We are the same as before, but different from those of then. Just as it has happened with the world in which those of us who make this magazine live and travel.. And 2010 Viajesalpasado was born. We then imagine a project to narrate the world through its history.
Today we return again with reports, videos, podcast, vodcast and photos, but also with journalism courses, author trips and the publication of some select books. We don't just want to talk about places, of routes, also we want to reflect and analyze the way we travel, what it means to be hyperconnected, indigenous peoples, the environment, stereotypes and relativism applied to others… The project has had its particular route these fifteen years. Without explaining what happened before, it is impossible to understand what will come after..
The germ was that, that of making travel reports in which historical events were mixed. and the history, uppercase, It turns out that it has happened during these then unimaginable fifteen years. The world of the origin of VAP has little to do with the one we live in today and with which we suspect. The way of narrating it doesn't have much to do with it either.. Social networks were then incipient, certainly very far from the current overwhelming numbers. Formats were less flexible, podcasts and vodcasts did not exist, and influencer was a word without a profession.
It was naturally that we realized that the name was too narrow for us.. Because friends began to arrive, firms, travelers and writers who joined the project. And together we turned VAP into an explosion of routes, desire, anecdotes, brainy stories, dates, information, enclaves and a certain freedom and innocence today difficult to maintain. We do not want to narrate the world we dream of, This is not and never was an activist project., but the world we stumble upon. The journalist narrates, or should I narrate, what you see, and not what you think you should see.
The journalist narrates, or should I narrate, what you see, and not what you think you should see.
And VaP began to be a disaster drawer of the globe. We were proud to have signatures like that of maestro Javier Reverte, library and example of this job in which you kick first and write later. Died in 2020, and with him we all died a little with our debt in non-payment to his enormous generosity. Or we have Sebastián Álvaro and his search for the impossible; or the teacher Martínez Pisón and his mapped legs; or Gerardo Bartolomé and his wisdom about the end of the world… And behind them, a troop of fabulous brands, Ferreira and Vaquerizo, Cobo and Berdejo, Morales and Miquel…, who left a trace of the planet on this website that now needed to be renewed.
We left everything almost dead, fallow, for some years. We rarely visited this website., but we needed to rethink. VAP was not a trade, but it required the energy of those who were, and we are exhausted after so many years of demanding walking.
Hitherto, until last October 2023, where an excuse to blow out some candles brought the creators of this project together in Madrid, Ricardo, Daniel and Javier, and we understood that we want it and that we believe that today more than ever it is necessary to tell the world with honesty and professionalism. We offer a turn of the camera. We don't want to take selfies, we want to create a community of those who photograph the other and the others. That's our business card.
We don't want to take selfies, we want to create a community of those who photograph the other and the others.
Today the global village has changed. Much. It was not easy to imagine 2010 that we would experience something as relevant as a pandemic, that tanks would replace tractors in Europe, that the Pacific would engulf the Atlantic, and that artificial intelligence could have written this text and an algorithm will decide who reads it. The planet has never been so interconnected as it is now.. We learned it when someone sneezed in Wuhan and months later someone died in Cusco, Pretoria and Oslo.
And that's why We return with a new project that needs to adapt to new times. We will offer online courses on what we know how to do, documentaries and correspondents. We will suggest you travel with us to specific countries, that we know, to enjoy the route, understand it and narrate it later. And we will put out some good books again, select, Let them talk about this strange planet and its inhabitants. and on the horizon, The idea is to create a VAP Club where curious people get together, where opinions do not climb over facts.
To transmit all this we incorporate new formats that now exist. We will use social networks, trying not to saturate, but yes to communicate us and you. We want to be many, but much more important than the quantity is that we are able to generate an open community, cultured, able to discern without raising his voice, traveling, that opts for grays without denying blacks and whites when appropriate, who does not protect himself in the comfortable relativism of everyone being the same but questions his convictions, and who feels comfortable challenging her limits. In everything else we are very old, very old, because here we practice the craft of historians, chroniclers, bards, minstrels, reporters, nibs, writers, photographers, Ba, sailors, pilgrims, dowsers, riders, cameras, globetrotter, tavern keepers, stowaways and fairgrounds…
We set sail again. Dawn on deck.
