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What's The Analog Nomad?

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a black and white photograph of J. Mark in an Amtrak Roomette, looking pensively out the window at passing train tracks dusted with snow
J. Mark Tebben, the Analog Nomad

The Analog Nomad is the online travel journal of writer and photographer J. Mark Tebben. It’s a slow-travel blog, emphasizing tangible experiences including film photography, books, typewriters, live music, records, visual art, and nature.

It’s a slow travel day as I’m drafting this introduction, sitting in a café called La Ventana, in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico, on a Tuesday morning. My real-paper pocket journal open on the thick wooden table, my real-ink pen scribbling away in a sloppy scrawl, my phone tucked away in my bag on the seat next to me. The café is run by a couple of women who get all their coffee from organic growers in Chiapas. I’m alone in a side room, surrounded by hand-painted wall murals of coffee trees. The women to each other behind the counter in a Spanish I’m not experienced enough to understand, occasionally serving customers out of a window opening onto the calle Diez de Sollano y Dávalos. The cafe is named after the window (“La Ventana” literally translates as “the window”). The street is named after a Catholic bishop who was born here in 1820.

This act of observing my surroundings without distraction, collecting my observations and thoughts, and then transferring those thoughts to the tangible object of my journal, grounds me in this place at this moment. I feel very present here. And that presence - cultivating it, enjoying it, learning from it, and sharing it - will be, I hope, the heart of what The Analog Nomad is about.

Here at the outset, I’m imagining a few different angles from which I’ll approach that goal of presence. In addition to my pen-and-paper journal, I’m traveling with a couple of 35mm film cameras and a fully manual, portable typewriter. So some of my writing here will be about my experiences of using those analog devices in my travels, and many of my posts will be sharing what I produce with them. All photographs are taken by, and copyright controlled by, me, J. Mark Tebben, unless otherwise noted.

a black and white image of 'The Loneliest Road in America' showing a two-lane highway stretching off through the desert of Nevada to the horizon
For example, 'The Loneliest Road in America' on 35mm film

I’ll also be writing about tangible, analog experiences as I travel. I love to visit art museums and galleries, bookstores and record shops, music venues, nature parks and landmarks, so these visits are natural subject matter. I also prefer to stay in more personal, communal lodgings, such as hostels, guesthouses, campgrounds, or homestays - places unique to a particular locale - and I’ll be writing about those too. The people, animals, and plants I meet along the way could also be subjects of the blog.

More broadly, I intend this blog to be about what I consider to be the spirit of analog travel. By now it’s cliché to observe that digital technology and corporate social media do more to isolate, insulate, and divide us than to connect us. But it’s cliché because it’s true. Analog travel presents an alternative to those systems and ways of being, giving us the opportunity to connect more deeply with the world around us and those we share it with. I’ll be writing about that too.

Which isn’t to say that I’ll be completely rejecting digital technology - you’re reading this on a screen, after all. But I will be continually pointing away from it, and drawing boundaries for myself around my use of it. For example, I’m publishing this blog on Ghost, which is an open-source alternative to platforms like Substack which have top-down, corporate ownership structures. I’ll still be taking photo and video with my smartphone as I go along, and you can (for now) still find me on Instagram and Bluesky, but I’m hoping to use those things sparingly, and only as means to connect to more tangible experiences beyond them. And I can promise that nothing you see or read here will ever be generated, edited, enhanced, or otherwise touched by any kind of AI.

a low-angle color photograph taken in downtown Chicago. An old yellow and red sign in the left foreground reads 'Central Camera Co. Kodak Cameras Film' The El runs behind it and various buildings rise around a cloudy blue sky in the background
This is a digital photograph. But it's got the word 'film' in it. (Downtown Chicago)

So if any (or all!) of this sounds good to you, I’d love for you to become a subscriber to The Analog Nomad. It’s free, and always will be, to read everything I post on here, although you are of course welcome to pay, either monthly or one-time, if you find it valuable. Subscribers will find an email newsletter in their digital mailboxes three or four times per month. I also have plans in the future to add some analog benefits for paid subscribers (photo prints? typewritten manuscripts? postal correspondence?) so please subscribe to keep yourself in the loop on that.

You can also support me by visiting my website, jmarktebben.com, and purchasing photo prints. Subscribers both free and paid get a discount! Subscribe at any level and check your welcome email for the code. And I'm always accepting donations - click here to make a one-off contribution of whatever amount you'd like.

By now I’ve finished my delicious organic Chiapas coffee, and the freshly-made donut I ordered with it. I’m going to put away my journal now and walk around the town, practicing presence and attention in my travels. Thanks for reading, and I’m excited to have you along on these journeys off the beaten algorithm, wherever they may lead.