~Travel Writing:

My definition of travel writing is different than many other people's definition. I don't mean just blogging and sharing my experiences. But more like capturing the essence and culture of that place—and adding it to a story.

Photo courtesy of flickr creative commons: retrotraveler

I am a fantasy writer. That's my career. But if all I write about is American fantasy, with American ideas and actions, then what kind of writer am I? Not a very open-minded one. After a trip to Nepal, I fell in love with the peaceful, beautiful, and silent aspect of life that the people lived in the mountainous regions. And not too far from that point, I felt that aspect slip into my writing, whether it be as a different culture of people, or maybe just a single individual. But all the same, I believe traveling greatly enhances my writing.

Writing is my passion, my career, my life. In writing, I feel I can do anything. Bring anything to life and create worlds that never existed before. Traveling is an amazing way to bring my writing to life and make it more realistic. Writing is only as limited as my mind, and the more I expand my mind, the more powerful my writing becomes.

And I will continue to travel until I can travel no more. Even then, in my mind I will travel, as my knowledge of the world grows larger, and my writing continues to deepen. I will never learn everything there is to know about this world, but I might as well learn as much as I can during this short life. And the only way to that is by seeing the world, and experiencing what it has to offer.

Jackson Duckworth is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program