Hobo travel journalism/Route selection

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Geographical objects and people that you will meet in the process of moving along a predetermined (or spontaneously overcome) trajectory are of fundamental importance — they will be the subject of future articles. Therefore, the route should be thought out in advance, and if it includes ten or more countries, outline a plan for the first three or four of them — further actions may be improvised and unpredictable.

First steps

If you don’t have experience of long trips with repeated crossing of state borders, you can start "internship" with a small simple route. For the first time, a one-day hike, carried out in the vicinity of permanent residence, is suitable. If there are natural or historical landmarks in your area, you can go there, making sure to bring a camera: an article without illustrations looks incomplete; the responsible persons of the periodicals to whom you plan to provide your material may reject it.

Using colorful epithets and allegories, adding historical information and your own assumptions, you can describe a simple country trip to, say, the ruins of a historical site, resulting in a fascinating article (see the example in Wikisource at the link below). Don't forget at the same time that the above is something like a warm-up: in the future you will have to conquer the expanses of Africa, Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Hobo travel journalism is built on this.

Equipment

If you are going on a small one-day hike (for initial practice), you can pack luggage of any weight and volume, but on long expeditions you should use ultralight backpacking. It is strongly recommended to leave bulky photographic equipment with removable lenses and other accessories at home: you will need it someday for other purposes. For example, for props: to decorate one of the author's articles with your own portrait with a camera in your hands... by screwing a massive long-focus lens to it.

About the travel notepad

I don't recommend writing articles on the road: this method is good for a blogger, but not for a journalist. You should make notes in a pocket notebook, so that when you return home you don't forget the main points on which the article will be based. You should also leave brief comments on the photos — for identification purposes: the name of the object depicted and the time of the photo. I know from my own experience: when the number of frames is in the thousands, and the number of countries covered in one trip is close to ten (example), it can be difficult to remember upon returning what is shown in a particular photograph.

Quote from the literary works of the author

Any route, be it Africa, Asia, or the islands of Oceania, I go twice: the first time in reality, the second — when I write about it. Everything that happened: adventures, joys, problems — live now in my memoirs, travel notes, in the imagination of those who have read my books and articles. It will stay when I am gone into the world of shadows.

Examples of articles from Wikisource

Looking for an ancient treasure