How to be a travel writer: finding comfort in displacement

Know your comfort zone

If you write, you know it’s easy to write about home. The nuances of your town, the idiosyncrasies of your street.

For me, I find beauty in crisp packets tumbling over nitrous oxide canisters in the gutter. Or vape clouds clinging to broken benches and blinking streetlights.

But how do you write as an outsider?

How do you write about a place that will never be yours?

I have been in Africa for almost 3 months now.

This is not my home.

These are not my people.

Can I only write about working-class exhaustion and the forgotten North-West?

If so, I might as well pack it all in now.

If I am to write about things I do not know, then I must write without judgement — or, the idea that you can gleam judgement from my description. I need to write like a camera. Let me give this a go.

Write what you see without judgement

I type these words from the 12th floor of Enkang Apartments in Nairobi.

Our one-bedroom Airbnb is on the rooftop, which is a novelty for me.

I’m stretched out on the L-shaped sofa like a cat in the sun. It’s bright yet breezy outside.

I mean, of course it’s breezy, we’re on the 12th floor.

The planes coming in from Masai Mara safaris are louder from up here and the birds seem surprised when they perch on our roof. A Black Kite (bird) flew overhead yesterday and I swear I could’ve touched him with an outstretched hand.

The bangs of rudimentary tools clang around my brain as a tower next door slowly finds its feet. They’re working on it 7 days a week, and it’ll be taller than the building we currently occupy in 4 years time. There’s something about this that makes the view I have right now so much sweeter. It’s like there’s an expiry date on this beautiful, sweeping view of Nairobi. We’re on the 12th floor and the door opens right out onto the roof. From here we can see Ngong Hills rolling in the background. In fact…one sec.

Ground the reader in time and place

I’m outside now, because how can I talk about a landscape I can’t see? It’s windy and if I fed the creaking parasol above my head through Google Translate, it’d be warning me to go back inside in inanimatese.

Be playful (you’re a travel writer, not a travel guide)

I’ll ignore it for now so I can keep this authentic (because who doesn’t love authenticity?). There’s a dirt football pitch that is permanently occupied in the evenings and weekends but is currently empty. We’re so high that looking at it is like switching the camera angle on Fifa to ‘bird’s eye view’.

Shopfronts are just shadows from up here.

Tiny portals into the mass of corrugated steel that you see from above.

Each row of shops stretches back 10–20 metres where parents pray and children play.

When you drift into deep distraction, come back to the senses

The clatter of tools comes to a temporary halt as half of the builders leave for lunch. I feel my own stomach rumble at the thought of their coconut beans or Ndengu with chapati or ugali. Lunch is cheap on the streets of Nairobi. You’re talking 100 KES (£0.60) for a plate that leaves you needing a nap afterwards.

Recap without repetition

So all of this: the impromptu football matches, the children’s parties in overlooked backyards, the goats scurrying through wild scrub or the workers sleeping, unseen, behind toolsheds — they all have a time limit. In 4 years time, I’d guess that around 75% of this view will disappear. Instead, you’ll be watching somebody else’s television while they scroll through their phone. It’s a poignant reminder that nothing truly lasts in a city that never sleeps. You get these magical moments that might even last a few years. The urban sprawl will always swallow it up, doling out your dopamine to the next highest bidder.

Be authentic, always

In all honesty, I didn’t have a clue what to write about when I sat at my laptop to put this together. All I knew was that I felt a sense of careful intimidation when it came to writing about the things I see on our travels. Maybe I’ve partially worked through it here, like C.B.T or something. But I feel better. It’s been cathartic.