Have you ever stood with your back to the sea, held up the resort brochure and marveled at the difference? The sea photographed for the brochure is turquoise, the sky, brilliant, almost surreal blue, the sand is blindingly white, the palms sway in an invisible breeze because you can’t PhotoShop the breeze.
The actual beach is strewn with trash, the sky is the color of lead and the only brilliantly colored feature in the whole scene are the yellow signs cautioning swimmers to mind the: sharks, box jellyfish, or riptide. Pick something.
It happens so often it’s a travel cliche.
No one photographs the disappointment, but you should journal about it. It’s the first step to truth in travel and enables you to contrast what you expect with what you really saw.
Like the Sphinx starting across the parking lot at a KFC, journaling allows us to widen our view, and capture something of the truth.