Maggie Downs is an award-winning writer based in Palm Springs, California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Palm Springs Life, and McSweeney’s, among other publications. It has been anthologized in The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology: True Stories from the World’s Best Writers and Best Women’s Travel Writing.
Her first book is Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime, a memoir of backpacking solo around the world to complete her mother’s bucket list while her mom was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
How did you get started traveling?
For the longest time, I didn’t think travel was accessible to me beyond the occasional weekend getaway. I didn’t have a trust fund. I was well beyond a gap year, already established in my career. And I certainly wasn’t brave enough to venture anywhere on my own. Then I reconnected with a high school friend via Facebook — she was living in Taiwan, and she suggested I visit. I booked a ticket before I had a chance to let doubt cloud my decision.
It was only a quick trip, (and somehow we squeezed in brief stops in Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia too), but it opened my eyes to the possibilities of the travel world. I met backpackers and travelers on a budget. I realized how little I knew about other people and how little I had seen of other places, and I was hungry for more. That’s when I started planning my solo, year-long backpacking trip.
How did you get started writing?
When I was a little girl, I created elaborate magazines for my Cabbage Patch Dolls, and I did it all — writer, illustrator, editor, publisher. So it made sense when I grew up to get my undergrad degree in magazine journalism from Ohio University. When I was in journalism school, I was passionate about music, and I thought I’d go on to write for Rolling Stone and have a very cool, hip life in Manhattan.
After graduation I was offered some great internship opportunities in New York that would have gotten me close-ish to my goals, but those positions were unpaid, cities are expensive, and I didn’t have the means to swing that. Instead I ended up writing for a small newspaper in Ohio and working my way up within the newspaper industry, eventually becoming an award-winning columnist, and then freelancing for some of my dream publications.
Never did write for Rolling Stone, though. That’s the one byline I haven’t ticked off my list yet.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
One of my biggest stories was my very first article for my high school newspaper, the Fairborn High School Newshawk. I requested and was granted an interview with author Michael Crichton. This was during the Jurassic Park zeitgeist, right when the film was going crazy. We spoke for an hour by phone, and he was very kind and generous, even though I had no idea what I was doing. Then other publications covered the story of my story. So that was a huge and memorable way to kick things off as a writer.
But the thing that changed my writing life the most happened years later, when I walked away from my career in newspapers and decided to travel. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever write again — but I did start reading again, something I had given up almost unconsciously. Reading reignited my love for writing. It also helped me determine that I wanted to be a different kind of writer than what I had been before.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
I’m frustrated that I can’t have the conversations I want to have because I’m limited in the languages I speak. If I could have any superpower, that’s what I’d want — the ability to speak every language fluently. My other challenge is phone calls. Hate them in general, but I especially hate them when I’m traveling internationally and can’t figure out how to dial or might face a language barrier with the person on the other end. Give me a face-to-face conversation anytime.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
My biggest challenge in the writing process can be telling the damn story. Sometimes I want to get wild with the structure or try a new way of tying all the threads together, but more often than not, the reader just wants something interesting or entertaining to read. I end up spending a lot of time laboring over the most superfluous things instead of actually writing.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
I have a difficult time saying no to work, no matter what it is, so I’ll overload my schedule with too many stories I don’t care about and end up without enough time to devote to the stories I do want to write. It’s very hard to give up that scarcity mindset, though. I’m afraid if I say no to an opportunity, I’ll never have another opportunity again.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I’ve written just about everything a person can write: Greeting cards, radio spots, water district newsletters, ghostwriting, marketing and PR work. I was briefly a “luxury inspector” for a trade publication in the hospitality industry, which just meant I had to go to resorts and make sure they were fancy. I’ve reviewed massages for articles about spas, which was easy work until the day I had to get four massages; by the end I felt like a Stretch Armstrong doll that had been stretched too far. And for the tiniest sliver of time, I sold leather at biker shows with a man named Johnny Marathon.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
My favorite thing is to read a memoir or narrative nonfiction book set in the country I’m traveling through, because I think it reveals more about a place than any guidebook. So some books that accompanied me on the road have been Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, and Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey.
Other memoirs I love, set in places I haven’t yet been, include Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman, and The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Jennifer Steil.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
I’d recommend reading a broad swath of travel writing to figure out where your work fits or where you might expand the canon. There are niches of travel writing I wasn’t aware of when I first started — I thought most travel writing was of the “36 Hours in Venice” variety, (which is useful and great), but my writing evolved as I discovered other types of journalists, memoirists, and essayists.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
The connections I’ve made while traveling are remarkable and life-affirming.
For instance, I was staying at a yoga camp in Dahab, Egypt, during the Arab Spring, and a heavy metal band from Cairo was stuck at the same camp for a while, and we became friends. I’ve stayed in contact with all of them, to the point where one of those guys helped me plan a recent trip to Bali. Moments like that are my biggest joy. It fills my heart to think about all the people I’ve crossed paths with who have made my life richer, and all the people I have yet to meet.
On a more personal level, I think travel makes me a better person. It pushes me to be friendlier, to be more humble, to pare things down to the essentials, and to be vulnerable. And there aren’t a lot of opportunities for me to be vulnerable in my everyday life, so it’s refreshing to let my guard down for a little while, to ask questions, and to put my trust in others. That’s incredibly rewarding, and it’s what keeps my feet itchy.
Share This
