Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises (back cover) / Image courtesy Archibald S. Alexander '28 Collection of Hemingway, Rare Books Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, New Jersey

Let an author join your travel team. Inspiration to travel can come from many sources, but I find that an author, especially an international icon like Ernest Hemingway can create both an intellectual and emotional desire to visit a location. Hemingway could paint pictures and generate actual emotions with his words to the extent that many readers today desire to visit or re-experience a “place” he described.  It’s a “place” both foreign and familiar but beckoning for those who follow his footsteps in travels around the world. I have led Hemingway themed groups to several locations and I am constantly amazed at the impact Hemingway’s writing and his life story can have on a person’s cultural outlook and desire to travel.

“He (Hemingway) had an insatiable appetite for new and novel geographies, experiences, and people, attending to each detail with the dexterity and acumen of a natural historian. It is no surprise, then, that so many have followed him in search of that same newness, that same disconcerting, energizing imbalance that must be overcome in a new place.”               Craig Boreth, The Hemingway Cookbook

Travel Reflection: Paul stood off to the side just staring at Hemingway’s fishing boat, The Pilar, sitting in dry dock on what was the tennis court of his home Finca Vigia* (Lookout Farm) in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba. The boat seemed to have captured Paul’s imagination as much as it did Ernest’s when he had it built to his specifications. Paul admitted to trembling in excitement at finally seeing it. I admitted to that same feeling at having first seen Hemingway’s Cuban home (1939 – 1960 and now a house museum). The thrill of my first visit remains with each return.

Author Ernest Hemingway was born July 21, 1899 to a middle class family in the Victorian village of Oak Park, Illinois in the American heartland. Ernest would later write out of his own direct experiences on four continents, seeking to convey to readers “how it was.” His writing touched what was common in all people’s lives. Both U.S. and international travelers alike seem to share a desire to visit Ernest Hemingway Travel Destinations. The list of potential sites include the cultural and physical meccas of Europe (Austria, England, France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland), exotic Aisia (China and Turkey), the safari lands of Africa, Peru in South America, the waters of the Caribbean and his home camps in the U.S. (Cuba, Bimini, Key West, Sun Valley, Oak Park, Petoskey, Kansas City, Piggot, New York City and Toronto). Hemingway travelers visit these locations to personally explore those places Hemingway wrote about, fished, hunted, visited and lived. Often they travel in groups with a Hemingway scholar or a published author or an experienced adventurer or bon vivant to more fully experience the travel moment.

 “… I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across…to

actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you

actually experience the thing.”

Ernest Hemingway to Dr. C. E. Hemingway, 1925, Selected Letters

As the world of Hemingway’s day awakened to a new century of technological breakthroughs, rapid communications changes and mass marketing, Hemingway was there as a writer of fiction and non-fiction for newspapers, magazines and books and as an American media role-model for the personification of “the” world traveler, adventurer, sportsman, and successful artist. He could select the interesting locations the world offered and make them his own through his unique skills as a wordsmith and through his  own real life personality that enjoyed living the moment.

Travel Reflection: Kim waited until the gate was opened allowing the crowd of runners to move up the hill of Calle Estafeta to the position she knew would show her the bulls turning the corner in their run to the Pamplona bullring. She said her heart thumped as she saw the crowd open up to reveal the bulls running behind men and women clothed in the traditional festival dress of white pants and shirts offset with red sashes and scarves. In an adrenalin rush, she ran off to the side of the bulls until falling in a pile of runners looking sideways and not ahead. Later that morning, I saw her fashionably sitting at breakfast in the Hotel Tres Reyes but with dried blood matting her hair from scraping the street in her fall. She was bubbling with excitement and didn’t want to wash away her feelings just yet. The red badge suited her just fine.

As a newspaper correspondent, poet, short story writer and novelist, Hemingway participated in, reported and created literature regarding the major events and cultural movements of the 20^th century. With the creation of film reporting and the rise of mass media distribution of newspapers, magazines and books, Hemingway’s works and his own lifestyle became synonymous with adventure and good living. Forty years after his death, his world-wide book sales are increasing annually with over one million published yearly in English and another million plus in 30 other languages. And he stands out as one of the most analyzed U.S. authors with new biographies and studies appearing annually.

Travel Reflection: The bus stopped at the town bridge crossing the Irati River in northern Spain. Several travelers immediately ran to the house by the water’s edge to interview an older woman who remembered Hemingway visiting the area in the 1950s. After a few moments, several of us began hiking along the banks of the river enjoying the summer scenery while looking into the water for trout. Suddenly Jeff and Tim stopped to carefully survey the bend in the river and the surrounding forest and adjacent hills. They then turned to each other exclaiming that this must be the place where Hemingway characters Jake and Bill had stopped to fish and enjoy a memorable picnic lunch. Jeff recounted Jake and Bill’s lunch conversation as if we had been there with them that day.

“Find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling you had.”

Ernest Hemingway, from By-Line: Ernest Hemingway

His writing succeeded in reaching mass market and critical acclaim. In 1953 he received a Pulitzer Prize for Literature and in 1954 he was recognized with the Nobel Prize for his “powerful, style-making mastery of the art of modern narration.”  Millions have come to read his riveting accounts of wars, bullfights, big game hunting and deep-sea fishing, or sensitive tales of love and loss. Decades after Hemingway’s death in 1961, people around the world recall his adventures and new generations of readers find fresh meaning in his stories.

“Ernest had a talent for making people feel that any pretension toward an appetite of life must be backed up with a healthy appetite for food.” 

Peter Griffin, Less Than a Treason

Travel Reflection: We left the Place de la Contrescarpe where Hemingway first lived in Paris and walked down the rue Mouffetard, a narrow old Roman road that descends from one of the hills in Paris past an open air market that mixed all sorts of produce and game into a sensory delight of images and smells. Winding our way to the rue Saint-Jacques (the ancient pilgrims route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain) and then to the Boulevard du Montparnasse, we stopped for coffee and pastry at La Closerie del Lilas, a favorite Hemingway café. The two Barbaras sat down and each silently read a passage from the book they carried (one had a Hemingway short story and the other focused on a Hemingway biography). After a few minutes, they leaned back in their chairs and smiled contentedly as they looked about and placed their order.

In both fictional and non-fictional narratives, Hemingway often imparted to his readers the experience he felt in his own five senses. And he introduced them to new lands and experiences through articles and stories that focused on local people embracing their realities and dreams.

Let an author be your travel guide. Through their story telling skills, they can foster a truer understanding of the world’s cultures and people. And in their writings, popular authors can bring an enthusiasm for travel and new experiences that will encourage today’s travelers in their own world outreach.

“…whatever success I have had has been through writing what I know about.”

Ernest Hemingway to Maxwell Perkins, 1928, Selected Letters

* In Cuba, the average citizen has read, as part of their educational curricula, at least one or two of his books. The Cubans themselves are proud of Ernest Hemingway’s association with the island.  And despite the 45 year old U.S. embargo against the island, it is in protecting their common heritage of this internationally acclaimed author that the U.S. and Cuban governments have found common ground in working together to preserve his papers and manuscripts from the ravages of heat and humidity and to protect and restore his Finca Vigia (Lookout Farm) home, the first foreign based site on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of most endangered sites. A special license form the Office of Foreign Assets Control has been granted by the U.S. government to allow U.S. curators to bring expertise and materials to Cuba to preserve his actual paper documents and to make digital reproductions for world-wide study. And a second license was granted to bring U.S. engineers and architects to help re-enforce the house after a series of hurricanes took their toll.

Author Bio

Scott Schwar is Vice President, Marketing for MILA Tours and Ernest Hemingway Travel Destinations. He served 11 years as Chairman of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park and another 4 years as Executive Director. During his tenure, the Foundation established both the Hemingway Museum and the Hemingway Birthplace Museum in Oak Park and led an 8 day world wide celebration of Hemingway’s 100^th birthday in 1999.

Currently, Scott is launching a series of alternating Hemingway travel programs to China, France, Peru, Spain, Turkey, Italy, the European Alps, Cuba, Germany, Bimini, England and Africa.