In this wide-ranging interview, Emily Thomas talks about the importance of perspective and time in travel writing, how sublime moments of pleasurable terror make travel so interesting, how to overcome fears both real and imaginary, as well as the ethics of doom tourism, and how VR (virtual reality) might change how we travel in future.

Dr. Emily Thomas is an associate professor in philosophy at Durham University in England. She’s also the author of several books, including The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad.

* Traveling is about experiencing otherness, going to places that are new and unfamiliar and trying to figure out how to make sense of them
* Sublime moments in travel as a kind of pleasurable terror
* Tackling fears, both real and imagined
* Research before a trip, and arriving in Malawi, Africa
* How do travel books blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, and why is this so important to address stereotypes
* “There is no view from nowhere.” Perspective in travel writing
* Maps as processes, and how they change over time. The importance of knowing ‘when’ a book was written and the perspective of the writer.
* Doom tourism
* How VR (virtual reality) might improve aspects of travel, and what we want to keep as in-person experiences
* Recommended travel books

You can find Emily at www.EmilyThomasWrites.co.uk and on Twitter @emilytwrites
Shareable and header image generated by Jo Frances Penn on Midjourney.

Transcript of interview (lightly edited)
Jo Frances Penn
Dr. Emily Thomas is an associate professor in philosophy at Durham University in England. She’s also the author of several books, including The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad, which we’re talking about today. So welcome, Emily.
Emily Thomas
Hello. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Jo Frances Penn
I’m excited to talk about this topic.
What drew you to write a book about travel and philosophy, since one seems quite internal, and the other one quite external?
Emily Thomas
That’s right. So I have been a professional philosopher for more than 10 years, but far longer than that I have been a backpacker. So I did buckets of traveling when I was younger. And at some point, when I was writing about philosophy, I began wondering, does philosophy have anything to say about travel? Is there some way that I can bring these two parts of my life together, and I started doing some research. And to my delight, I found that philosophy has lots to say about travel. And that was how the book was born.
Jo Frances Penn
What does travel mean to you?
Emily Thomas
For me, traveling is all about experiencing otherness. It’s all about going to places that are new and unfamiliar. And trying to figure out how to make sense of them, how to map them on to the world that you do know.
My best travel experiences have actually been ones where I have gone to some place where I haven’t understood anything around me. Not not the language, not what’s going on in the street, not the social cues and I have very slowly, by reading and talking to people, come to put the pieces together and come to understand the place.
Jo Frances Penn
That’s interesting. So you have otherness and the new and the unfamiliar. Does that mean that for you, traveling say within England, doesn’t count as travel?
Emily Thomas
There are definitely places within England that I don’t know at all and might give me that travel unfamiliarity experience. But you’re right,