The role of an EitM writer or general creative bod, we feel, is non-intrusive, shadowy and vague. They record facts and present them as is, without conjecture, opinion or placing themselves in their content.

We’re not big on writers having profile pictures or real names, or talking about themselves. All we want to do is present a topic and let the reader make of it what they will, without worrying about hot air or background noise.

Phrasing to avoid

It’s mostly a case of avoiding overused buzzwords, as listed below. These terms tend to turn up a lot, especially on social media, and it all feels a bit lazy and cynical – strategic informality designed to increase engagement.

Words have power, and overusing or misusing them robs them of that power. And when you can predict, fairly accurately, what a travel account will say, or at least how they’ll say it, then a lot of mystery and fun has been lost. We appreciate there’s probably a formula for success, and precise wording is a part of said formula. It all just feels a bit uniform.

We’d rather something is natural, even if it’s badly worded and stylistically flails around like a harpooned whale. On an unrelated note, welcome to Eye in the Middle: (In)Expert Travel Advice for all your travel content needs.

Anyway, thanks for letting us vent and shout at the clouds. We avoid using the following (in no particular order):*

… the [Place] you’ve never heard of

• This style of heading is probably designed to be rage- or clickbait, because there’s no way somebody could be that obnoxious without some kind of agenda at play
• Patronising and condescending, and most likely inaccurate; wrongly assuming that the reader doesn’t know about the topic can make the publication/writer look smug and arseholey
• Our solution: summarise the topic to match whatever angle you’re using – Welcome to Indonesia, the biggest country in SE Asia – and let the reader make of it what they will. If it’s all new information, then great, they’ve hopefully learned something. And if they do know about the subject, at least they haven’t been spoken down to

Solo

• It’s all a bit vague, this one. What are the parameters of solo travel? If you make a friend at the airport, or meet people, or hang out, maybe even travel together awhile with strangers, are you still on a solo trip? Or does it only count at the points of departure and arrival; ‘I set off alone, and I returned alone’
• Better, we think, to use the generic ‘travel’ umbrella term and then, if needs be, elaborate on your circumstances – your first trip alone, a holiday after a confidence-sapping event, that type of thing. Travelling alone requires a fair amount of bravery, and fair play to whoever does it; ‘solo’ just seems like a buzzword these days, and we fear it’s used cynically to create engagement
• Solo is our favourite of Java’s big cities

Heaven / Paradise

• We respect people’s rights to worship, and these two loaded terms represent the absolute peak of experience for the faithful. They can’t be diluted by overuse
• In fact, they’re so powerful that you’d only ever use them once, upon finding that place, state of mind or whatever form those two terms might take. Ideally, you’d forget either word existed after using them
• Point is, don’t use these terms as shorthand for ‘this place or thing is really good’
• Burritos are great, for example, but calling that burrito joint down the road ‘paradise’ feels a bit wide of the mark
• Acceptable uses:
  • When it’s officially used, such as in a name or title
    • Paradise City (e.g., the song)
    • Paradise Lost (e.g., the band or epic poem)
    • Heaven’s Gate
    • Heaven Can Wait (e.g., songs, media)
    • And so on – use your judgement
• This other things is, and this is the real kicker, there’s normally something crap attached to places routinely described as ‘paradise’
  • In our experience, this normally means a trash problem, signs of domestic/animal abuse, the spectre of oncoming and unsustainable rampant overdevelopment, people being bullied to sell their land at a well-under market value price to facilitate said development, inequality of wealth, and so on. We met someone once, a resident of a well-known island in SE Asia often called ‘Paradise’, who alluded to selling their body to make a bit of money
    • There’s the aching suspicion that somebody somewhere has suffered just so we, the tourist and outsider, can obliviously swing on a hammock and drink a cocktail out of a hollowed-out piece of fruit, wondering how life can get any better

Corporate job

• It’s just overused jargon, really, that conveys something bland and soulless. People tend to leave corporate jobs but never get them, which suggests a deficit somewhere in the hiring process
• The notion of having, or leaving, a job of any type falls into the category of personal background stuff, which doesn’t interest the editorial overmind of EitM
• Usually coupled with the inference of success: making decent money and earning the respect of everyone on every level of the organisation, even after suffering the indignity of promotion after promotion. Thus does the person, who left said job a while back, humbly suggest, without saying as much, that they’re preternaturally good at everything they do, in a really down-to-earth and relatable way, which they can then monetise in their new calling as a super-successful creator
• File next to Build your own dreams, or somebody else will hire you to build theirs and Not all those who wander are lost in the cabinet of things people never say in real life
• Suggestion: focus entirely on the topic and don’t worry about being relatable, inspirational or aspirational
  • All being well, the copy will communicate those things through the honesty and clarity of the writer’s words, presuming that’s what the writer wants to do

Grateful / Blessed

• A bit cheesy and faux-profound

You guys / Y’all / People like you

• Overused and overly familiar
• We wanted to update you guys with our new plans; Y’all keep asking me where I book flights; I just want to inspire people like you to travel to new places
• It seems unlikely that a person knows literally every consumer of their work, so phrasing like this is redundant. More likely, you don’t know what the readers / viewers / listeners want, what they’ve done, where they’ve been or why you’ve got their attention. You don’t even know if they’re human, really

Epic

• Overused so much it’s become a bland cliche. Hot air. A buzzword. Filler. Better to explain why something’s so good or why it resonates so strongly
  • Could you really trust a bland cliche?
• Boring when used as an adjective. That waterfall was epic
• Perfectly fine to use when discussing something with a huge narrative scope: the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, etc
• Our absolute favourite similar words are ‘ginormous’, ‘splendid’ and ‘whopping’
• Thesaurus

Awesome

• Same logic as ‘epic’, above: The food is awesome, Ten awesome co-working spaces in [Place]. Don’t use it as an adjective that suggests how great something is – bland and boring
  • Instead, explain, however briefly, what the person/people, place, thing, country, etc so good
  • For example, EitM have, on occasion, been moved to tears because of how good a place has been and how happy it’s made us. Instead of saying ‘Kebumen/Sumenep/Wherever is awesome’, we’d reference the atmosphere, the kindness of strangers, unexpected wholesome interactions with strangers or whatever moved us so much
  • And if we wanted to use an alternative, we’d very happily use ‘magnificent’
• Perfectly fine to use in elemental contexts. The awesome destructive power of Mount Krakatoa, the awesome height of the Colossus of Rhodes
• Thesaurus

Adventure

Proud

• Gotta be careful with words like this. It’s good to hype people up, but there’s a fine line between support and being a bit patronising. Sadly, ‘proud’ seems to fall into the latter category. I’m just so proud of [So & So] for laying down roots and building their fifth villa in Bali

Present / Showing up / Holding space

• It’s good to do/be these things. As a reader, though, it feels more informative to understand the circumstances and motivation behind a person being present, showing up or holding space, so focus on expanding the point rather than using the terms on their own
• These are a bit buzzwordy and bland and vague – like a placeholder for a real sentiment

Focused

Manifest

• Feels a touch too performative and faux-spiritual
• Manifesting is pretty much a buzzword for the combination of hard work, good luck and circumstances – and fair play to anyone in that position who has the chance to make a success of themselves
• Talk of manifestation, though, illustrated by a moody landscape picture, comes across as a bit derivative

Home

• Overused as an abstract metaphysical concept and thus comes across, in the wrong hands, as an attention grab. As in what is home?, home (illustrated with a picture of a beach hut or similar), I’m home 🥹
  • We can’t all be Dorothy Gale
• ‘Home’, as in finding somewhere where you feel you belong, is a nice notion, and not to be taken lightly. That’s especially true for people who have trouble fitting in or tend to feel a bit out of place
  • It’d just be nice to see a variation of the ‘home’ theme when reading travel stories or looking at related content
• Fill your boots, though, if you’re talking about literally being at home

Aura farming

• Ever since that fella on the boat in – where was it? West Papua? He did it well, and it was cool. But most references to the original have since pushed ‘aura farming’ firmly into ‘overused bandwagon jumping’ territory, which feels faddy

Vibes

• As in good vibe, it’s a vibe etc
• Too vague and doesn’t really explain anything

I / Me / Mine / My

• This falls into talking-about-yourself territory
• Fine for recorded speech – even then, it might be better to rephrase the quote to avoid using the first-person
• I, Me, Mine is an underrated Godflesh song

Making memories / Core memory

• We’re totally on board with doing memorable things and have definitely had our fair share of moments where we’ve felt exactly the same and want to preserve the memories as long as we can
  • This phrasing, though, feels like a genuine sentiment that’s lost its weight because of overuse
• We’d rather hear why something is so memorable. Is it the people, the place, the atmosphere, the context, etc?

Should, must, have to, need to

• These are modal verbs that modify main verbs. You need to see the sunrise, etc
• Perfectly fine in the context of showing respect. Visitors must cover their shoulders in a temple, etc
• These terms are forceful because they can create a needless sense of obligation, urgency and stress – do this, go there, eat that right now – that can take the fun out of going on holiday / backpacking / travelling, as though you’re somehow missing out by failing to take note of what some stranger on Instagram says who, by the way, is most likely no expert on the topic they’re prattling on about
  • False sense of authority
• It seems that people tend to use modal verbs like these in an overly familiar way – you should go to (country) – as though the creator knows the consumer and knows what they want, where they’ve been, what their holidaymaking habits are, and so on. This is pretty much impossible, which, in turn, makes such sentiments phony
• There’s a subtext of flexing too, perhaps in the form of some low-key glamorous but probably really expensive backdrop, and it’s usually accompanied by some faux-shocked ‘why does no one come here?’-style message
• These terms, in the wrong hands, could create a sense of FOMO, which sucks – you want people to enjoy themselves, not feel a bit wound up
• Instead, explain why you like a place, person, thing and let the consumer work out for themselves if it’s something that interests them

*In the interest of fairness, we’ve used many cliched tropes and phrases over the years, so we’re not above censure or better than anyone else. Hidden gems, off-the-beaten-path, stuff like that.

Tone

EitM isn’t looking to inspire anyone, aside from producing stories that readers hopefully like or find useful. With that in mind, we prefer a detached but friendly tone of voice, like a well-meaning newsreader, university lecturer or someone like that. We present the information, hopefully well researched and definitely from lived experience, clearly (kind of, most of the time). That way, the facts can soak in as people process what they’ve read.

That probably doesn’t translate into relatability. But as long as the tone of voice isn’t aloof, that lack of engagement won’t matter too much. Be distant all you want, just don’t talk down to people or pretend you know them. Above all things, avoid insincerity.

We also fully admit to playing with the narrative thrust of a story every once in a while. As in, make things a bit fictional. When we do, we alert the reader. Feel free to mess about the same way, as long as it suits the story. Don’t force it. A nice bit of magic realism sometimes works really well.

Please get in touch via hello@eyeinthemiddle.com or the form below with any story suggestions.