Lavinia Spalding > Quotes

“Don't ever live vicariously. This is your life. Live.”
― Lavinia Spalding

“There’s something profoundly intense and intoxicating about friendship found en route. It’s the bond that arises from being thrust into uncomfortable circumstances, and the vulnerability of trusting others to navigate those situations. It’s the exhilaration of meeting someone when we are our most alive selves, breathing new air, high on life-altering moments. It’s the discovery of the commonality of the world’s people and the attendant rejection of prejudices. It’s the humbling experience of being suspicious of a stranger who then extends a great kindness. It’s the astonishment of learning from those we set out to teach. It’s the intimacy of sharing small spaces, the recognition of a kindred spirit across the globe.

It’s the travel relationship, and it can only call itself family.”
― Lavinia Spalding, The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 8: True Stories from Around the World

“I've nursed a lifelong love affair with movement, straying ever farther from those I love most. But somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that I was always traveling with family - because the act of travel, to the extent that it separates us from our relatives, also extends, manifests, multiplies, and completes family.”
― Lavinia Spalding, The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 8: True Stories from Around the World

“It’s the same with writer’s block—a surefire way to break the spell is to begin writing furiously, about anything.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“Making the journal equal to the journey is simply a matter of shifting your intention: you’re no longer traveling and keeping a log on the side, but embarking with a dual purpose.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“A journal is personal travel insurance, protecting your memories from strolling off un-chaperoned, vanishing without a goodbye or backwards glance. This is the driving force behind most people’s road journals, and although basic, its importance cannot be overstated. The human memory is feeble and needs all the help it can get.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“The thing is, even if you start out with a firm resolve and a clear intention, your journal will die a slow death if you write in it only when the spirit moves you.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“As Barbara Kingsolver said, “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“I believe in travel. I believe that by disorienting us, it rearranges us. Travel builds character and ignites imagination, nurtures independence and humility, catalyzes curiosity and self-examination. It can be a bulwark against stagnation, and a call to action. It widens our worldview and brings us face-to-face with our privilege, as it forces us to reassess entrenched beliefs and long-held concepts. Of course, travel is no magical elixir. I've stopped believing it's 'fatal to prejudice,' as Mark Twain famously declared (if only it were that simple), but I do hold that it's a solid start toward upending our biases and assumptions, because it compels us to see beyond the abstractions of a foreign land to its humanity.

But travel has a shadow side, too: there's the environmental impact of flying and cruising, the crowding of our planet's most wondrous places, the littering of sacred sites, the pricing-out of locals. And it has dreadful roots (colonialism, capitalism) and gruesome side effects (exploitation, exoticism, saviorism).

I wrestle with this duality. How do I reconcile the damage travel does with the awareness that it profoundly enriches my life; that it is not only my livelihood but also, at time, my sanity? It's another area in which I get hopelessly lost. And while I may never navigate this ethical tangle, I recognize that travel itself is what helps me make sense of - or at least pay more attention to - a world both exquisite and unbearably cruel.”
― Lavinia Spalding, The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 12: True Stories from Around the World

“Procrastination hurts almost any project, but it’s murder on a travel journal. First”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“Sometimes the strongest bonds are easy to overlook in the darkness. And sometimes, that’s where you find them.”
― Lavinia Spalding, The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 10: True Stories from Around the World

“For my money, this is the highest purpose of journaling. A travelogue enables you to look inward while studying the unfamiliar scenes around you,”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“journal; it’s a deeply intimate affair and by far the most private of all writing projects, and no one can or should tell you exactly how to approach it. That would be like advising you on how to bathe or pray—it’s really your own deal. I do, however, know what works for me and for lots of other writers, and I have ideas to share.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, Why am I doing this?”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“Talk to companions, family, locals, and new acquaintances about your writing, gently impressing upon them that keeping a journal is important to you. First, doing so will compel you to write, because if you’ve told them you’re working on something meaningful and they see you sunning yourself on the beach reading smut novels and trashy magazines all the time you’ll be embarrassed. Second, when you introduce yourself as a writer you’ll be treated with regard when seen writing. If you present the journal as something you love, people will see it as beloved and make space for it.”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“In fact, there’s nothing like travel to swing wide all the artistic channels,”
― Lavinia Spalding, Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler

“In this collection of essays, you will meet more people like Zakia - golden-hearted souls who come from places like Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Canada, Cuba, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, Spain, and Tanzania. People who become the heroes of our stories because they show the way or deliver joy, care for us when we're vulnerable, help us navigate meaning, or propel us when we're stuck. They are custodians of travel; they keep us believing in its magic.”
― Lavinia Spalding, The Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 12: True Stories from Around the World