Ghost cities, mixed Mauretanian arts, and overland from London to Baku

Can there possibly be a downside to a career as a travel writer?

According to the late Tom Parkinson’s (Jesus 1997) ‘Rough Planet’ blog, there are quite a few (nearly 50, in fact), including that "It's work, and it's hard work, and how the hell are we supposed to get any sympathy at all for our constant complaining when everybody thinks it's the best job in the world? It's just no fun at all moaning about how much you hate your job when no one believes you."

But Tom made it look stylish and effortless—and a success as well.

Tom read French and German at Jesus College between 1997 and 2001 and was the fifth of his family to study at Jesus. His passion for travel and writing began during the year abroad of his MML degree when he worked for a publisher in Berlin and became an expert on Berlin’s nightlife. Tom’s time in Germany also led to his first published piece of travel writing: his account of a visit to Auschwitz, where his Austrian great-grandmother died. He made his name as a travel writer in the six years following his graduation from Jesus.

He joined the Lonely Planet team in 2001 and worked on guidebooks for countries and regions across Europe, Africa and Asia.

In 2006 Tom landed his dream assignment: to be the sole author of a new guide to Madagascar, after which he was due to return to Borneo to research the first guide devoted entirely to the island. He spent three months in Madagascar in late 2006 and was in the middle of compiling the guide when he died in January 2007.

The Tom Parkinson Travel Writing Bursary

In 2022 the Parkinson family transferred the remainder of a trust set up after Tom died to enable Jesus College to create two schemes in his memory: one for current students and another for recent graduates.

The Tom Parkinson Travel Writing Bursary, first awarded in 2023, offers a young Jesus graduate up to £2,500 to travel while developing the skills and experience needed to further their travel writing career. So far, 6 alumni awards have been made, funding trips to Jordan; overland to Azerbaijan; the Western Mediterranean and North Africa; the East Coast of the US; China; and Nigeria.

Tom Parkinson (1978-2007)

Tom Parkinson (1978-2007)

The current Master of Jesus College, Sonita Alleyne, is passionate about careers and leads the College’s Careers Programme. The Bursary was a wonderful fit for this scheme as it aligns so well with the Master’s vision of supporting Jesus students and young alumni into their chosen careers.

Three of the first recipients of the award filled us in on their travels made possible by the Bursary and the impact the experience has had on their personal and professional lives.

Isaac Castella McDonald

Jesus 2019, English Literature

Isaac is currently doing a master's at Peking University in China Studies with a focus on politics and international relations. His travel piece Ordos and the Ghost City came about after images of Chinese ‘ghost cities’ on Instagram captured his 14-year-old imagination, and is an extraordinary insight into a little-known economic phenomenon:

"Like many Chinese cities, Ordos was built ahead of demand. A kind of vanity project for the province designed to inflate its GDP (an important indicator of local authority performance). But also, a physical manifestation of the ambition of the boom decades, where undaunted confidence in China’s continued growth fueled the development of infrastructure across the country at a pace and on a scale never seen before. Western observers often get this wrong, according to Wade Shepard, who points out in 2016’s Ghost Cities that 'the Chinese don’t see financial uncertainty and economic gloom when they look at their abandoned malls and ghost cities; they see potential.”’

What does he love about travel writing?

"My first experience of travel writing happened by accident, which was just a journal I kept while travelling. That was in Kenya in 2019, when I taught English for six months. I was reading books about Africa at the same time, and novels by Kenyan authors, and that fed into what I was writing and thinking about. As I've gained more experience in journalism, I've realised that the kind of writing I most enjoy is akin to travel writing: it's like reporting, but with an anecdotal edge to it to make it more digestible for different audiences, and to make the facts more real and more embedded in the experience of life."

What did receiving the Bursary mean to you?

"The Tom Parkinson Travel Bursary was a wonderful, transformative opportunity that I'm very grateful for because the experience gave me more confidence in my travel writing ability and showed me that I want to continue doing it, regardless of whether I make it a full-time career. I would not have been able to do the trip without the Bursary’s support."

Favourite travel writer?

"It would have to be Rob Lilwall, whose most famous book is Cycling Home from Siberia. He normalised the process of writing for me by bringing it out of the phase when you’re trying to be as clever as possible and thinking hard about complex problems. Rob's books are very unpretentious. Reading his book just before setting off on my trip was useful in reminding me it’s the story that’s important and to get over myself!"

What's next?

Isaac plans to pursue journalism as a career and agrees that it’s important that Colleges prepare students for the working world, but... "I would advise people to do more forward planning than I did in the third year of undergrad!"

The Bursary filled this planning gap for Isaac:

"These accessible pots of funding are very important in early careers because the limiting factor to the experimentation and freedom that allows people to discover their calling is money."

"It's not a lack of energy, interest, or time. And a small amount of money can help a lot. So I think early career financial support is an amazing opportunity and I hope Tom’s family feel really good about what they’re doing."

Jonah Lego

Jesus 2022, African Studies MPhil

Meanwhile, Jonah had also been considering a career in journalism, while hoping to explore the western Mediterranean by land and sea, when information about the Bursary came onto his radar. In his piece To Mauretania and Back (one of several written pieces that resulted from his travels), Jonah explains:

"Over the past years, I have grown increasingly aware of the strong cultural distinctions that are drawn between Southern Europe and North Western Africa in the present. With North Western Africa I refer to Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, which we have come to call the Maghreb. Essential differences are affirmed on both sides of the sea despite and because of their direct proximity.

As a result, I became deeply intrigued by the idea of visiting the Western Mediterranean as a historically integrated region. I wanted to traverse the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, crossing over the Mediterranean by boat twice: first to the closest capital city from Palermo—Tunis—before returning to the European Union into Andalusia from Western Algeria. I wanted to go on this journey with the intention of experiencing these spaces explicitly through their geographical proximity and under consideration of their shared history."

Jonah spent seven weeks on the road.

"What I love about the trip is that it’s still nourishing me now and will continue doing so. It gave me a strong impetus to do something creative with my writing—and it brought me the platform as well: Mixed Mauritanian Arts is the first creative writing project I've done."

Creative awakenings

"The experience of both applying for the Bursary and writing about my trip helped me identify the pleasure and self-realisation involved in writing creatively, and this broke down some mental barriers in terms of where writing could take me. Beforehand I was thinking much more conventionally about a career—foreign correspondent, for example—but my mind is now open to the idea of pursuing creative writing projects in future."

Favourite travel writer?

‘"Certainly Richard Kapuscinski, but also Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish writer who won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature. I read Flights before I went on my trip—it's not travel writing as such but more an eclectic set of pieces on travelling. Her novel was an inspiration for the way I could try to write."

What’s next?

Jonah would love to get the pieces published eventually, but for now, his aim is to write 12-15 essays about the trip as the foundation for a portfolio of writing.

In his present work with a Swiss-based environmental foundation, he is leaning towards natural science and thinking about recycling and recycling technologies, while delving deeper into chemistry, and looking to eventually incorporate his academic knowledge about Africa. Along these lines, Jonah encourages the College to help students explore a variety of career options within their area of interest or academic speciality and think laterally and across disciplines.

The impact of support

As with Isaac, it was the travel enabled by the Bursary that opened his eyes to new possibilities—and it’s a landscape he never would have encountered without this financial support:

"Without the Bursary, I wouldn't have been able to make the financial space for the trip; it was such a cool opportunity to feel financially reassured. £2,500 for any writing project is a lot of money, so the Bursary encouraged me to think about this project on a bigger scale and to make more effort in the planning and execution. It is also a very impressive addition to my CV. And beyond that, it helped me stay connected to the College and Cambridge in a meaningful and impactful way."

Sophie Beckingham

Jesus 2019, History of Art

By contrast, Sophie fully plumbed Jesus’s support both regarding the Bursary and with laying the groundwork for her career (she is now working for the BBC).

"The In the Business Of talks started when I was at Jesus. They were excellent, offering insight into what people actually do in these industries. Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus, was a great help as well; she was always on hand throughout my final year to answer my questions about my CV. And then there's the alumni network and Jesus Connect. It’s wonderful to still feel connected to the College now, and back then it felt like everybody wanted to help."

The Bursary opportunity resonated deeply with Sophie, and demonstrating to the College exactly where the money would go helped her appreciate the magnitude of the undertaking she proposed, and to thoroughly prepare for it.

Sophie travelled (mostly) overland from London to Azerbaijan, from February to July 2023. From her blog:

"I had the pleasure of travelling to over forty destinations across fourteen different countries from London to Baku. I had made a pact with fellow Jesuan and Art History student, Rose Asquith, in September 2021 to go travelling as a gap year before we went into the ‘real world’. We agreed to do it all overland, partly for the challenge but mainly because going to all of these (40!) places by plane in such quick succession would be environmentally immoral.

I struggle to answer the many questions people have about travelling, as it was a multitude of diverse experiences. However, whenever anybody asks me what my favourite country was, the answer is undoubtedly Georgia. The food, people, hospitality, and natural beauty were all beyond wonderful, and some of my favourite memories come from this country."

Why travel writing?

"For me, it’s travel media in general. It combines so many things that resonate with everybody: current affairs, food, people, religion, politics.... And our destinations weren’t always the most scenic of places; the blog was the good, the bad, and the ugly of everything. Rose and I were two inexperienced and very young women who just wanted to get out there post-Covid, go overland, and see every bit of everything. As a result, we had a unique, funny, sometimes harrowing journey that was both exciting and interesting."

What’s next?

As Sophie and Rose were writing up and posting their blog on social media, people responded so well that Sophie is currently writing a book about the journey. An art exhibition with Jesus College is also in the works, displaying what Sophie painted and drew both along the way and since her return.

Favourite travel writer?

"Dervla Murphy, who is best known for her 1965 book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, and Monisha Rajesh, who wrote Around India in 80 Trains. Both women travelled overland great distances, the same as I did, which is a unique experience."

Far-reaching impact

"Going on the trip pushed me to apply for the BBC job—I think because of Race Across the World. It's quite a technical job, supporting the production of a range of shows, and completely different to travelling. But the personal skills I developed while travelling, plus my passion for travel media, do tie into the role."

"The trip was massive. I didn't realise it until halfway around when an Aussie bloke told me that it was mad what I was doing. We had to move every day, to go to a new place. Dealing with the contrasts of one day being in Austria, and then the next day in Croatia, and then in Turkey—it was wonderful, and it was a marathon."

"Without the Bursary, I would have been able to see only a couple of countries."

"That’s why the Bursary was so brilliant in letting me go as far as I did and have all the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that came with it: the museums, the mad journeys, and the freedom to add to our itinerary as we went and as the spirit took us. I am so grateful to Jesus College for orchestrating such a brilliant scheme and for supporting me even after I graduated."

Tom’s father, Stephen Parkinson (Jesus 1969, MML), said: “As a travel writer, Tom established a reputation for adventurous exploration, cultural empathy, and sharp observation. The aim of the Travel Awards is to give young alumni a chance to try out their own writing style while exploring the world. The family hopes these grants will encourage other Jesuans to follow Tom in considering travel writing as their career.”

Sarah Richey, Careers Mentor at Jesus College, said: “We are incredibly grateful for this gift made in Tom’s memory. Funding a scheme to help young people from his College embark upon the career that Tom was so passionate about feels like a fitting way to remember him.”

Travel writing as a career may indeed be hard work—but for these early recipients of the Bursary, the chance for funded travel has brought excitement, adventure, new horizons, and lifelong memories and impact.

Intrepid and passionate exploration takes many forms: intellectual, extracurricular, academic and more. Can you support Jesuans on their many and varied paths?

If you’d like to give, please get in touch with Emily Williams, Director of Development and Alumni Relations at Jesus College at: e.williams@jesus.cam.ac.uk

For more information on eligibility for the Bursary, and to apply, visit the Jesus College website.

A selection of Tom’s Lonely Planet books are available in Jesus College’s Library, including The Lonely Planet Guide to the Middle of Nowhere in which he is represented by pieces on the Sahara and Chalbi Deserts.