I was planning to visit pachmarhi.I wanted to know more about the place. I have two options.Search for pachmarhi and get all the information I want from the net.The net gives me INFORMATION. Information like the height of the place. temperature. important spots to visit. names of hotels , transport arrangements. how to reach so on and so forth.
Another option available for me is to look for reviews in MS.Here iam NOT looking for INFORMATION.Because there is nothing I cant get from the net. Iam looking for something beyond mere data.IN fact I want to listen to your responses. What do YOU think of the place?Your personal impression is very important.All places are MAGNIFICIENT in the tourism depts brochure.Because they want to promote tourism.For example the tourism dept s brochure about Mount Abu mentions the ’’Teachers training institute’ as one of the spots worth visiting!Obviously they were at their wits end to complete a list of 20 places.
Reading a REVIEW should be like talking to a friend who has visited the place.If the review is just a repetition of a list of spots straight from the brochure, it is of no use to me.My request to all friends who read and rate travel reviews is that YOU should look for originality and personal touch .First and formost try to see whether he has actually visited the place!If there are no personal impressions, finer details and something beyond the tourism brochure, probably he is just copying data and trying to fool you.I never trust such people.
For instance , if I have travelled by say Quantas to Sydney.i should tell you about the inflight service, was it good? how was the inflight entertainment like music , television.are their individual monitors? Do you get good vegetarian food?How long does the flight take?Is the staff courteous? etc.etc.(let me tell you if you are a Jain taking this flight you will have some surprises on your plates!the results of the desperate efforts of the crew trying to fix a meal for you without onion egg and garlic!)
In otherwords put yourself in the shoes of a person who wish to visit the place.What information will be useful to him.Which experiences you had in this trip will be useful to others. For example you say ’dont go to X restaurant, we had a terrible experience there, the service is very bad and the rates too high.’
Well you can say ’ I dont bother for others. I visited Madikeri and here is what I felt about it.’ You are writing a travelogue.! Well this form of writing is entertaining and far better than the BROCHURE form. At least I know that you have visited the place.A travelogue tells you many things about the place as it is full of personal impressions.
For example a friend writes about his visit to delhi.He had only one day and half of it was wasted in walking around the delhi zoo during a summer afternoon. he says
’’i saw nothing but big cages , big empty cages with some names written outside. iwas told the animal must be sleeping in some corner.After walking about 5 kms all we saw was some poorly fed animals and some monkeys!’’ So any person who has only one day at his disposal can well avoid the zoo and visit the Humayun ’s tomb or the Bahai temple instead.
Well, this is not an advice on writing travel reviews , but just some thoughts , opinions.some may agree with it some may not.But all may agree that we need to make it more interesting by adding that PERSONAL touch.