Travel Writing: The Best Escape for Writers in the U.S.

Happy New Year, Writers Abroad. Be glad, today, that you are abroad.

But for those in the U.S. like Writer Abroad is now, there is nothing like a strange new American presidency to make all Americans feel a little more foreign in our own country.

If there’s any consolation prize, the recent (and sure to be upcoming) American strangeness makes Writer Abroad feel less like a foreigner in her own country than she did after moving back two years ago from Switzerland.

When over half your country also seems confounded by its bizarre direction, it makes the last stages of repatriation a little easier somehow. Together, we are all foreigners in America these days. (This phenomenon is also making Writer Abroad’s upcoming book project, American Life: 30 Things I Wish I’d Known, an even more interesting thing to write than she ever expected.)

Luckily, Writer Abroad often escapes into Switzerland, even from the United States. (Funny how that happens when you are writing a travel book about Switzerland.) Writing this travel book over the last three years has been a wonderful escape. After the book is published this spring, Writer Abroad will lose her daily excuse to escape into another world because she will be 100% focused on her book about American life. But she’s sure to find another excuse.

Speaking of escaping, here’s a piece she wrote this week for CNN Business Traveller about traveling in Davos, Switzerland. It was timed to run with the World Economic Forum, but really, Davos is a much better place to go when that conference is over. In fact, during the Forum, many places in Davos shut down for security reasons.

And for those of you who would like to escape to Switzerland to do a little writing this year, the Zurich Writers Workshop will be held May 12-14, 2017 in Zurich. Hmm…since Writer Abroad is both planning and attending this workshop, she actually will escape the U.S. for a little while once again. Care to join her?