Witness to the World: Andrew Marcus’s Unvarnished Travel Writing

Where to start? For any traveler, that is the most pressing question. The world reveals itself to you in a patchwork of political constructions and geographic features. Seas, mountain chains. It seems intimidating to consider traversing it, and one wonders what is the best way to even do it.  For travel writer, Andrew Marcus, the answer has been one trip at a time and one place at a time. There is a methodical nature to his explorations, and over the years he has racked up some real sojourns that he has profiled in literary-style observations and spectacular photos. 

These he publishes on his personal site, Andrew Marcus's Journeys.

Marcus is not really a denizen of the social media travel world. He's not here to sell you on a package trip or recommend you a restaurant or hotel. Refreshingly, he does not post by palm trees, or post videos of himself diving into an azure sea. His readers instead are along for the ride, as if they were fixed to his knapsack. They see what he sees and hear what he hears. In this way, he offers readers an immersive travel experience, one that they can use to measure against their own, or that might inspire them to also travel to these far-flung places. Or perhaps just satisfy their interest to know what it's like to pass through Liechtenstein or Saudi Arabia. 

Some of these places where, let's be honest, none of us will ever go. 

"What I do is interesting, sharp, dramatic," says Andrew. "My task is to describe and present the world to the reader, and not to stamp out posts for advertising," he says. "At heart I'm a traveler and writer, a photographer and a designer. Everything you see on the site was made by me."

Andrew has a methodical approach to his writing style. He doesn't just toss everything up on his site and let things fly. Instead he gathers his material and goes through his photographs, creating thoughtful, insightful photo essays that bring the reader to wherever he happens to be. At the top of his site at the moment is Egypt, and Andrew is not one to hold back. He's honest.

"I can confirm, the city is muck," he says of Cairo. "And the Nile flowing through doesn't help."

He walks us through the city, visiting Tahrir Square, the uninspiring site of the 1952 and 2011 revolutions. He then goes on to attempt to do the impossible: photograph Tutankhamun's golden death mask at the national museum in Cairo. "It is so strictly forbidden that even your inobeisant servant couldn’t do it," reports Andrew. 

"The guard simply stands there, staring at the mask without looking away."

Readers of Andrew will come to laugh at incidents like these. He often does things, or tries to do things, just so that you don't have to. In this way, he brings the reader into the story, as if they were there too.

Andrew has been everywhere, almost. To date, he's visited more than 80 countries (the UN recognizes 193 member states). While his site offers pointed analysis of popular destinations, from Crimea to California, he does seem to have his own personal favorites, among them his trips to India, Iran, and especially Saudi Arabia. "The loudest thing happened when I pretended to convert to Islam and went to Medina and Mecca under the disguise of a pilgrim," he notes.

For this story, he begins by recounting the way that Islam spread in Arabia, recounting the ancient worship of Hubal as an idol or deity and delving into the history of the city of Mecca. Andrew has a simple, conversational style, and he is able to reduce complicated facts into an easily digestible narrative. This is important reading not only for anyone interested in the region, but in contemporary politics. (The black stone venerated by pre-Islamic tribes is still in use). 

Andrew did not necessarily profess a change of faith to gain access to supposed off-limits places like the Prophet's Mosque and the Paradise Garden, but he walked the walk to bring us into this bustling mosque. His images and words are so vivid that one feels that they are in Mecca too. You can almost smell its smells, hear its devout praying or talking to each other. 

Here again, he doesn't mince his words, recalling how the Saudis destroyed the graves of Muhammad and his family, as Wahhabism does not permit the worship of any kind of idols. Even a gravestone of its religion's founder. What's left? A patch of desert with tombstone stalks. 

"Perhaps, they will not leave the cemetery in peace and completely level it to the ground, replaced by a skyscraper," Andrew muses.

Probably one of the most entertaining aspects of Andrew's writing is that he takes on commonly visited destinations alongside more inaccessible ones. So one can visit London through his site, just as they can travel through Tehran. That being said, what travel writer's career is complete without a California road trip? "It's not necessary to start a journey through the US from its capital," Andrew writes. "Especially if the capital is not where it is commonly thought to be."

While highlighting California's extremes -- its weather, its wealth, its innovation, its friendliness -- Andrew also notes the vast amount of homeless who shelter on its streets. "Just as often as it is called the City of Angels, it is also referred to as the City of Homeless," he writes. Andrew describes an encounter with a man whom he discovered sleeping on the bathroom floor. "Americans have an accustomed attitude towards people with mental health issues," he notes.

The adventures don't stop there. There's San Francisco and there's Crimea. There's Bratislava and Sri Lanka. Each one of Andrew's journeys consists of multiple sites, multiple photo essays and the kinds of informative everyday detail that lovers of great travel writing have been yearning for. One only wishes that there were more writers like him out there on the road. And that there was enough time to read all of his writings in one afternoon. The reality is that Andrew has been a prolific writer and it could take days if not weeks to read everything he's published. Hopefully he will only write (and travel) more.