I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.
The author expresses a reluctance to keep a travel diary, stating that his previous experience was detrimental to his memory of the trip. By focusing on writing down experiences, he found that he only retained those moments and lost others, as if his mind was feeling neglected due to his dependency on writing.
Similarly, he avoids taking a camera while traveling, as it turns his experiences into mere snapshots. The act of documenting specific moments leads to a loss of the broader nuances of the journey, with anything not recorded fading into oblivion. This highlights the tension between capturing experiences and genuinely living them.
