket please get in touch.

Best Regards

Mark Lester

14.10.2012 by Mark Lester

I wonder if Anglophone travel blogs might not reflect the general Anglophone nature of travel writing. Were the imperial and colonizing countries more outward-looking, more interested in the experience of foreign places, and therefore developed a travel literature?

I write because, when I began traveling, I discovered a wonderful English-language literature of travel, so many of their writers imperial adventurers or, later, between the wars, sandy-haired Englishmen hissed at by snakes.

I wonder if you do not grow up with a travel literature in your own language, are you going to take naturally to the genre, of which I assume travel blogging to be derivative?

But I have my plate full with my own culture and strain to understand it, and do not worry that I don’t hear from the travel writing of other cultures which, whether they write in English or not, would be seeing with foreign eyes through filters that I know nothing of.

28.10.2012 by DEK

Thanks for including us on your list!

07.12.2012 by Jeremy

Hello,

You don't know how much I appreciate to see that you include my blog in your list, number 15.

For various reasons, I no longer post on travellerspoint. Instead I will post on my own blog site. I have in fact moved all my posts there.

If you so wish, please correct my above hyperlink to the new link:

http://ramblerwithoutborders.blogspot.com

I will continue to post there. As it's my own blog, you will find all my old travel posts, as well as my other posts in other areas of my interests there.

I have written many posts outside travels.

Please feel free to visit there.

Once again, thank you for including me in your list. I feel truly honoured.

Regards,

Francis Q

28.12.2012 by FrancisQ

It's done Francis! New link is included.

28.12.2012 by Sandalsand

Ta!

Peace!

29.12.2012 by FrancisQ