Craig Mod is a writer and photographer who has called Japan home for most of the last twenty years. He has written for Eater, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, WIRED Magazine, California Sunday Magazine, and others. He is the author of the books Kissa by Kissa (2020), Koya Bound: Eight days on the Kumano Kodo (2016), and Art Space Tokyo (2010). His essay collection, Bokura no Jidai no Hon (The Books of our Generation), was published in Japanese and Korean (2015).
How did you get started traveling?
Started with a trip to Spain when I was 15, which ruined me. I grew up in a fairly small, blue collar town with not much in the way of “cultural” history. Due to some miracle, our (severely underfunded) high school Spanish class managed to arrange a Spain trip. Wow. I was flooded with a kind of first-contact self-awareness of the smallness of my own world. Frankly, it was overwhelming. I wandered the country in a haze, a state of constant awe and love and delight. Here before me — in Barcelona and Madrid and other small villages — was this seemingly infinite richness of architectural texture and food and language and people kissing all over the place and beautiful men and women making crazy strong eye contact and old ladies happily suffering my pidgin Spanish and old men making clicking noises and snapping their fingers. That was it. From the moment of arrival onward I decided I had to get as far away from where I grew up as quickly as possible; there was simply too much out there to see.
How did you get started writing?
For as long as I have memory, I was drawn to literature and programming. And most of the early programming work I did was in service to words — through coding up hobbled blogging software in 1997, for example, before “blogging” software (or even the term) existed. I didn’t “formally” or “officially” commit to writing (in my mind at least) until about 12 years ago.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
The first “break” was with my GF1 review back in 2009. “GF1 Field Test: 16 Days in the Himalayas.” This essay/review got so much attention, so quickly, it really — and this sounds dumb and reductive — changed my life. I made so much money on Amazon affiliate fees from selling GF1s because so many people hit that article and were inspired to buy the camera that it gave me both the financial and social permission to keep going.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
Eating well!
I don’t eat beef or pork, and sometimes that’s an issue. But, generally, I try to eat well at home, and that can be a serious challenge on the road. Oh, the endless procession of travel carbs. I’ve mitigated some issues via a weird assortment of protein bars and other supplements, but generally, after a few months of traveling, I feel a bit worse (compared to normal) for wear on the nutrition front.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
Sitting the heck down and writing the damn words. That’s it. My entire life is now engineered around ways to trick myself into sitting down and doing the work. My membership program — somewhat paradoxically — has turned into a tremendous vehicle for creating accountability to get the writing down.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
Not letting the business aspects crush the creative work. Which is what I was most worried about when I started the membership program — the last thing I want to do is become someone for whom their work is now simply the meta-work of talking about running a membership program. So I’ve been pretty strict with how I present the program, and have somewhat limited the growth, but the end result is a collection of smart, caring, interesting humans who are very much down to support my weirder impulses. So, like I said above — the fear was the membership program might be a business crush, but in the end, it’s caused me to be roughly ten times more productive than I was before. I’m extremely grateful for it.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
My entire life up until about 35 was doing other work to make ends meet. Thankfully programming (and design-related technical work) pays really well. And early on, in my 20s, I recognized the power of low recurring costs. So I was able to freelance for, say, a month, to cover a year of living expenses. Thinking about it: I had done some form of freelance web design / programming work since I was 15. In fact, that early work got me two summer internships in California. When I was 18 and 19 I drove across America four times in an old Honda Civic and that still ranks up as one of the craziest, “truest” adventures I’ve gone on.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
The 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage of Takamure Itsue (by Takamura Itsue) is a singular account of a woman doing the 88-temple pilgrimage 100 years ago.
In a similar vein, Isabella Bird’s insane Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is hilarious and wild and a truly remarkable document from the late 1800s.
Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams is a book I simply find beautiful and the prose and tone of it has had a profound impact on how I think about literature. Although it’s in no way a strict “travel” book, I find it paints a haunting picture of the midwest at a certain moment in time, and I am glad it exists.
Similarly, John Williams’ Butcher’s Crossing falls into this category. As does Cormac McCarthy’s dark and violent Blood Meridian.
Back to more “classic” travel writing: Matthieson’s The Snow Leopard surprised me by being better than everyone even says it is! It’s a wonderful book.
It took me a few tries but I finally got into, and began to enjoy the rhythm of Sebald and his Rings of Saturn.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
Don’t be lazy. Cultivate self-awareness of your worst impulses and keep them away from the page. Don’t develop a sneering outsider’s eye. If you feel yourself becoming jaded, fix yourself before you cast that gaze upon the world and impose it upon the words.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
Chatting with an 85 year old farmer in a small countryside diner about growing tomatoes while eating pizza toast.
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