It's not supposed to be "literature" in the terms of great works (Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemminway, etc). It's not a travelogue nor an art, music, or food review. It's on a NEWS site and is intended to be a news story.

Who cares about all that stuff???? The first thing to keep in mind is your audience. If your primary audience is the american public on a NEWS site, then you need to write in a way that they understand.

>?? I find it eminently readable, even engaging, in a travelogue sort of way. I didn't recall seeing any $10 words, or even $5 words, and not many $2 words ( "languid torpor" maybe ). It's written in the first person, but I can assure you that's a perfectly legitimate literary form.
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>Who cares about the target audience? Who cares if (if true) Americans read at a 5th grade level? I'm hopeful all denizens of this forum can do better than that.