It’s the perfect writer’s cottage. You enter the back yard of an old Edwardian-era house in Berkeley via a latched gate in a white picket fence. The gate is to keep Gus, an aging yet hyperactive Catalonian sheep dog from escaping. Gus is getting too old to see well, so he barks a lot at visitors and gives them a warm tongue bath welcome.
There’s a Buddha sculpture in the birdbath, and lawn and a patio, and at the back of the yard a one-room cottage with a skylight with homemade photography studio. You half expect to see Jack Kerouac lounging in the doorway with his thumb in a well-worn copy of Howl.
“In high school I read one of Kerouac’s books where he talked about writer’s cottages in the backyard’s of houses in Berkeley,” says writer Andrew Dean Nystrom, “so when I moved to the Bay Area to go to UC Berkeley I thought I’d find one for myself. Of course it helps if you know the landlord’s daughter.”
Nystrom, 29, is a global traveler and freelance travel guide writer for Australian publisher Lonely Planet Books. He has contributed text and images to nearly two-dozen Fodor’s and Lonely Planet titles ranging from Bolivia to Yellowstone National Park. Since he lives in a writer’s cottage in Berkeley and gets to travel the world and write about it for a living, you could say he’s got the perfect job. Nystrom explains there’s a little bit more to it than that.
“There is no expense account. I get a flat fee for the entire project. I have to pay for everything on the road; my hotels, food, transportation, everything. When I’m researching I have to check out up to 50 places a day. Hotels, restaurants, bus schedules, Internet cafes; you get the picture. It’s an exhausting 12-16 hour day,” says Nystrom. “I sit on the beds, nibble food at half a dozen places, check out the toilet facilities. There’s no rest and relaxation. If you want to travel in style, my recommendation is to not quit your day job because writing travel guides will ruin your typical laid-back vacation experience.”
Far from hanging up his hammock and retiring, however, Nystrom has an interesting new idea about documenting his next travel writing that he calls “backpack journalism” which he will experiment with during his next assignment. In the meantime, he’s got another chapter to finish for a new Lonely Planet book called The Career Break Books, featuring interviews with people from several continents who have taken time away from their careers to re-evaluate their lives and find ways to be more true to themselves.
“Personally, I travel to broaden my horizons, to experience something different than I would find at home. I like wild places, like Antarctica and the Yellowstone backcountry. I like to get under the skin of a place, to establish a rapport with the wildlife, to find out what life is really like there.”
In a recent interview with Ecoclub, a monthly international eco-tourism magazine, Nystrom says that all the world’s travel and tourism, no matter how eco-friendly or ethical it may be, alters people and places. How that happens is important.
“I’m more interested in, say, how a Mexican’s experience of migrating seasonally to work in the United States and returning to their traditional highland village has changed a place, than how a group of gringo backpackers poking around somewhere for a few days has influenced a place. For instance, to me California is more Mexican than Mexico is Californian. I’m fascinated by exploding population centers like China and India, and by the effects that their citizens will have on the world as they begin to travel overseas en masse.”
As part of the global travel vanguard, Nystrom believes that independent travelers must consider themselves ambassadors for their own cultures, and that they should make a conscientious effort to mitigate the effects their presence may have while abroad by informing themselves about local cultures and by striving to leave as faint a footprint as possible.
“In my travels, I don’t have a choice. I am representing the United States, and I want to leave a good impression,” he says. “Wherever I go, people say ‘you must have a lot of money, to be young and traveling the world.’ Well, compared to their lives, that’s true. But I am pleased to say that since 911 and the invasion of Iraq, I haven’t received any abuse for being an American. Thankfully, people are able to differentiate between a government and its citizens.”
In a recent column, esteemed travel writer Jan Morris mused about what she called “the recent trends to talk about the art and meaning of travel.” She denied subscribing to any such philosophy herself. “People talk a lot these days about the philosophy, the art or the meaning of travel. Not me,” she wrote. “I have been wandering almost constantly for more than a half a century, and I have evolved no philosophy of travel, discovered no art and haven't even tried to evolve a deeper meaning.”
That’s an interpretation of travel Nystrom does not share.
“Yes, I have traveled a lot and I think there is indeed a meaning to travel,” he says. “I’m not interested in the usual curiosity or a getting a little R and R. I want to get involved with the people I meet, to give back, to find something meaningful in my travels.”
Typically, on the road Nystrom takes notes with pen and paper, then collates his notes at night, sometimes using a laptop computer. Upon returning home, he will race to meet a deadline. Then, six to nine months after doing his original research, the latest hot-off-the-press Lonely Planet guide will appear. But in a rapidly changing world, is six months “after the fact” quick enough to accurately report conditions in formerly far-flung places?
“Digital media certainly has its place in the travel information world, especially for travelers exchanging feedback about their experiences via online bulletin boards, for example,” he says. “ In a prior life, I worked as a web monkey, developing websites and mobile digital city guides for mobile phones and other handheld devices. I’ve yet to see anyone fully realize the potential of real-time travel information delivery, except for perhaps CalTrans. I hope that day is coming soon.”
In fact, Nystrom will be contributing to the development of ‘real-time’ information delivery during his next trip, which he hopes will be somewhere in North America for a change, an experiment in “backpack journalism” using “mobile blogging” (“moblogs”) as his delivery method.
“I will be carrying a phonecam with me,” he says, “while I’m searching for the ‘real America,’ like William Least Heat Moon did with Blue Highways. I will be reporting back to my travel weblog as frequently as the cellular infrastructure allows. The digital phone can post voice messages, text and images immediately on my blog, where people can read it and respond to it right away. I can also reply to comments and remotely edit the text via a web interface. Mobile blogging is interesting in that it has this instantaneous quality to it. It’s self-contained, lightweight, self-publishing. What I am trying to do is capture a 3-D feeling, the sensuality of a place, the fleeting feelings, the smells and tastes as well as the lasting, less liminal moments.”
Nystrom’s new camera phone allows him to post a maximum of four minutes of audio per blog. Followers of his expedition can listen to audio using a web browser equipped with a standard application like Real Audio. Current “Short Messaging Service” permits 160 characters per photo caption, so text will be necessarily brief.
“There is little room for personality in traditional travel guide writing. What I am trying to do with this experiment in ‘backpack journalism’ is like taking a snapshot in time. I hope my writing will be more passionate this way, real, sensual, emotional. Whether it will have long term value, we’ll have to wait to see.”
Contact Andrew Dean Nystrom at laughtears@yahoo.com.
Check out his travelblog: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/nystrom
Andrew Nystrom has contributed to the following books:
Brilliance in the Shadows: A Biography of Lucia Kleihans Mathews (editor)
Flyguides.com - San Francisco Bay Area Destination Profile
Fodor's Berkeley Guide: Central America On the Loose (2nd ed, co-editor)
Fodor's Berkeley Guide: Mexico (3rd ed, author Oaxaca, Chiapas & Tabasco chapters)
Fodor's Upclose California (1st ed, co-author Los Angeles chapter)
Fodor's Upclose Los Angeles (1st ed, co-author Exploring, Food, After Dark & Outdoors)
Heyday Books - Giants in the Earth: The California Redwoods (field researcher)
Heyday Books - Gold Rush: A Literary Exploration (photo & text field researcher)
Lonely Planet Bolivia (5th ed, 2004)
Lonely Planet Bolivia (Italian translation by EDT, 2004)
Lonely Planet Bolivie (French translation, 2004)
Lonely Planet California (2nd ed, editor Sierra Nevada chapter)
Lonely Planet CitySync (Los Angeles & San Francisco city editor)
Lonely Planet Las Vegas Condensed (1st ed, June 2003)
Lonely Planet Messico (Italian translation by EDT, 2002)
Lonely Planet Mexico (9th ed, Around Mexico City & N. Central Highlands chapters)
Lonely Planet Mexico (8th ed, co-author Central Pacific Coast chapter)
Lonely Planet México (Spanish translation by GeoPlaneta, 2003)
Lonely Planet Mexique (French translation, 2002 & 2004)
Lonely Planet Ouest Américain (French translation, 2003)
Lonely Planet Out to Eat: San Francisco 2001 (1st ed, review & feature contributor)
Lonely Planet Out to Eat: San Francisco 2002 (2nd ed, review, feature & photo contributor)
Lonely Planet Rocky Mountains USA (3rd ed, author Idaho & Wyoming chapters & photos)
Lonely Planet San Francisco (photographic contributor)
Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring (9th ed, 2004)
Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring (editor)
Lonely Planet USA (author Rocky Mountains chapter)
Lonely Planet Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks (1st ed, April 2003)
Maya Atlas: The Struggle to Preserve Maya Land in Southern Belize (editor & translator)
PalmPak Travel Cards v1.0 (US cities coordinator)
Professor Pathfinder's Berkeley City Map (field editor)