These days some of the most interesting writing, both on and off the web, is about cultural exchange, by which I mean people writing about their experiences as they visit or live in new places. One of my latest weblog discoveries, dervala.net, is a good example.

Dervala is an Irish casualty of the US dot.com bust, and she’s spent the last few months living alone on the shore of Lake Superior, discovering life in the Canadian wilderness. Previously Dervala lived and worked in Manhattan with everything she could possibly want right on her doorstep. Now, she carefully plans her grocery shopping in advance because the nearest store is an hour and a half’s drive away in Sault Ste Marie.

Until recently that is, because Dervala is on the move again. This time she’s on her way to visit her sister in Ottawa, but she continues to write about and post her adventures along the way.

Dervala’s writing is crisp and imaginative, and the thought of her trapped in an office job seems like a terrible waste of good talent. A retrospective trawl through her weblog is an impressively good read.