There’s just something special about the backroads of the South

“The readers of National Geographic Traveler are travelers who are looking for something special and authentic,” according to Hans Avontuur, free-lance writer and photographer. “I wanted to share the feeling of being on the road, which is not about highlights but about a random rendezvous with people that you meet on the curbside. That is what makes a road trip so interesting.” We caught up with Avontuur after his recent motorcycle road trip through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky where he shared details on the appeal of the South to the readers of National Geographic Traveler and ProMotor Magazine and how the road trip was developed with Travel South.

Q: Why the South? 

A: Road tripping is much different in the US than in Europe. In Holland, you never have that feeling of the open road because you see buildings everywhere. The idea was to write a love story for the road. I was looking for a destination that is not that well-known in Holland. Most people will do the highlights such as the Grand Canyon, theme parks in Florida or New York City. I didn’t want to see something specific, but I wanted to experience the destination by meeting people in small towns where people live their lives not necessarily because of tourism or to attract tourists. I was especially looking for more local, authentic places where not everybody from Europe goes. The states that I visited in the South fit perfectly to this idea.

Q: Why do you think the readers of National Geographic Traveler and ProMotor Magazine will be receptive to the Southern message you are communicating? 

A: The National Geographic Traveler readers are mostly seasoned travelers who have seen a lot of the world, and they are not that interested in the big themes or highlights of a country because they have already seen it, or they think it’s not special enough or authentic. If you go to the Grand Canyon, it’s amazing to see it, but when you get back home you tell your friends, ‘It’s big, it’s wide, it’s deep.’ But nothing really happened. If you do a road trip and you end up at an album release for a local band with 2000-3000 local people as I did in Bristol, you’ve got a story to tell. The people around you will tell you something about their lives or passion, so you get back home with a completely different experience. Afterwards, you have the feeling that you really met the place.

Q: What part did Travel South play in the trip?

A: I worked with Travel South before, perhaps two or three years ago on a story on Alabama. I then kept in touch with the local agency, and when I got the idea for the story, I dropped it to Hanny. We thought the South could be a very good idea, and then we had to pinpoint where in the South, keeping in mind that it must make sense to somebody from Holland. There’s a pretty good connection to Washington Dulles (IAD), so it’s very easy to do a road trip like this, and it’s something completely different.

Q: What can destinations provide you to make your job easier? 

A: I personally work very independently. I have colleagues that prefer to travel with local people or a guide or want to be taken around and shown places. I prefer to travel on my own mostly, but I need help planning the whole trip, and Travel South made some very helpful suggestions. I made an itinerary that I thought would make sense and discussed it them. I had a special request: I needed very traditional motels on the road because we don’t have these in Europe, so they are unique to the readers of National Geographic Traveler and ProMotor Magazine who don’t want to stay in hotels; they want to have a more personal experience.

Q: As a travel writer, how do you prepare for a road trip like this?
A: I teach a Master Class for National Geographic Traveler with young writers, and I always to explain to them, to write a good travel story, you have to dig in deep, know the history, know the economic and political situations now and then of the area and read a lot in order to effectively write about the destination.

Q: How can destinations leverage blogs to tell their stories?

A: It’s hard to tell who will follow my traces. But a fact is that because of these stories, people get ideas. When people are looking for a new destination for their trips, some will do exactly the same trip that I did. But what happens very often is that they pick a part of the trip. They plan a different trip like a bigger, well-known destination and then they will add a week or two weeks to do something they would not have done otherwise. They get tempted, and they see by the story that they can do it easily. That’s what you see very often.