Vertical travel: introduction

ABSTRACT This introduction outlines the background of our special issue of Studies in Travel Writing, which emerged from reflections on travel and the travelogue in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It details the impact of this global public health crisis on questions of mobility and foregrounds the confinement to which travellers have been subject. The introduction argues that such changes should not be confined to the hypercontemporary moment but need also to be subject to active historicisation across a broad corpus of texts. The aim is to explore in this context the concept of “vertical travel”, tracking its elaboration in the work of scholars such as Kris Lackey, Michael Cronin and Alasdair Pettinger, and explaining the meanings it has acquired. The introduction then sets out the taxonomies of this practice and highlights the various forms it takes. It concludes with a brief summary of the selection of articles included in this issue.