One of the things that has always bugged me about travel stories, and travel websites, is the cult of fascination that many travellers get over every single place. Once you have passed a threshold of places visited, every minor detail becomes less fascinating; every tiny wreck of a church, mosque, crooked tree, or blade of grass becomes less than a life altering experience. And every trip becomes a part of a larger mosaic of understanding the broader world.
The reason I mention this is that personal travelogues should be ripe with opinions, observations, witty considerations, and contribute to the overall knowledge of a place. They should not, in effect, be constant ambassadors to the fanatical promotion of any place. Therefore, and this is important: If the author did not like a place, he will say so.
Now, this is not to say that everyone will not like a certain place. As mentioned, and this is important: These are Personal Travelogues. The author is entitled to an opinion, as you are to yours.
And finally, not liking a place does not mean that one is not qualified to write about it. If you act somehow deeply offended that I, the mere travel writer, was not having a religious rapture when I visited your corner of the world, don't take it personally. I am contributing to the overall sense of a place, not providing an encyclopaedic authoritarian be-all and end-all website for every place I visit.
As I said at the beginning of this message, my intention with this site was not to provide another overtly positive and naively optimistic travel site. Not every corner of the world is beautiful; not every corner of the world will be given its full worth on this site. And in spite of that it is still important that people who visit write about their experiences. To contribute to the overall sense of a place.
One thing that always bothers me is when people tell people to not write about a place because they have not spent 'enough' time there or happen to disagree with someone else; this smacks of censorship and is contrary to what travel websites should be all about. Travel stories should be filled with observations of how the author liked or disliked something, hated the people or the people hated them; it should be a rousing mass of information that turns a place alive with the passion that he or she enjoyed his or her time in a place or found it equally disastrous and would never set foot there again. This is the lifeblood of a good travel story, and if the author happened to have these experiences in your corner of the world, then all the better - people are visiting!
It takes time, effort, money, and interest to get anywhere in this world. The fact that a person took the time, money and interest to visit your corner, and then wastes monthly bandwidth telling the world about it, should be taken as at least a small compliment to the place. If the author loved it or hated it, despised it or ignored it, but still mentioned it, congratulations: you've affected their worldview. This is always a positive thing.
You are entitled to your opinion; I am entitled to mine. If you cannot comprehend this simple fact, please do not email me.
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