About travels:
People tend to become actors when they are travelling. They are actors of their own life (Ken Hollings underlined the characteristic sensations you’re confronted to when entering in an airport. You mentally project yourself in a film where you are the hero). Although there is millions ways of interacting and dealing with space, time and movement, there might be an overall feeling that can reach a majority. When travelling, everything is upside down. You must leave the clan you’re part of to join another clan. It implies that you should adapt yourself to new social codes. Reproduce the same local schemes that you observe around you. That’s a survival reaction. Death or adaptability. Then there is the idea of geographical change. Both body and mind should deal with modified climates, landscape, seasons. People enjoy it and call it exoticism. Finally there is the idea of sensationalism: Travel might be more and more accessible nowadays (development of charters, globalisation…) but it remains a not-so-common occupation, and is associates to a strong collective imaginarium. Travel, in a way, is fulfilment. Nomads move because their land isn’t hospitable anymore. They walk until they find what they need to live. I call that survival. We can apply that model to our modern settled society. We might not be nomads anymore, but I would classify that travel gateway as an animal passion. It’s an unconscious feeling, and it’s not moderate by the reason. If you do not feel good, well, then you do have to leave.

About travel diaries:
Since human have been able to translate feelings into words, and words into writing, they created a tool that they used to report, either a common knowledge, or their inner sensible perception.
Travel diary is a written, visual and sensitive document, translation of a journey. It is a report. People spread on paper what they want to keep, or share, as a way of accessing eternity (describing and projecting yourself and the world in an object that will survive you). One’s would say that a travel diary has legitimacy, and have been by the past a great help to hordes of anthropologists, geographs and scientists.
It might be the case, but nowadays the whole planet has been put into Google Earth and it is not relevant anymore to say that your travel in Kenya was out of the beaten track. Most of the time diaries are fail intent to touch other sensibilities. They are too personal and do not communicate. We must recreate an adapted way of sharing travel experiences within the characteristics of our society.
I love to travel, and I love to read about travels. Although I never enjoyed travel diaries. They are not carrying anything that you expect from them. In opposition to travel guides, travel diaries are treated by one person, which means from a single point of view. How can you reach a wide audience? They should convey everything, but they are obsolete and treat exoticism as an ornament to the boredom of our lives.

About not conveying anything, here is terrible quality photographies of my trip. See you tmrw!

http://amayadelmas.free.fr/indexhibit/index.php?/-/siberia/

http://amayadelmas.free.fr/indexhibit/index.php?/-/mongolia/