Tim Ward is a serial slow travel enthusiast and owner of the Mature Flâneur blog. Along with his wife, Teresa, he chronicles his experiences travelling the world, fully immersing himself in the cultures and ways of life he encounters along the way. Mature Flâneur in New Zealand is his latest release, providing readers with a humourous and quirky tour across the ‘other down under’. To celebrate the release of Mature Flâneur in New Zealand, What We Reading sat down with Tim to discuss everything from the joys of slow travel to the many surprises and successes of his writing career!
Thanks for speaking with us, Tim! First off, tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the world of writing.
I’m an insatiably curious person, which led me to travel the world for most of my twenties. I spent a total of six years living in Asia, and while travelling, I wrote hundreds of letters home. Writing helped me stay connected to friends and family. I felt I was able to share my experiences with them. My sister, bless her, saved all my letters. With those in hand, I wrote my first three travel memoirs –one of which became a best-seller.
What the Buddha Never Taught, was about the time I spent living in a strict Buddhist Monastery in a forest in Thailand. It’s a rare Buddhist comedy about what happens when people put on the religious robes of another culture and then try and fit in!
Since then, I’ve kept traveling and writing, though much less while I was raising a child and running a small business. Now that I’m newly retired, my wife Teresa and I have become true nomads again. We’ve been on the road for most of the last three years.
Talk to us about Mature Flâneur. What is it about, and what was the process of writing it like?
Flâneur is a delicious French word that means to wander without a specific destination. The root, flan is actually Norse. It comes from the Vikings and was the word they used for exploring just to see what’s out there. When Teresa and I discovered the meaning of flâneur we knew the term applied perfectly to our kind of travel. As we were in our sixties, I decided to call my travel blog Mature Flâneur. That became the title of the first book of what has now become a series: Mature Flâneur (in Europe), Mature Flâneur in New Zealand, and so on.
Our approach is dedicated to slow travel: to discover and savor a place, rather than tear through the landscape on a guided tour, checking off sights to see, and clicking off photos for Instagram posts. Slow travel means you don’t try to see and do everything. Instead, you immerse yourself in the present experience, and then just follow your nose.
My writing process is pretty much the same. My Mature Flâneur travel blog started as a way of writing “letters home” to friends and family. But it has evolved into a distinctly quirky story-telling style that seeks out the unusual and the humorous. My aim is to immerse my readers in the experience of a place, and, with luck, come out the other end with some insight.
The greatest compliment I’ve received was from Dolly, a 90-year-old friend of mine who read Mature Flâneur. The last time we met, Dolly grabbed my arm and started to walk with me.
“This is how I feel, Tim, when I read your stories: It’s as if I am strolling through some exotic place, arm and arm with you.”
What is the number one goal you want your work to have with readers?
Nothing expands the mind like travel, and I hope my books inspire others to travel slowly and thoughtfully, so that they can get the most out of it. But of course not everyone has the means or inclination to travel. Good travel writing is the next best thing. Curious about New Zealand? I hope the pages of my new book will fill your imagination with the wondrous sights and sounds of that amazin-g land. So even if you never go, you’ll have a good idea what it’s like to crunch through the snowy trails around Mount Cook, take part in a traditional Maori ceremony, or waken to the blood curdling cry of a wild kiwi in the middle of the night
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What do you think makes you stand out as an author?
Humor and the search for meaning.
I learned early on as a writer to make the most of my foibles. Teresa will be the first to tell you, I have done some pretty dumb things in my time, sometimes teetering on the verge of disaster (like the time I almost capsized a small boat while she and I were motoring in a vast Norwegian Fjord). I’m also ready to join in a cultural dance, or take a bite of some local delicacy without asking what’s in it. I guess I have the courage to be ridiculous.
I also like to give my readers something to ponder. Where do different societies find joy, beauty, purpose? How have they coped with tragedy and loss? To me a monument is never just a statue. There’s a reason for this stone woman looking out to sea, that wooden young man with a sack over one shoulder, this bronze goddess driving a chariot with four bulls. I’ve seen such monuments, and many more. Delving for their meaning helps me understand what makes a town, a nation, a people, unique. And in grasping the uniqueness of others, I believe we become richer in our common humanity.
What would you say has been your biggest success so far?
As a writer? My first book, What the Buddha Never Taught, changed my life. It became a national bestseller and was translated into several languages. It got me future book contracts, opened doors as a travel writer, and best of all, led to an interview on The Voice of America with Teresa Erickson–the woman I subsequently married! That book continues to surprise me; just a few years ago a crazy professor of Buddhist Studies asked my permission to turn the book into a Musical Comedy, which he wrote and has been performed in Vancouver. The production rocks! (you can view it here).
If you could go back in time to one book you read for the first time, what would it be and why?
I would return to the summer of 1980, in Greece, where I first read Zorba the Greek. I was 21 years old, and this was my first extended trip to Europe. I was a pretty earnest truth-seeker back then, and very determined to find the right answers about moral absolutes and how to live my life. If I could go back, I would like to have learned younger to live more like Zorba, with his passionate intensity, his ability to live in the moment, and to act when needed, rather than simply thinking about what’s right and what’s wrong.
What’s one tip you would give your younger self if you had the opportunity?
Be like Zorba. Live out of your heart, not your head.
And finally, what do you hope the future holds for you and your writing?
Allow me to broaden my answer to the future of travel writing: Travel writing is at a crisis point. So many AI articles and books are flooding the Internet! This crap is as souless as it is ubiquitous:
“Dinan is one of the most beautiful villages in France. There are charming timbered houses and quaint cobblestone alleyways and beautiful cathedrals. It’s delightful to stroll through the streets of this prettiest town in France.” Yuck! You can tell there is no person communicating lived experience. It’s just words
Finding excellent travel writing these days is hard. But I believe there’s a thirst for it, and frankly, I intend to keep traveling and keep writing as long as my legs can walk and my fingers can type. To that end, while Mature Flaneur in New Zealand (vol 2) will hit the shelves this spring, I’m already working on Mature Flaneur in the Scottish Highlands (vol 3).
You can find Tim’s Ward flâneuring adventures here:
Mature Flâneur: Slow Travels Through Portugal, France, Italy and Norway. Mature Flâneur in New Zealand: Slow Travels in the Land of the Kiwi, and on his Travel Blog
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
