Notes from Abroad

Panoramic view of a dense urban area with numerous buildings, top trees, and a hazy sky.

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Writing for an Audience of One
Writing for an Audience of One

Every travel article I write has an audience of thousands. Every entry in my son's travel journal has an audience of one. The difference between those two acts has changed how I think about both.

Zero-Click Search vs. Traditional SEO: The Travel Writer's New Tightrope
Zero-Click Search vs. Traditional SEO: The Travel Writer's New Tightrope

A few weeks ago, I searched for "best things to do in Chiang Mai." Google's AI Overview gave me a bulleted list before I clicked a single link. Temples, night markets, cooking classes; all summarized in 150 words. I got what I needed without visiting a single blog. As a travel writer, that should terrify me.

Research vs. Experience: How to Write About Places You've Never Visited
Research vs. Experience: How to Write About Places You've Never Visited

Last week, I was researching the Caspian Sea for a WorldAtlas article. It was fun to write but I've never been there. Travel makes me want to research, and research makes me want to travel. My love for one drives my love for the other, but they're separate passions. I can write about a place I've never visited because I know how to learn it deeply enough to explain it. I can also write about a place I know intimately because I've stood in its markets and eaten its street food.

The Luang Prabang Test: What This City Taught Me About Honest Travel Copy
The Luang Prabang Test: What This City Taught Me About Honest Travel Copy

The night market in Luang Prabang opens at 5pm, and by 5:15 the main street is a river of backpackers. Twenty-year-olds in elephant pants haggling over hemp bracelets. Retired Europeans in linen shirts examining silk scarves. I stood there with my wife, expecting the usual tourist trap, the facade that hides the real city behind it. That's when I noticed the embroidery. I bought one not because I needed a souvenir, but because I finally understood what I was looking at: economic survival and cultural continuity in the same gesture. That was the first part of what I now call the Luang Prabang Test.

Flexibility is a Skill (You Can Learn from a Toddler)
Flexibility is a Skill (You Can Learn from a Toddler)

I recently took a weekend trip from Shanghai to Wuxi. Bullet train, two nights. Me, my wife, two friends, and our two-year-old son. We planned nothing. Why? Because every previous trip with a toddler taught me that plans are just suggestions written in pencil on wet paper.

Driving Around the World Taught Me to Write for Different Audiences
Driving Around the World Taught Me to Write for Different Audiences

I’ve held driver’s licenses in the United States, Thailand, and Germany. I’ve driven on highways and back roads in twelve countries across four continents. Every time I get behind the wheel in a new place, I learn the same lesson all over again. The rules are written down, but the real education comes from what no one tells you.

A Cooking Teacher in Bali Taught Me How to Preserve Voice
A Cooking Teacher in Bali Taught Me How to Preserve Voice

At Cookly, I edited booking pages for cooking classes and food tours all over the world. A teacher in Bali would fill out a questionnaire about their class, and I would turn their answers into a polished booking page. A lot of the grammar needed work, but the voice was always there from the beginning. My job was to clear the path, not to build a new road.

Same Same But Different: A Lesson in Positioning
Same Same But Different: A Lesson in Positioning

Thai sellers have a wonderful phrase for tourists who are comparing products. It’s the most honest marketing I’ve ever heard, and most brands could learn something from a street seller in Bangkok.

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The Catcher in the Rye and Why Customers Hate Fake Voices
100 Greatest Novels, Book Review, Copywriting, Literature, Marketing 100 Greatest Novels, Book Review, Copywriting, Literature, Marketing

The Catcher in the Rye and Why Customers Hate Fake Voices

I have a complicated relationship with The Catcher in the Rye. I read it at seventeen, the right age, and I found Holden Caulfield insufferable. I read it again at thirty, and I found him heartbreaking. But one thing has not changed across either reading. He is right about the phonies.

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Why I Read ‘Lolita’ to Learn Empathy in Marketing
100 Greatest Novels, Book Review, Copywriting, Marketing 100 Greatest Novels, Book Review, Copywriting, Marketing

Why I Read ‘Lolita’ to Learn Empathy in Marketing

I first picked up Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita because of my 100 Greatest Novels project. I knew its reputation: beautiful prose, impossible subject matter. I assumed the experience would be academic. I would admire the sentences from a safe distance and return it to the shelf. Instead, it broke something in me.

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