Term: Travel Memoir
Explore all pages categorised under the heading Travel Memoir below.
All categories can be seen on the main index page.
White Knights—Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon 50 Years On
The Mekong Delta wetlands were grey, dotted with glinting roofs and petrified boats, rivers winding every which way like a gigantic drip painting. The city...
We Threw Her in the Seine
My limbs were feather-light, hands and feet buoyant, and my Sharpie-drawn makeup refused to budge. I was made to drown. Toilet paper rolls supported my...
Vous sentez le jasmin: Paris in the Soul
Who is ever ready for Paris? We’re all fools when we arrive. If we don’t know that about ourselves already, Paris is happy to teach...
The Kindness of Strangers
I was 20 years old and headed overseas for a six-month study abroad experience. Of course, there were complications—it was my senior year in college,...
The Day Before We Saw Pompeii
One weekend in late September of my senior year of college, my classmate Riley and I took an overnight bus from our school in Perugia...
Paris with My Father
After my long wait at Charles de Gaulle airport, where the joyful reunions and towering luggage of African families bottlenecked the exits; after the train...
A Cravat and a Handful of Mary Medals
I hadn’t picked up Tin Ujević—the famous Croatian poet—in years. But the week before I left for Paris, I pulled weeds from the stone chapel...
A Beautiful Village
The first time I visited Europe, I was travelling with my 12-year-old son, Nick. My husband had died six years earlier, and I wanted to...
Issue 15: Paris
Paris has long been the site of opulence, resistance, rebellion, and style. It has inspired great writing and writers, philosophy and philosophers. In this collection,...
The Sneaker Wave
It was mid-morning by the time I turned off Highway 1 and onto the gravel road leading to Pt. Lobos State Park on the central...
Called to Pray
Wafts of saffron and mint tea flirted with my attention as I took in my surroundings. Worn tarps were strewn overhead, a weak defense from...
Mountain Weather
As soon as I woke up, I thought, please let today be different. For a moment, I lay still, repeating those words in my head,...
Swimming to Neverland
Two years ago, I found Neverland. Unlike the island Barrie described in his famed works, this one isn’t in some tropical place full of flamingos...
Splendour Built on Mud
“I hope Venice will recognise me,” I think, as my train pierces the silver lagoon and carries me across the bridge that hooks the fish-shaped...
The Endless Safari
I was asked countless times if I was going to see the Big Five in Botswana, except there only ended up being four, and my...
Issue 14: Survival
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 14th edition, on the theme of ‘survival.’ Many thanks to all contributors and the editors...
Infinite scroll
Scroll through all work published by Panorama in one long infinitely scrolling page.
Buongiorno
“I’m betting airport security is looking through your things,” says my host Ursula over our Italian breakfast, a sugary pastry and full-strength coffee, on her...
Kre-mas-i
On my way back from Sidemen to Canggu, the traffic barely moved. Otherwise empty rural roadsides were packed, bike to bike, bumper to bumper. I...
Issue 13: Fire
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 13th edition, on the theme of ‘fire.’ Fire: /ˈfʌɪə/ origin: Old English fȳr (noun), fȳrian...
What Would He Have Said?
To Pay Our Respects. As we stand at the gates of the Mauthausen concentration camp, more than at any other time previously, I feel acutely...
The Goat in the Stairwell
The commotion outside our apartment highlighted the quiet within. Unspoken words poked at the cracks in our marriage, picking them apart, unravelling their edges. They...
Symphony of the Train
1. linden. 2. central. 3. noyes. 4. foster. 5. davis. 6. howard. 7. waiting on the platform. 8. granville. 9. cermak-chinatown. 10. swiping out.
Spiritual Identity
I am neither the mind, nor the intellect, memory, nor ego. Nor am I ears, nor tongue. I am not the nose, nor eyes, nor...
Food Shopping in Rome
In the US, naturally, I drove to the supermarket. The route led down a pot-holed avenue walled with office buildings. I loaded a cart with...
Cemetery Conversations with My Dead Dad
In 2019, I returned to London for the first time since 1990. I remembered the city vividly, both because I’d looked at the photos countless...
My Transit Dance Rhythms
In the early morning, before golden streaks of light wash the sky, I head out. Breezing past the long, unspectacular Telegraph in fits and stops,...
Namesake
I struggled mightily with coins during my first few days in Japan. My internal currency converter—shoved bleary-eyed and yawning onto the streets of Tokyo—required a...
Last Life in Taipei
A layover on the island because of engine trouble. I had a whole night to walk around a city that I only knew from the...
Loneliness in Rio
Above Copacabana Beach, in the coworking space, with its anaemic air-conditioning and the emerald Atlantic pulsing under sunlight past the window, expat bros dropped code...
Issue 12: Cities
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 12th edition. In this issue, we present work on the theme of ‘cities,’ whether in...
Knoxville
The second week in May I share a cabin with a wasp. Its nest hangs in the left upper corner of the door, just outside...
Isolation in Iceland
Iceland in winter is the closest one can get to living in eternal night. This country is extraterrestrial; a stretch of solar landscape, rock formations,...
Buenos Aires, Past Subjunctive
On a sunny corner at the heart of the Cementerio de Recoleta sits the graceful Art Deco mausoleum of socialite Rufina Cambaceres. The tour guides...
Ascension
October 1998 – My feet trip on hardened ruts in the earth of the Albuquerque field, and I worry about the cameras dangling from my...
Issue 11: Ecology
Welcome to Panorama’s 11th edition. In this issue we turn our attention to ecology—from the word’s earliest roots to present-day ecologies which span people, organisms,...
Twenty Dollars Fake American, A Foreign Drama
We’re in the back office of a Peruvian lockup, two miles from the border of Ecuador, and I’m pleading with the sergeant in his pressed...
The Trip to Manaoag
When my father was still alive, he would often call me to visit him at our old family home. He was a 75-year-old widower, a...
Issue 10: Intimacy
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 10th edition. This issue focuses on INTIMACY in all its forms from a closeness and...
Nepal: A Flashback
All those who remember Nepal in the late 80s, early 90s will remember it as an untouched, pristine, fairy tale land – an unspoiled kingdom...
Subtle Entanglements
October — Willapa Bay, WA: The morning I arrived at a monthlong artist residency, I read from Patricia Highsmith’s journal: What to say about Yaddo?...
A Blade of Grass, A Piece of Camel, A Grain of Sand
The quietest place I love in America is just about anywhere in the Nebraska Sandhills. The western horizon lingers along Highway 20 beyond Newport, as...
Staring Down the Language Barrier
The first language I heard was Arabic. I am sure of it although I don’t actually remember. I do know the endearments toward babies, ill...
The Road from Dajabón
Carlos insisted that, in order to get to Cap-Haïtien by the afternoon, he and I had to leave at 4:30 the following morning. On the...
Issue 9: Borders
In this issue we have work from India, Nigeria, Philippines, Israel, Netherlands, UK, USA, Brazil, South Korea, Thailand, Germany, Italy, and more. In many ways...
My Father Not Yet My Father
I pulled on the rope cord that hung from the ceiling, and the attic steps yawned open with a creak and a groan. My sister...
The Homeland or Something Like That
My grandmother adored Ronald Reagan. As a child, I just took this to be one of her many idiosyncrasies, along with the very deliberate way...
That Beautiful White Space
It’s late April in northern Arizona and the weather is fussy and finicky as spring struggles to throw off the chill and influence of winter....
Space between Breaths
I come from metal, from shaky steps, from air. I arrived as a newborn at 2 years and 9 months old. I could say Umma...
End of the Line
At about seven years old, I got the notion stuck in my head that I was going to go to jail. I never brought it...
It All Means Everything
South across the river, it was rising over the silhouettes of trees to fill the sky. It was close, seemed to be getting closer, and...
Issue 8: Space
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s SPACE issue. From the very small to the enormity of our imaginations, essays grow from...
Revenir
In Togo, a slice of a country just smaller than West Virginia on the West African coast, nobody says goodbye. Aller et retourner, go and...
La Familia
Even before Andres asked if he could use my bed to have sex with a Turkish woman, I had the feeling our friendship was headed...
The Postcard from Venice
There is a kiosk on Lido island. You pass it when you step off the ferry from Venice and walk down the main road, which...
Issue 7: Dawn
Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s DAWN issue. This bright, awakening, and challenging composition comprises a multitude of world views, places,...
Issue 6: War & Peace
Welcome to Panorama’s WAR & PEACE issue. This collection, months in the making, deeply explores the themes of war and peace, with a special emphasis...
Issue 5: Lost
Welcome to Panorama‘s long-awaited LOST, our fifth issue, which we are dedicating to the great traveller, Anthony Bourdain, whose recent passing has affected us all....
Issue 4: Seen
Perhaps more than any other time in recent history, how we see places and one another will determine what happens next to our human family....
Issue 3: Open
We present our panoramic vision of travel literature in our Spring ‘Open’ issue. A carefully curated collection of travel poetry, fiction, and memoir, the selections...
Issue 2: Treasures
Welcome to Panorama’s second issue. Panorama exists not only to publish extraordinary, diverse travel literature and imagery, but to widen the definition of what travel...
Weekend Reading
Read all articles, essays, poems, and stories published on Panorama on the weekends in between issues.
Issue 1: Firsts
Welcome to Panorama‘s first issue. Our purpose is to shift the perspective of travel literature and imagery towards a more panoramic, modern worldview, and we...
Triptych: Everest
The curtains flowed rhythmically in and out with the wail of the siren. Different from the wide-open view of the rescue helicopter, the ambulance felt...