“There was a sadness in the stillness of dusk. The café was packed with long-faced men in robes sipping black coffee, smoking dark tobacco. . In that moment, day became night. The sitters drew deep on their cigarettes, coughed, and stared out at the street. Some were worrying, others dreaming, or just sitting in silence” (Shah 1). This opening passage from Tahir Shah’s In the Caliph’s House is a memorable one for me. It is the first line I read from many readings to come in my eager preparation for Morocco last summer. I remember my professor reading this line aloud during our first class meeting months later, and my anticipation at the trip to come. And now, over two months after returning from my trip to Morocco, I can instantly picture the scene, so familiar, and I am transported back to the streets of Fes outside our hotel. Travel writers like Shah, as well as anthropologists, use the power of writing to weave words into deep meaning. Before the classes and trip, I had little knowledge or experience in the fields of anthropology or travel writing. In becoming acquainted with these disciplines fall quarter, they seemed like completely different fields to me. Anthropology is a social science that studies the origins and social relationships of human beings. Travel writing, on the other hand, seemed a broad category of writing that encompassed basically any traveler writing about a different country or culture for practically any purpose. The main differences between anthropology and travel writing are the audience and purpose, the level of objectivity of the writer, and the role of the author in the piece. The differences I noticed initially between these two fields can be exemplified by two of the works I studied in preparing for the trip- David McMurray’s In and Out of Morocco and Tahir Shah’s The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca. In and Out of Morocco is an anthropological account of the social and cultural impact of the economic activities of smuggling and migration of the people in Nador, Morocco during the 1980s. As an anthropologist, McMurray outlines a clear objective of his research and uses multiple methods to meet these goals. For instance, in his introduction, McMurray states “I want to explore in more detail the sorts of cultural collisions that have accompanied the establishment of multiple linkages between Nador, Morocco, and international commodity circuits. I want to investigate more closely the impact caused by the free flow of bodies, ideas, and commodities into and of the region” (McMurray xv). McMurray’s work is written for a specific audience and with a specific intention. He spends most of the book explaining this specific phenomenon in high detail and integrates historical, statistical, and field data in order to reach conclusions about his topic. His methods are very scientific and analytical. While in Morocco, McMurray emphasizes his methods of trying to integrate within the society while keeping a certain level of detachment was well. This book is very focused on particular truths that apply only to this time and place, and are not universal or applicable to other situations. McMurray also focuses most of the work on the Moroccans themselves and spends little time discussing himself or his family. The Caliph’s House, on the other hand, is an example of travel writing that is not governed by some of the anthropological structure that McMurray’s work is. An account of an English travel writer’s year of living in Casablanca with his young family, The Caliph’s House draws no specific conclusions from experience. Shah never precisely states an exact reason for living in Morocco. The closest explanation he provides is “My reasons for Morocco were many. They were endless, and began a long time ago…Morocco had brought color to my sanitized English childhood, which was more usually cloaked in itchy gray flannel shirts and corduroy shorts, acted out beneath an overcast sky. The kingdom [Morocco] had always been a place of escape, a place of astonishing intensity, but, beyond all else, a place with a soul” (Shah 5-7). The complete piece is focused on Shah and his opinions and encounters with Moroccan society. The language Shah uses is highly descriptive towards the five senses. Shah makes no effort at objectivity. His audience is also much different from McMurray’s. The Caliph’s House is probably read for entertainment, with its beautiful, dreamy writing and humorous retellings of everyday occurrences, rather than as a source of information. The reader shares some sort of universal human experience with Shah, relating to his frustrations at surviving in a different culture. After finally making it to Morocco, I still viewed my two assignments, one a research paper on Moroccan feminism and the other an open-ended travel-writing piece, as two entirely different projects. I soon came to find out that my role as an anthropologist and my role as a travel writer were less clearly defined from each other than I had thought. Both disciplines require (and emphasize) living in the country you are writing about and immersing yourself in that experience. They are both very centered on the experience of travel. Both rely on observing your surroundings and relating them in a description that will give your reader the information you with to convey. Both disciplines tend to emphasize an appreciation of the differences that exist between cultures and finding some way to relate this to an audience. In fact, it became almost impossible to view my anthropology piece as completely separate from my travel-writing piece. Anthropology provided me with some of the tools for observing and analyzing my environment, while travel writing provided me a vehicle to express my ideas and feelings in a tangible way. A travel writer may read an anthropological account in order to provide a framework for analytically processing their environment. And anthropology probably has early travel writers to thank for its existence. For people to be academically interested in other people and cultures, they must first have the emotional and experiential attachment that travel writing provides. Travel writers have the opportunity to appeal to a broader audience and incite feeling in their readers, while anthropologists have the chance to really dig deep into another culture and get to the root of its existence. The two fields are can shape and impact one another in a cyclical relationship that is mutually beneficial. Perhaps anthropologist/travel writer Beebe Baharami states it well when she says, “All of my travel writing comes out of the skills and information-gathering finesse of an anthropologist. I like to hit the ground running and dive under the surface as soon as possible, talking to local about their reality and what is happening from their eyes, so that I can bring that world back and share it with interested readers who like me are passionate about travel and about other cultures” (Beebesfeast.com). She does not view her academic training of an anthropologist as mutually exclusive from her travel writing. After coming home and revisiting some of the pieces studied in this class, the lines between anthropology and travel writing became even further blurred. In reading Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco by anthropologist Paul Rabinow, I noticed that not all of the details were as scientific or analytical as I had remembered in reading In and Out of Morocco. Rabinow describes his meeting with an informant: “As this very public exchange was taking place on the threshold of a café, a tall, lanky man with a big smile came darting out of a store across the narrow square and entered with a series of effusive greetings. He shook hands with the café owner, who seemed at best mildly pleased to see him, and told me about the same thing the first man had…”(Rabinow 33). Rabinow wants the reader to get a clear sense of Ali, to contextualize the factual information that he will provide. Similarly, I saw that not all of the travel pieces we had read were romanticized views of faraway lands. Articles such as Let’s Trance by William Dalrymple and Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism? by Eric Weiner brought a critical eye to interesting issues that certainly relied on many critical fieldwork techniques that anthropologists regularly employ. Overall, these companion courses combined with the experience of traveling abroad have greatly opened my knowledge to branches of learning I would have never known. In reflecting on the connections between travel writing and anthropology, I was reminded of a famous phrase I had heard used by King Hassan to describe Morocco, with its roots in African and its branches in Europe. Similarly, anthropology and travel writing are like parts of the same tree. Anthropology, the roots, gives deep understanding to the human experience across cultures and times. Travel writing, the branches, provides the growth and beauty to flourish for all to see. I have no doubt that I will continue to reflect on these experiences and learning and employ them in future adventures around the globe.