PT Journal
AU Laatiris, C
   Fellahi, S
TI Travel literature in the digital age: transformations and continuities
SO Romanica Olomucensia
PY 2025
BP 347
EP 362
VL 37
IS 2
DI 10.5507/ro.2025.022
DE travel writing; travel blog; digital; travel notebook; multimedia; generic form; rewriting
AB Within the literary tradition of travel writing, the notebook has long been an essential tool for the travel writer. However, it has undergone significant generic and mediatic transformations. Today, it facilitates a multifaceted narrative in which storytelling and multimedia converge, giving rise to new forms such as the travel blog. The travel blog, an intimate document, is being transformed by digital technology into an interactive or hypertextual symbolic object that is capable of reshaping and redefining the relationship between reader and traveller. Adopting a genealogical and literary approach, this study examines the travel blog as a representative innovation within the evolution of the travel notebook. By analysing two highly representative blogs selected for their distinctive compositional strategies it will be demonstrated how each employs unique narrative techniques and thematizes travel (whether individual, collective, thematic, or spontaneous). In doing so, they incorporate textual and extratextual elements that partially renew the genre. The objective is to illustrate how this shift necessitates new writing processes and generic strategies, wherein the virtual rewrites or even potentially replaces the real. The findings suggest that the travel blog exhausts, transforms, and revolutionizes earlier forms of the travel notebook. Its irregular structure, non-linearity, and tonal freedom position it as a disruptive force in the digital-era travel narrative landscape.
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