What next

A newsletter and a diversion

When I finished writing my biography of Jack Catchpool I wanted to carry on writing about hostels. That was going to be my next thing.

Ideas

I had ideas, plenty of those. I wanted it to be about the nitty gritty of youth hostels in their early days, and the many people who visited them, and what they found. But I didn’t have much more than that. 

I had found diaries and travel logs. They fascinated me and I wanted them included. But nothing gelled, and life got tough – Covid and lockdowns. We moved house.

Restrictions

My concerns about tourism grew. Travel has probably become less affordable for many through my working life. 

We can travel but I suspect fewer do, or at least the numbers who can’t afford to travel have risen. Figures are hard to get. Figures for tourism show more concern with overseas visitors coming to Britain and with future trends.

But “…current levels of poverty are around 50% higher than they were in the 1970s”, according to a Joseph Rowntree report. It’s likely that those who can afford visits and holidays has fallen as much. https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk

Stumbles

Thoughts like those have been in my mind as I try to unlock what I want to write. Finding the core of a narrative can be hard. It’s the most difficult part of writing for me.

Readers of my newsletter (published on Mailchimp) have stuck with me as I stumbled along. I’m grateful for that.

Things are now taking more shape. Substack has played a part in that, giving me a new way to look at how I write and publish.

Better tourism

The story I’m writing has taken shape over there.

I’m looking at how YHA set out to make a better kind of tourism. I’m writing about more than youth hostels. I’m writing about more than a charity and an organisation.

I’m writing about tourism, what threatens it and where there might be hope in it. I’m looking at sustainability through the lens of history.

More people, more travel

I wrote a piece recently looking at what progress in tourism might be, from my point of view. I wrote it with hostels and youth travel in mind. 

It’s another explanation of what I am writing about and you will find it here. https://www.goodtourismblog.com/2024/04/progress-travel-tourism-2024/#more-people-travelling-closer-to-home

I want more people and especially more young people to enjoy the benefits of travel. That’s what this is all about in the end. 

Youth hostel pioneer

The story of Jack Catchpool and his desire to bring travel to more young people remains as relevant to that today as it was then. 

I’m pleased my biography still sells. If you haven’t read it, please do. You’ll find it on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0853FCQ9H

As a recent reader told me, she thought it was a very good book. But she thought its title didn’t do it justice. If you can think of a better one, let me know.