Background
I like to travel. I also like to write.
If you enjoy luxagraf, you can get updates through the RSS Feed or via Twitter. All the photos on luxagraf are also on my Flickr account. Add me as a contact if you like.
In addition to luxagraf, I write for Wired, Budget Travel, Webmonkey, The Register, and other publications. I also serve as managing editor of Rolf Potts’ vagablogging.net. I even got to be on National Public Radio as guest expert one time. I sucked. Like the man said, I have the perfect face for radio and the perfect voice for print. Oh well.
Various photographs from this site have appeared in magazines and travel guides. I haven’t done a good job of keeping track of them, but I do remember receiving a copy of Afisha Mir (a sort of Russian version of Conde Nast Traveler), which is the only time I’ve published something I couldn’t read.
If you’d like to get in touch you can use the contact form or e-mail me at sng [at] luxagraf [dot] net.
About the Site
Luxagraf began life as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. I spent nine months traveling the world and wrote about it here. The farther on I went, the more impressionist and strange luxagraf became. It’s subjective, meandering and probably more random than most travelogues, but that’s the way I like it.
Travel writing, especially what you find on the web, is often little more than dry stenography, recording dates and locations — we went here, we did this, we did that. At the other end of the spectrum is the stuff that sounds like travel brochures — the seas are always cerulean, the winds blowing with memories and other overly-lavish prose.
Which isn’t to say that there’s no good travel writing. In fact there is some remarkable travel writing out there on the web. Some of my favorites include:
- Notes from the Road – Way better looking than luxagraf, but that’s okay because it’s better looking than any travel site. Notes from the Road isn’t updated much, but it’s worth the wait
- World Hum – Intelligent, well written and with a welcome absence of snark, one of the first and still one of the best.
- Itchy Feet Magazine – an actual magazine, available online as a PDF. Sometimes a bit too granola for my tastes, but generally good writing.
- State of Place – Brett Stuckel’s travel blog has excellent writing and very thoughtful posts. Recommended for your feed reader.
- Anthony Bourdain – Stop hating him just because he gets to travel around to world eating for a living. He spent 28 years on a line, he deserves it.
If it’s books you’re looking for, Rory Maclean is a personal favorite. But the writing that has most heavily influenced luxagraf is the late W. G. Sebald, one of the finest writers of the twentieth century, and John D’Agata, one of the best living essayists.
Colophon
I almost always write drafts in long hand (moleskine plug), then I type them up on my laptop. For me writing is really the process of rewriting, so there are usually quite a few drafts before I finally put them on a USB stick and head to the internet cafe.
In case you couldn’t figure it out by looking, I have no formal training in design. I just knew I wanted something simple, white and brown (yes, it’s brown damnit, not black). If you’re smitten with it, check out the stylesheet, borrow liberally, I don’t care.
Behind the scenes luxagraf is powered by the GeoDjango mapping web development framework.
If you’ve used Django before, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the basics of GeoDjango. If you’re trying to teach yourself Django, check out the series of tutorials I wrote for Webmonkey, which show exactly how to build the bulk of luxagraf (hey, write what you know).