Pico Iyer’s ‘Sun After Dark’ is a meditation on reflective travel
Exploring the question, “Why we travel?” one essay at a time
Published in
4 min readOct 2, 2021
Where do I even begin with travel writer Pico Iyer?
I always used to read travel writing as a destination-specific story, informing me about a place or the adventures had along or during the journey.
While that still holds fort for me, of late it’s the ‘Why we travel?’ question that I seek answers to. Iyer’s work always gives nuanced responses to that question and one of the reasons why my locker and Kindle always have his books up front.
His work stands out amidst the travel writers I have read — and I have read a lot of them — in the sense that his writings are as much about the inner journeys one undertakes during the external wanderings.
He has touched upon it brilliantly in his TED Talk on the Art of Stillness.
