Writing Travel in the Twenty-First Century: Mobility and Authenticity in the Planetary Emergency

Travel is older than human civilization itself. Migration, trade, tourism and pilgrimage, all are forms of human movement that have existed for millennia. Yet travel is no longer what it used to be. Slow travel, flight shame, sustainable travel, eco- and anti-tourism, staycation and microadventures are but some of many recent terms testifying to a growing awareness that mobility has become
inextricably intertwined with planetary concerns, regardless of whether it is the short distance of a commute to work, or that of long-distance globetrotting. With every passing year proving protentially to be the hottest year on record and tourists evacuated by boat from uncontrollable forest fires on Rhodes in 2023,
all the while tech billionaires promise us trips to Mars and hotels on the moon (while others perish trying to reach the Titanic), we are also told to stop flying, to slow down, to consider the intimate and not the faraway.

Querying why, how, and indeed if ‘we’ need to travel, this project will read
contemporary ways in which travel is written, documented, and imagined, in traditional print formats like the book, but also examining digital forms of 'writing' and performing travel.