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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Posted on Jun 21, 2017

12 Types of Travel Writing Every Writer Should Know

So, you want to be a travel writer?

There are plenty of reality doses out there already, so we’re going to focus on the positives, and what you can do to maximize your chances of travel writing professionally. One of the first steps: you should absolutely know your markets, and what types of travel writing are popular in them. In today’s competitive market, this knowledge can both help you structure your article  and target the right audience.

In this post, we break down modern travel writing into three distinct categories: freelance journalism , blogging, and book-writing. Then we identify the prevalent types of travel writing each category is known for, to give you an initial sort of compass in the industry.

Freelance Travel Journalism

The truth is this: the travel sections in major publications (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) are slimmer now, so competition will be tall. But there are other outlets. Local newspapers are sometimes open to travel pitches from freelancers. Certain websites pay for travel articles, while magazines can be great for targeting niche audiences.

So what are the common types of freelance travel journalism?

Destination articles

Here, the game’s in the name: destination articles tell readers about a place to which they might want to travel one day. One of the most standard type of travel stories, these pieces act as the armchair reader’s bird-eye view of a place. Useful or interesting facts pepper the writing. History, points of interest, natural scenery, trendy spots: a destination article can touch upon them all within the framework of a broad narrative.

Where the average article gives readers a sense of the destination, the best of the best convinces readers that this is a destination they want, nay, need to visit. As such, though some destination articles are written in first person, the focus is rarely on the writer. Instead, the destination is the star of the show.

For examples of destination articles, check out:

• Besalú, the most interesting Spanish village you probably don’t know (LA Times)
• In Indonesia (Washington Post)
• 36 Hours In The Finger Lakes Region of New York (New York Times)

Special-interest articles

Special-interest articles are offshoots of destination articles. Instead of taking the reader on a tour of an entire country or city, these pieces cover one particular aspect of the destination. This kind of writing can cover anything from art in Colombia, ghost towns in the U.S., trekking in Patagonia, alpaca farms in Australia, motorbiking in Brazil, railroads in France, volunteering in Tanzania — you get the gist.

Since special-interest articles are narrower in topic, many writers tailor them for niche magazines or websites. Before you start pitching, we recommend flipping through the Writer’s Handbook , one of the most useful guides to the freelance publishing market, to see which publications fit your target audience.

For a taste of some special-interest articles, see:

• Exploring Portugal — From Pork To Port (epicurious.com)
• This Unsung Corner of Spain is Home to Fabulous Food (Washington Post)
• Karsts of China's Getu River region attract rock climbers, other travelers (CNN Travel)

Holiday and special events

Holiday and special events travel articles ask writers to write about a destination before the event takes place. The biggest global events are magnets for this type of travel writing, such as the World Cup, the Olympics, the World Expo, fashion weeks, and film festivals. Depending on the publication, regional events work just as well.

Want to see what special events pieces look like? Have a read through these:

• This summer’s solar eclipse is southern Illinois’ chance to shine (Chicago Tribune)
• How To Plan A Trip To The 2016 Rio Olympics (Travel & Leisure)

You’ll recognize a round-up article when you see one, as it’ll go, “40 best beaches in West Europe,” or, perhaps, “20 of the greatest walks in the world!” It’s a classic tool in any magazine or newspaper writer’s toolbox, taking a bunch of destinations and grouping them all under one common thread.

Ultimately, a clear motif makes this type of article a breeze to read, as they’re a play on the ubiquitous List Format. But, OK, before you jump at this excuse to sacrifice your belly at 99 food trucks in New York City, remember that your premise should be original, not to mention practical. What’s tough is coming up with X ways to do Y in the first place, as that demands you put in the travel and research to produce a thorough write-up.

Want even more examples of round-up articles? Here you go:

• 12 new art exhibits to see this summer (Smithsonian)
• 21 ways to see America for cheap (Huffington Post)
• 41 places to go in 2011 (New York Times)

Personal essays

Publishers are experiencing something of a personal essay fatigue , so the market for more might be scarce these days. However, quality trumps all, and a good personal travel essay is just plain good writing in disguise: something that possesses a strong voice while showing insight, growth, and backstory.

Just don’t make it a diary entry. In an interview with The Atlantic , travel writer Paul Theroux said: “The main shortcut is to leave out boring things. People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble. They write about waiting. They write three pages about how long it took them to get a visa. I’m not interested in the boring parts. Everyone has tummy trouble. Everyone waits in line. I don’t want to hear about it.”

Here’s a jumping-off point for personal travel essays:

• Taking the Great American Roadtrip (Smithsonian)

Have a burning opinion to share? Sometimes publications end up giving op-eds to staff, but there are always open calls for opinion pieces.

Travel op-eds are much rarer than political opinion pieces, but there’s a pattern to the ones that make the cut: good persuasive writing. If you can come at a topic from a unique angle (and argue your case clearly) then you may be able to publish your opinion.

If you’re in the mood for travel op-ed articles, see:

• The West Coast Is The Best Coast For Food In America (Food & Wine)
• Why Climate Change Is Actually Relevant To Travel (Conde Nast)

Travel Blogging

When typing “travel blog” into Google returns 295 million results, we can guess it’s a fairly competitive market.

Here’s the plus side: bloggers get to write what they want and go where they please. When it comes to blog posts, there are no editors, no gatekeepers. Only you and the “PUBLISH” button.

We won’t go revisit the types of travel writing we covered earlier (such as the roundup format). Instead, we’ll explore some of the other formats bloggers use to tell their travel stories. Since the rules of travel blogging are next to non-existent, our tally below is by no means definitive. And, again, our best advice is to note what your favorite bloggers do on their blogs.

Already running a successful travel blog? You might consider turning that blog into a book !

How-To articles are already fairly popular in magazines, but they’re positively omnipresent in the travel blogging world. Blogs provide a direct communication platform, allowing trust to build up quicker with the readers. As a result, for the search query, “How to travel Europe on a budget,” six out of the top ten results are posts from trusted independent blogs.

A How-To article is the most standard form of advice column a travel blogger can produce. It’s intrinsically useful, promising that it’ll teach something by article’s end. A blogger’s challenge is delivering fully on that promise.

How to read more How-To articles? We got you covered:

• How To Start A Travel Blog (Nomadic Matt)
• How To Travel Solo To A Party Destination (Adventurous Kate)
• How to Visit Penang’s Kek Lok Si Temple (Migrationology)

Itineraries

Itineraries reveal the schedule that the writer took at a given destination, city-by-city or sight-by-sight. They’re meant for the traveler who’s embarking on a similar trip and needs a template. Typically, you’ll find that an itinerary post is an easy place for you to slip in recommendations, anything from the accommodation you used or the restaurants you tried.

You can use itinerary posts to reinforce your blog’s brand. For instance, an itinerary posted on a blog focused around budget travel will probably maximize cost-saving chances.

For more itineraries, see:

• My Trip To Japan (A Complete Japan Itinerary)
• Backpacking Vietnam on a budget: 2-3 Weeks Itinerary + Tips

Longform posts

Longform travel blogging tells a travel story through extended narrative content, as it takes a week’s worth of adventure and shapes it into a story. Longform blog posts about travel often end up being creative nonfiction : a way to present nonfiction — factually accurate prose about real people and events — in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner.

Photography can add another dimension to the form, as Emmanuel Nataf (our co-founder!) shows on his travel blog . And Reedsy's very own Arielle provides a glimpse into why she prefers longform travel writing on her blog, Steps, a Travel Journal :

My favourite kinds of stories are the ones that give you a real sense of place. That’s why I enjoy longform travel blogging: I get to describe the character of a place through the experiences I encountered there.

If you want to dip your toe into the sea of longform posts, you can also read:

• The Cow Head Taco Philosopher King of Oaxaca (Legal Nomads)
• The Best Worst Museum In The World

When it comes to writing a book, you can take all the challenges about travel writing from above and magnify it times 2,000. If you’re asking readers to commit to you for more than 100 pages, you’d best make sure that your book is worth their while.

As far as examples go, travel writing’s boomed in the mainstream book market recently. But there’s much more to it than Eat, Pray, Love and its descendants.

Travelogues

In travelogues, authors record their adventures in a way that illustrates or sheds insight upon the place itself. Travelogues possess a storied past, from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters in 1763 to Mark Twain’s 1867 The Innocents Abroad , which paved the way for the sort of comic travelogues that Bill Bryson’s perfected today.

Up for some travelogues? Check out:

• Notes From A Small Island , by Bill Bryson
• In Patagonia , by Bruce Chatwin
• Travels with Charley In Search of America , by John Steinbeck

Travel memoirs

Nowadays, travel memoirs are practically synonymous with Elizabeth Gilbert’s wildly popular Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling Wild , which were both recently adapted into Hollywood blockbusters.

That said, be aware that you’ll need a pretty exceptional personal story for your memoir to compete in today’s market . If you’re still set on writing or self-publishing a travel memoir, it’s tricky to balance personal backstory and travel for 400 pages, so think about taking on a professional for a second pair of eyes.

Did you know? You can find Nicki Richesin , a top Bloomsbury editor who’s edited for Cheryl Strayed, on our marketplace.

In addition to Eat, Pray, Love and Wild , you can read:

• Under the Tuscan Sun , by Frances Mayes
• Coasting , by Jonathan Raban
• Wind, Sand, and Stars , by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As Oscar Wilde said, “I never travel without my diary. One should always keep something sensational to read in the train.” But these days, people are replacing diaries with travel guides — the ubiquitous Lonely Planet becoming one of the more common sights on transit.

Travel writing in guidebooks is straightforward, informative, and fact-filled. In addition, there’s a certain amount of responsibility that comes with the job. Lonely Planet alone is read by millions of travelers worldwide.

General Tips and Guidelines

As we mentioned before, the trick to producing great travel writing is ultimately simply writing well . To that extent, you should make sure to follow all the guidelines of good writing — not least, spell-checking your article before submitting or publishing it anywhere. You don’t want an editor or reader to see it while it stilll reads lik edis.

Also, keep in mind the tone, style, and vibe of the publication and platform (and by extension, your audience). A story about a moon-rock could go into a kid's magazine or it could go into Scientific America .

Finally, some category-specific tips:

• If you’re freelance writing, always check submission guidelines. Publications may accept only pitches or they may welcome articles “on spec” (pre-written articles). Some sources only take travel articles that were written within 6 months of the trip.
• If you’re blogging, brand your website (same advice if you’re an author who’s building an author website ).
• If you’re writing a book, get a professional editor! An unedited book is an unwieldy thing, and professional eyes provide direction, continuity, and assonance. ( Layout designers can be important if you’re publishing a travel photography book, in the meanwhile.)

Travel writing isn't a cinch. In fact, it's a long and often hard grind. But by figuring out what type of travel writing you want to try your hand at, you're taking the crucial first step.

Have you tried travel writing before? Want to show us the cool travel blog that you're keeping? We're always in the mood for great travel writing + pretty pictures. Leave us a note in the comments and we'll be sure to check it out! 

7 responses

Amanda Turner says:

20/03/2018 – 16:20

Thank you, this was very helpful. Here's one of mine: http://vagabondingwithkids.com/every-mothers-guide-to-piranha-fishing-in-the-amazon/

Travalerie says:

24/05/2018 – 18:42

I landed on this page Googling for one thing and coming up with another. Haha! But what I found instead was helpful as I'm devouring as much as I can on travel writing. A few months ago, I started a new travel business, revamped my website including a new blog, and am in the process of writing, writing, writing. I took 2 trips this year so far and wrote what seemed like a mini-novella. Burning out in the process. I know I can do better. But I had no idea what I was writing could be re-worked to fit a certain category of travel writing -- which is what I found helpful in this post above. Thanks https://www.travalerie.com/blog

Surya Thakur says:

04/03/2019 – 12:39

Very good information. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I’ve saved as a favorite for later! KuLLuHuLLs

David Bishop says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

Thanks for this good article. I'm in my third year on the road and recently started my senior solo adventure travel website. I think my site has some pretty good stuff, of course. Take a look and tell me what you think. www.davidhunterbishop.com

Iris C. Permuy says:

23/05/2019 – 18:03

Thank you very much for all of these useful pieces of advice. I will make sure to implement them all on my travel blog, which is a combination of travel and gastronomy and uses the memoir and itinerary types, apart from recipes. Come check it out if you feel like it! I am more than open, eager for some professional feedback :)

Serissa says:

26/10/2019 – 14:53

This post is the perfect diving board for aspiring travel writers. I plan to link to this page from my travel blog if that is alright! ?? The link on my website will appear as "[title of this post] by Reedsy Blog". I assume this is alright, but if not, please email me directly to let me know! Thanks so much!

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

29/10/2019 – 10:11

We'd be absolutely delighted if you shared this article on your blog :)

Comments are currently closed.

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What You Should Know About Travel Writing

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Travel writing is a form of creative nonfiction in which the narrator's encounters with foreign places serve as the dominant subject. Also called  travel literature .

"All travel writing—because it is writing—is made in the sense of being constructed, says Peter Hulme, "but travel writing cannot be made up without losing its designation" (quoted by Tim Youngs in  The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing , 2013).

Notable contemporary travel writers in English include Paul Theroux, Susan Orlean, Bill Bryson , Pico Iyer, Rory MacLean, Mary Morris, Dennison Berwick, Jan Morris, Tony Horwitz, Jeffrey Tayler, and Tom Miller, among countless others.

Examples of Travel Writing

• "By the Railway Side" by Alice Meynell
• Lists and Anaphora in Bill Bryson's "Neither Here Nor There"
• Lists in William Least Heat-Moon's Place Description
• "London From a Distance" by Ford Madox Ford
• "Niagara Falls" by Rupert Brooke
• "Nights in London" by Thomas Burke
• "Of Trave," by Francis Bacon
• "Of Travel" by Owen Felltham
• "Rochester" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Observations About Travel Writing

Authors, journalists, and others have attempted to describe travel writing, which is more difficult to do than you might think. However, these excerpts explain that travel writing—at a minimum—requires a sense of curiosity, awareness, and fun.

Thomas Swick

• "The best writers in the field [of travel writing] bring to it an indefatigable curiosity, a fierce intelligence that enables them to interpret, and a generous heart that allows them to connect. Without resorting to invention , they make ample use of their imaginations. . . . "The travel book itself has a similar grab bag quality. It incorporates the characters and plot line of a novel, the descriptive power of poetry, the substance of a history lesson, the discursiveness of an essay , and the—often inadvertent—self-revelation of a memoir . It revels in the particular while occasionally illuminating the universal. It colors and shapes and fills in gaps. Because it results from displacement, it is frequently funny. It takes readers for a spin (and shows them, usually, how lucky they are). It humanizes the alien. More often than not it celebrates the unsung. It uncovers truths that are stranger than fiction. It gives eyewitness proof of life’s infinite possibilities." ("Not a Tourist." The Wilson Quarterly , Winter 2010)

Casey Blanton

• "There exists at the center of travel books like [Graham] Greene's Journey Without Maps or [V.S.] Naipaul's An Area of Darkness a mediating consciousness that monitors the journey, judges, thinks, confesses, changes, and even grows. This narrator , so central to what we have come to expect in modern travel writing , is a relatively new ingredient in travel literature, but it is one that irrevocably changed the genre . . . . "Freed from strictly chronological , fact-driven narratives , nearly all contemporary travel writers include their own dreams and memories of childhood as well as chunks of historical data and synopses of other travel books. Self reflexivity and instability, both as theme and style , offer the writer a way to show the effects of his or her own presence in a foreign country and to expose the arbitrariness of truth and the absence of norms." ( Travel Writing: The Self and the World . Routledge, 2002)

Frances Mayes

• "Some travel writers can become serious to the point of lapsing into good ol' American puritanism. . . . What nonsense! I have traveled much in Concord. Good travel writing can be as much about having a good time as about eating grubs and chasing drug lords. . . . [T]ravel is for learning, for fun, for escape, for personal quests, for challenge, for exploration, for opening the imagination to other lives and languages." (Introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2002 . Houghton, 2002)

Travel Writers on Travel Writing

In the past, travel writing was considered to be nothing more than the detailing of specific routes to various destinations. Today, however, travel writing has become much more. Read on to find out what famous travel writers such as V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux say about the profession.

V.S. Naipaul

• "My books have to be called ' travel writing ,' but that can be misleading because in the old days travel writing was essentially done by men describing the routes they were taking. . . . What I do is quite different. I travel on a theme . I travel to make an inquiry. I am not a journalist. I am taking with me the gifts of sympathy, observation, and curiosity that I developed as an imaginative writer. The books I write now, these inquiries, are really constructed narratives." (Interview with Ahmed Rashid, "Death of the Novel." The Observer , Feb. 25, 1996)

Paul Theroux

• - "Most travel narratives—perhaps all of them, the classics anyway—describe the miseries and splendors of going from one remote place to another. The quest, the getting there, the difficulty of the road is the story; the journey, not the arrival, matters, and most of the time the traveler—the traveler’s mood, especially—is the subject of the whole business. I have made a career out of this sort of slogging and self-portraiture, travel writing as diffused autobiography ; and so have many others in the old, laborious look-at-me way that informs travel writing ." (Paul Theroux, "The Soul of the South." Smithsonian Magazine , July-August 2014) - "Most visitors to coastal Maine know it in the summer. In the nature of visitation, people show up in the season. The snow and ice are a bleak memory now on the long warm days of early summer, but it seems to me that to understand a place best, the visitor needs to see figures in a landscape in all seasons. Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter. You see that the population is actually quite small, the roads are empty, some of the restaurants are closed, the houses of the summer people are dark, their driveways unplowed. But Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals. "Winter is a season of recovery and preparation. Boats are repaired, traps fixed, nets mended. “I need the winter to rest my body,” my friend the lobsterman told me, speaking of how he suspended his lobstering in December and did not resume until April. . . ." ("The Wicked Coast." The Atlantic , June 2011)

Susan Orlean

• - "To be honest, I view all stories as journeys. Journeys are the essential text of the human experience—the journey from birth to death, from innocence to wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge, from where we start to where we end. There is almost no piece of important writing—the Bible, the Odyssey , Chaucer, Ulysses —that isn't explicitly or implicitly the story of a journey. Even when I don't actually go anywhere for a particular story, the way I report is to immerse myself in something I usually know very little about, and what I experience is the journey toward a grasp of what I've seen." (Susan Orlean, Introduction to My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere . Random House, 2004) - "When I went to Scotland for a friend's wedding last summer, I didn't plan on firing a gun. Getting into a fistfight, maybe; hurling insults about badly dressed bridesmaids, of course; but I didn't expect to shoot or get shot at. The wedding was taking place in a medieval castle in a speck of a village called Biggar. There was not a lot to do in Biggar, but the caretaker of the castle had skeet-shooting gear, and the male guests announced that before the rehearsal dinner they were going to give it a go. The women were advised to knit or shop or something. I don't know if any of us women actually wanted to join them, but we didn't want to be left out, so we insisted on coming along. . . ." (Opening paragraph of "Shooting Party." The New Yorker , September 29, 1999)

Jonathan Raban

• - "As a literary form, travel writing is a notoriously raffish open house where different genres are likely to end up in the bed. It accommodates the private diary , the essay , the short story, the prose poem, the rough note and polished table talk with indiscriminate hospitality. It freely mixes narrative and discursive writing." ( For Love & Money: Writing - Reading - Travelling 1968-1987 . Picador, 1988)
• - "Travel in its purest form requires no certain destination, no fixed itinerary, no advance reservation and no return ticket, for you are trying to launch yourself onto the haphazard drift of things, and put yourself in the way of whatever changes the journey may throw up. It's when you miss the one flight of the week, when the expected friend fails to show, when the pre-booked hotel reveals itself as a collection of steel joists stuck into a ravaged hillside, when a stranger asks you to share the cost of a hired car to a town whose name you've never heard, that you begin to travel in earnest." ("Why Travel?" Driving Home: An American Journey . Pantheon, 2011)
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What is a Travel Narrative?

Posted on Published: September 30, 2020  - Last updated: February 10, 2022

Ah travel narratives. Some of the best content out there for travel-bugs and those who like to explore the world both locally and abroad. If you’re unfamiliar with this form of writing, it essentially refers to any non-fiction story taken from personal experience of the traveller who wrote it.

To give you more insight into travel narratives and travel literature as a whole, we’ve put together this guide:

Qualities a Travel Writer Needs to Have

The right pov.

When writing a travel narrative it is important that you use the first person (I, me, us). This will help it feel more personal to the reader.

You will also want to use the past tense unless you feel that the present tense is warranted by the action taking place. Be sure to include your own observations along with vivid descriptions and facts to support the overall writing.

Start With a Strong Intro

Your introduction is your chance to capture your reader’s attention and entice them to keep reading. Find a captivating hook and use it early in your piece. You might be able to incorporate a new trend or begin building the suspense of a new discovery you made.

Use your introduction to convey the overall tone of the story as well as the point of your trip. Think about the purpose of your trip and include important details such as where you were and what you were doing there ( backpacking , camping, visiting friends/family, etc.).

Later on, you can connect back to how your journey began but the introduction should focus on getting your reader interested and engaged.

Creating The Narrative Thread

As you are writing you aren’t necessarily chronicling your trip as it happened. It should be organized and well thought out but think of a thread that will tie it together from beginning to end and then use interesting pieces to help tell the story along the way. These could be stories, events, or people you met.

Include Quotes

Including words from real people involved in your trip will help bring your story to life. Readers will feel that they are going along the journey with you and become more invested if they hear from the locals and anyone you met along the way.

When quoting be sure to do so accurately and identify them clearly. Give any context that might add to understanding the conversation.

Avoid Cliches & Formal Words

In a travel narrative, you want to bring the reader into the story with you so they feel as if they are sitting right next to you. Use language that you would use in real life by avoiding overly formal language and overused travel cliches.

Check Your Facts!

Include interesting facts as they are relevant but be sure you are using reliable information from authoritative sources. If you aren’t sure of something double-check it with sources you know and trust.

Write Economically

Make sure every word has a purpose. Look for phrases and sentences that can be shortened and do so. Avoid redundant language and cut out anything that doesn’t add to the story. Instead of “I soon became aware of” – use “there was”.

Avoid Irrelevant Personal Moments

When including personal anecdotes think about the relevancy to the reader. Maybe you missed a flight or your hotel reservation was canceled, but unless it directly impacts the story it doesn’t need to be included.

You want to connect with the reader but also keep it relevant to the point of your writing. Ask yourself how the incident adds to the overall story.

Why do People Read Travel Writing?

Travel writing allows the reader to visit places they may not otherwise get to visit and experience new things from the comforts of their home. Travel writing began during Elizabethan times and many say that Shakespeare used the writings of others as background to his plays.

What are the Different Types of Travel Writing?

1. weekend warrior.

This type of travel writing is great for a shorter experience that can be retold in short-form content like a magazine article or blog post.

Think about where the piece will be published and if this type of writing would be appropriate. For example, a family-oriented blog may be looking for a short day trip a family could take with activities along the way.

Click image for more info

A more adventurous audience might be interested in reading about mountain biking trails in the area and your experience riding them or perhaps even survivalist stories .

2. Content And Social Media Marketing

This type of writing can be very short form including tweets and Instagram captions. Travel companies and those that sell outdoor gear often look for people who are using their products to show this to their customers.

You must be able to write quickly and with a mind for highlighting the company itself. Think about the audience as you write and use a voice that will engage them.

Companies that hire these writers will appreciate your ability to bring the audience with you and tell a captivating story. For this type of travel narrative videos and photos are essential and you should be able to use them in a way that adds to the overall story.

3. Roundups And “Best Of” Lists

List posts have been and always be incredibly popular on the internet. They are easy to read and great for our short attention spans. Use the introduction to show the common thread between each of your bullet points.

Be sure your information is accurate and well researched. A list post could include “ 50 Things to Do In Woodland Park, CO ” and each bullet would include a short description of the activity and your personal opinion on why it made the list.

Since these posts typically get a lot of traffic you could reach out to companies or locations and see if they will give you a free day pass in exchange for listing their location in your post. Doing this can help you explore new attractions and locations you (and your audience) might miss out on.

4. Holidays And Special Events

If you are planning to write about and cover a holiday or special event be sure to pitch it well in advance and plan well. These types of events can provide enough content for several pieces all of which can be repurposed and used for different platforms.

You could begin weeks before by talking about the announcement of the event. As the event gets closer think of things your audience might be interested in. Could you interview someone organizing the event or do an in-depth review of the city it is being held in?

5. Side Trips

Most magazines actually include space for “side-trips” when planning a long featured article. Think of ideas for these well in advance to make planning easier on you and the publisher.

Side-trips are valuable to the audience because it provides even more insight into a trip or location. It also invites the reader to explore more fully if they visit that location. These smaller pieces of content are valuable because they can be repurposed as shorter forms of content like a social media post.

6. Destinations Pieces

Destination pieces can be difficult because you often have to find a new angle to describe a location that others have already described. Brainstorm interesting ways to bring new light to the location such as “hidden gems†or something other travel writers may have missed in their pieces.

This type of feature is usually a long in-depth piece assigned to an experienced and knowledgeable writer. These need to have an interesting introduction and describe the journey by incorporating your own anecdotes, facts, and quotes from locals. Think of ways to make the location seem new and different to an audience that is probably already familiar with it.

The art of travel writing: How to turn your notes into a story

Travel writing is one of the most misunderstood, and romanticised, jobs on the planet. That’s where this three-part Masterclass series comes in. To shine a light into its dimly lit corners, correct a few misconceptions about travel writing (and writers) and hopefully inspire you to write about your travels.

As I see it, travel writing is the lovechild of journalism and creative writing. Of course there are as many ways to write as there are travel writers, but the best stories have a spark that makes you just want to keep reading.

Before we get onto crafting a travel story, remember that great travel writing is great writing, period (as they say in America). It’s clear, every word pulls its weight and it takes you somewhere (and not just to a destination).

The “Big Five” of travel writing

Hanging out on Lord Howe Island.

There are five common kinds of travel story that can help you make sense of your travel notes, each with a built-in structure:

• Lists and “roundups”. These showcase a selection of experiences or destinations sharing a common theme. Quirky, odd-numbered lists such as “21 reasons you should live in Berlin” and “29 Insta-worthy places to go” are increasingly popular, particularly online, but the Top 10 is a classic that never goes out of style.
• City guides and hotel reviews. These stories are usually short and written to a template set by the publication such as “48 hours in…” or a “Three-minute guide to…”.
• Journey stories. If your trip takes you from A to B, whether by road or camel train, on foot or by cargo ship, the journey is your structure. That is, you can write about it roughly from start to finish, condensing some bits and expanding on others to create interest. A word of warning: diary-style stories are generally easy to write, but can be boring to read unless there’s a reason you’re writing in a day-by-day format.
• Stories with sub-heads. Sub-headings help you structure a longer feature, organising your ideas into clusters. Breakout boxes are also handy, a good place for information that might otherwise break the flow of the main story.
• How-to stories: Don’t forget destination-less travel stories such as “How to” and stories based on issues or travel trends.

RELATED: MUCH MORE THAN A DESERT – A TRIP INTO THE SAHARA

Finding story angles

The sixth kind of travel story is a feature, which requires an angle or theme. That is, you have to know what the story is about . Finding good angles comes with practice, but here are a few ways to nose them out:

• Know who you’re writing for . Getting to know the publication and its readers can help you know what they want to know. What interests them? What can you tell them about this destination?
• “How was your trip?” What’s the first thing you told your friends and family members, or posted on Facebook, after your last trip? It could be something that surprised you, something you loved, something that happened to you, even something you know people back home might find interesting. Whatever it is, it could become the backbone of your story or at the very least the hook you start it with.
• Just write. Sometimes the best way to find out what your story is about is to start writing and see where that takes you. Other times it helps to write down all the main ideas you want to include in a kind of mind-map. Different stories often require different strategies.
• Mind-travel back. Read through your notes, look at your photos, take some time to think about the trip and jot down any themes or highlights you might be able to string together into a story.
• Narrow your focus. Don’t try to cover too much in one story. Instead of writing about the San Francisco food scene, for instance, write about the foods unique to San Francisco (like fortune cookies; who knew they were invented in San Francisco’s Chinatown?).

Once upon a time: The hook

Hiking in the Sierra Nevada.

The next most important part of the story is how it starts. This is where you “hook” the reader and make her want to keep reading, so it pays to spend more time crafting that first sentence or two.

Fortunately, travel writing has a few road-tested hooks. The most common way to start a story is to drop the reader in the middle of the action: “I’m standing naked on the rooftop of a Bangkok hotel with no idea how I got here” (or something).

The hook can also introduce the main idea of your story or make an observation about the place or about travel, or life, in general. It can be controversial or confessional. You can even ask a question or start with a quote. Or find some totally new way to start a story that no one has ever tried before.

RELATED: IMPROVING ANIMAL WELFARE IN EGYPT

From travel diary to travel story

Now for the main course: building a story. To do this, you need a structure, a framework on which to hang the various points and ideas you want to share about the place. Do this successfully and you create a story that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, one that will take your reader on a ride.

Travel diaries are a fantastic raw material, but a travel story requires you to do more than say what you did each day. Otherwise it’s like giving someone some flour, sugar and butter and a couple of eggs and saying, “Here’s a cake”.

You need to group things together and lift out details, make decisions about what to focus on and what to leave out, to make your story glimmer with interest.

A few tips to help you organise your story into a cohesive whole:

• Be selective. You can’t write about everything that happened, everything you saw, every fascinating person you met. You need to be selective, and be brutal: include only the highlights, the most memorable experiences, the best encounters and leave out the rest –or put those into other stories later.
• More ideas, less description . A popular misconception about travel writing is that it has to be full of adjectives and colourful descriptions. It’s really about ideas and insights, well communicated. One of my favourite writing quotes is: “Words are the carriage, not the queen.”
• “ Up-down” writing. Too much detail gets claustrophobic, but too much overview makes a story feel distant. The trick is to alternate between the two, zooming in on details or a moment in time, then zooming out to the big picture, to keep the story moving.
• Avoid clichés. Travel writing has more than its fair share of phases that have worn out their welcome. You know the ones, but two to avoid at all costs are “paradise” and “a land of contrasts”.
• Be yourself. One of the trickiest balancing acts in writing is knowing how much of yourself to put into a story. Too little and the story is soul-less. Too much and it can sound self-indulgent. As in life, aim for the middle way…

RELATED: IT TAKES A VILLAGE. THE CHANGING FACE OF TOURISM IN RURAL VIETNAM

Bring it home

Canoeing in Canada.

A good story ending ensures you don’t leave your readers dangling at the cliff-edge of the second last paragraph. You’ve brought them this far, after all.

A few ways to end your story:

• Refer back to the beginning; this neatly completes the loop or narrative
• Sum up the main points, in a way you haven’t yet used in the story
• Mention something you’ve learned from the trip: a conclusion or insight that came from your experiences
• Share a “moment in time” as you did in the hook, only this time your intention is not to lead the reader into the story but to leave her with a lasting image or feeling.

Remember that all writing is a process and good writing takes practise, discipline and time. Be prepared to write bad drafts; we all do. The secret to good writing is good rewriting, as American essayist EB White once said; that is, knowing what doesn’t work and fixing it, again and again, until it does.

The best travel stories aren’t just about what you, the travel writer, did or what a place looked like. They take us to the heart of that place, to its true essence. They make us feel something and inspire us to travel and to look at the world, and life, differently.

In the words of Pico Iyer, one of my favourite travel writers, “Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”

Some of the best stories come from the road. Make your own on a small group adventure with Intrepid – explore our range of trips now . 

All photos by Louise Southerden. 

Feeling inspired?

Louise Southerden

Louise Southerden has been a professional travel writer and author for more than 20 years and is passionate about travel that makes the world a better place. She’s also an author and award-winner; in fact, in 2019 she won the Australian Society of Travel Writers’ Travel Writer of the Year award – for the fifth time. To follow her adventures in simple, sustainable living, see No Impact Girl .

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What makes a winning travel piece? Guardian writers share their tips

A n important part of travel writing is coming up with an introduction that creates a compelling bridge to the place you're writing about. If a reader isn't gripped by your introduction and keen to know more, you stand a real chance of them not reading any further. Your best writing could come in the middle of the piece, but it might go unread.

A good technique is to drop the reader into the middle of the action. Think about a stand-out encounter in your journey, something exhilarating, frightening, funny, or just plain odd. This could perhaps be a revealing conversation, where you're told some interesting information. Don't worry about establishing where you are until paragraph two or three. That can wait until the reader is gripped. And don't worry about the chronology of your trip. Your intro can have happened anytime during your journey. You can pick up chronologically later on, as long as you explain at some point how the intro fits in. Mike Carter

Keep the story bouncing along in the right direction. No diversions for irrelevancies. No boring sentences allowed. Someone once said about self-editing: "Slaughter your darlings." There are always lines in a story that you love too much. If they don't carry the narrative forward, get rid of them. Kevin Rushby

The best travel writing focuses on something specific – a detail, an observation, or a meeting – that can then be used to make a wider point about the location. There has to be a narrative structure that carries the reader along in an entertaining way, and that isn't necessarily chronological, as that's a predictable and clunky device. The perspective of the piece should shift – from close up to wider context, and back again – in order to vary the pace. Detail is everything, and again it should be varied to include dialogue, landscape and observations. And language is key – keep it simple and go easy on the adjectives. Andy Pietrasik

The piece should be broader than just a personal account of your holiday, saying something about the destination or some travel trend or new experience. It's great if your story has an angle or is telling the reader about a holiday idea, something that has changed in a destination, a new trip or attraction or new aspect of travel that they won't have heard about before. Avoid irrelevant – and boring – personal details such as your taxi journey from the airport or the stomach bug you picked up. Try to stick to entertaining anecdotes and things that would be relevant to a reader who is thinking of making a similar trip. Gemma Bowes

Take notes about everything – shapes, colours, light, sound, smells, tastes – so that when you come to write your piece, you don't have to rely on words such as "stunning", "gorgeous", or "tasty", but can describe the place or experience in detail, adding richness to your story. Don't try to cover every single thing you did in your trip; you are not writing a list. Instead, edit your experience so that you are using one or two good, strong examples to illustrate your point. And avoid cliches: all those bustling markets, hearty meals, lovingly restored buildings, turquoise seas and anything that nestles are definite no-nos. Isabel Choat

Travel writing doesn't begin the moment your fingers hit the keyboard. Do your research; consider changing your itinerary to visit somewhere that makes a better story; and, most importantly, talk to people. When you ask lots of questions, not only will you get plenty of quotes to lift the piece, you may also find your own ideas are turned on their head: your story – and indeed your trip – could take an entirely new direction. Vicky Baker

• Travel writing competition
• Travel writing competition 2013

More on this story

Guardian travel writing competition 2013: eight fantastic prizes to be won

A beach holiday in Ilha Grande, Brazil: readers' travel writing competition

An epic rail trip across Canada: readers' travel writing competition 2012

On holiday with the most important man in Iceland: readers travel writing competition 2012

A cycling holiday around Denmark: readers' travel writing competition

Family glamping in the UK: readers' travel writing competition 2013

Finland's snowy wilderness: readers travel writing competition 2012

Most viewed.

6 examples of gorgeous travel writing

Inspiration to help your next travel blog, guidebook, or article stand out from the crowd.

We live on a wondrous, ever-changing planet— from alpine lakes and cloud forests to ancient cobblestoned cities.

The best travel writers can transport readers to these far-flung destinations, and to introduce them to new cultures and experiences. When done well, travel writing can be an insightful, thought-provoking and even life-changing genre of writing.

And with interactive content platforms, it’s possible for travel writers to create truly immersive reading experiences online. In this guide, we introduce six ideas — and examples of travel writing — to help you create beautiful, interactive travel stories.

Whether you're a beginner travel writer, a publisher, destination marketer, or freelance travel blogger, we've got plenty of inspiration to get you started.

What do the BBC, Tripadvisor, and Penguin have in common? They craft stunning, interactive web content with Shorthand. And so can you! Publish your first story for free — no code or web design skills required. Sign up now.

The features of great travel writing

The best travel writing is unique, but there are still some general guidelines you’ll want to follow to make your travel writing stand out from the pack. Here are some travel writing tips to help you compete with the best examples of the genre.

• Have a point of view. Great travel writers — from the travel books of Bill Bryson and John Steinbeck to the documentaries of Paul Theroux — all have very specific points of view that are difficult to copy. Find your voice, and your travel articles will truly sing.
• Take great photos. The best travel writing is visually immersive, using high resolution images and video to engage the reader’s senses. Even if you’re not creating a photo essay , modern travel writing relies of great visual assets.
• Use multimedia content where you can. If you can, create audio and video assets, too, and consider building out your story with a digital storytelling platform to use interactive features. Embed podcasts and clips to keep the reader engaged.
• Learn from the best. Keep track of longform feature stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and steal their techniques. (Good travel writers borrow, great travel writers steal, to butcher TS Eliot.)
• Create a beautiful web presence. We love the print Lonely Planet travel guides, but these days you need to produce stunningly engaging content on the web. Standards are high, but you’d be amazed what you can do with modern interactive content platforms.
• Provide a sense of adventure — even if you’re not strictly doing ‘adventure travel’. Whether you’re writing a first person travel memoir or writing about your backpacker’s trip through the Amazon, you want to keep your reader engaged with your travel experiences.
• Make it educational. Teach the reader something new about the world they’re exploring.
• Edit your work. The best travel writers kill their darlings and pay attention to details — hello, commas — knowing that this is how the best work is created.

Want to improve the efficiency of your writing process? Check out our list of the best writing tools .

Inspire readers and move them to action by exploring a location's unique history and culture. By focusing on just one place, your readers get the chance to experience it deeply through your words and imagery.

Intrepid Travel's Shorthand story 'Welcome to Olkola Country' is simple, yet effective. The highlight of the story is its elegant writing — a blend of reporting and personal narrative that explores the history, culture, and ecology of an ancestral land of the Olkola people in Australia. The story is elevated with thoughtful photos and videos, and ends with a call to action for the newly-inspired reader.

Looking for more inspiration? Check out our roundup of ten stunning photo essay examples .

The right images can make a story feel polished and inspired.

2 . Time travel

Taking readers back through historical moments is a great way to achieve more depth in your stories.

In the story The Museum of Atari, Mario and Electronic Childhood Dreams , Channel News Asia uses Shorthand to create a stunning visual story about a little-known museum of retro video games in Singapore. The highlight of the story is an interactive scrollytelling timeline about the history of video games, which is created using the Shorthand Reveal feature and animates a pixel character as the reader scrolls.

Our Reveal section allows animations like this to be controlled by the reader's scrolling.

3 . Immerse your reader

When words and photos simply aren't enough to convey the complexity of a travel story, add another layer of reader engagement using various forms of media.

The Sydney Opera House story  A Guide to Dance Rites uses multimedia to bring indigenous culture to life. With elements like animation, slideshows, and embedded audio clips, readers can feel fully immersed in one of Australia's most traditional dance competitions.

Embed your own code to add further customisation to your story.

With Shorthand, remember that you always have the option to add custom HTML to add further customisations to your stories. See a list of our recommended third party tools in this support document .

4 . Just the highlights

Not every trip allows for the luxury of time. In order to get the point across, sometimes a quick and to-the-point listicle is all that's necessary to deliver a clear and time-efficient message.

Mansion Global's story 6 Cities, 6 Continents takes a quick jaunt around the world to some of the best cities to buy a dream vacation home. The destinations are all tied together by an interactive map that tracks a route between the cities — a creative use of the Shorthand Reveal section .

Interactive maps can help connect different locations in your story.

5 . Keep it practical

Travel stories don't always need to inspire wanderlust or transport readers to far-flung destinations. Some of the most effective and important travel stories simply provide practical advice — whether that's how to exchange currency, say "thank you" in a foreign language, or avoid danger.

Travel Weekly's story Traveling While Female explores how female travellers can stay safe, and uses data to stress the importance of improving women's safety abroad. By displaying the data as interactive graphics, Travel Weekly draws extra emphasis to key statistics.

Make your data memorable by giving it special emphasis.

6. Zoom out

When you've written a couple of beautiful travel stories, what's next?

Tie together your creative vision by consolidating your stories into a single landing page. You can use Shorthand to create a home for all of your stories, whether that's by using our Collection section or by including links in other section types.

For example, Luxury Travel nests all of their feature content within a Shorthand story. The page takes advantage of our media-rich sections to create a scrolling archive of their beautiful travel stories.

Consolidate your features in a single Shorthand story.

There are myriad ways to turn a Shorthand story into a landing page. Here's another example from Perth Now, which takes a simple, colourful approach.

There are many ways to customise a Shorthand story to serve as a landing page.

Creating a unique online travel story can seem like a daunting task, but Shorthand's many easy-to-use features exist to help make your stories exceptional. There are thousands of destinations waiting to be written about, and we can't wait to see where your stories take us next.

Publish your first story free with Shorthand

Craft sumptuous content at speed. No code required.

Beyond "What I Did on Vacation": Exploring the Genre of Travel Writing

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

In this lesson, students are introduced to the genre of travel writing. After reading and analyzing short examples and discussing conventions of the genre, students engage in some guided travel writing activities. They brainstorm events and/or personal experiences that might make a fun piece of travel writing and select one event for freewriting. They then turn their notes into a travel article, using a list of characteristics of good travel writing to assess their writing as they work. They peer review and revise drafts of their writing before publishing it using an online multigenre tool. This scalable lesson can be completed in a few days as a short mini-unit, before a school break as a chance for students to do some real world writing, or over a longer period of time as an extended unit with integrated research.

Featured Resources

• Elements of Good Travel Writing : This handout lists characteristics of good travel articles.
• Multigenre Mapper : Students can use this online tool to create multigenre, multimodal texts, including three types of writing and a drawing, in response to the Gettysburg Address.
• Suggested Reading in the Travel Writing Genre : This reading list includes books and magazines in the travel writing genre.

From Theory to Practice

In her book Thinking Through Genre , Heather Lattimer discusses genre study as "an inquiry into text form" (4). One of the ways to help students see the structural and rhetorical features of a piece of writing is to immerse them in the study of various genres. By studying a wide array of genres, students are better able to see the many decisions a writer makes as a matter of purpose, audience, and form or genre, rather than as arbitrary teacher-established rules. Lattimer suggests, "A genre study is not about reading a particular text; individual texts are read and discussed for the purpose of developing strategies of comprehension appropriate for the genre" (4). Dean states, "Even if we can't develop the full contextual aspect of some genres because of the restrictions of the classroom situation, it is helpful for students to know that not all writing is the same. They can learn the concept of genres." (45) By reading and writing in new genres, students gain strategies for reading new kinds of texts as well as insights into different ways of producing texts. Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Suggested Reading in the Travel Writing Genre
• Sample Piece of Travel Writing: “The Visit” (or substitute with your own piece if you prefer)
• Computer with Internet access
• Analysis of Travel Writing
• Elements of Good Travel Writing

Preparation

• Read and the Analysis of Travel Writing and note how the characteristics apply to “ The Visit .”
• Consider how travel writing might fit into your larger conversations with students about writing. For example, using travel writing as part of a genre approach to teaching writing can allow teachers to compare and contrast it with other forms of writing. There is a strong overlap between travel writing and personal narrative, as good travel writing centers on good stories and engaging voice and style. Mixed in with that, however, is the description and informational aspects of expository writing. Travel writing also often overlaps with persuasive writing, making emotional appeals to entice readers to take particular sorts of trips. Seeing travel writing as a hybrid genre not only will give students an additional form to work in; it will help them see aspects of familiar forms by comparison.
• Make one copy of the Analysis of Travel Writing and Elements of Good Travel Writing for each student.
• Test the Multigenre Mapper on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page .

Student Objectives

Students will:

• learn the conventions of the travel writing genre.
• attempt new methods of generating personal writing.
• practice process-based writing and writing for an audience.
• integrate research with personal experiences and reflection.

Session One

• Ask students what they know about travel writing and what they expect to find in travel writing. List their comments on the board or on chart paper. Save this information for use later in the session.
• Hand out copies of “ The Visit ,” or have students access it online. Alternately, you can share another piece of travel writing with students from your class textbook or another source.
• Hand out copies of the Analysis of Travel Writing to each student.
• Have students read “ The Visit ” and then answer the questions on the Analysis of Travel Writing , either individually or in small groups.
• Discuss the article and student responses to the Analysis of Travel Writing handout.
• Ask students to compare that they found in the reading with their observations and expectations at the beginning of the session. Encourage exploration of the similarities and differences.
• Hand out a Elements of Good Travel Writing to each student, and discuss these elements as they apply to the reading.

Session Two

• Review the Elements of Good Travel Writing handout from the previous session.
• Have students watch the short clip " Developing Travel Writing " from BBC.
• When they finish reading, ask students to brainstorm a list of events and/or personal experiences that might make a fun piece of travel writing.
• Give students a few minutes to share their lists with their peers.
• Have students select one event from their lists and write down, using freewriting and brainstorming techniques, everything they can about it during the remainder of the session. If time is short, have students complete their notes for homework. Ask them to bring their notes to the next session.

Session Three

• Allow students a few minutes to review their notes from the previous session and make any changes or additions.
• Explain that these notes are source material for students’ own travel articles.
• Have students compare their notes to the Elements of Good Travel Writing . Ask them to identify any characteristics that are not present in their work or that need to be strengthened.
• Try for a clever attention grabber (explain that this may be the last or most difficult part).
• Give enough background information to set the context: Where were you? Why were you there? Why was this event important?
• Clearly describe the setting. Use details that appeal to multiple senses.
• Clearly describe an important person (alternately, an animal or thing) in the story. Make sure that your reader will understand who the key people are in the article.
• Look for places where you can add dialogue. If the event happened a long time ago, dialogue does not have to be direct quotations. Suggest students focus on the general comments and feelings in their dialogues.
• Mix in personal reflections with the telling of the story.
• Ask students to bring a completed draft of their travel article to the next class session for peer review.

Session Four

• Have students share their revised drafts in small groups of two to four students.
• Ask peers to evaluate the articles by comparing their characteristics to the Elements of Good Travel Writing .
• Encourage students to share supportive feedback and praise as well.
• Have students revise their work using feedback from their peers to create a final draft.
• If desired, allow time for students to publish their travel writing using the Multigenre Mapper to incorporate drawings into their final work.
• Have students research the location in their writings and then incorporate relevant information into the finished versions.
• Read additional travel writing. Some suggestions are included on the Suggested Reading in the Travel Writing Genre handout.
• General interest magazines often carry travel pieces as well. Discuss the kinds of travel writing that are included in non-travel magazines such as Cottage Living and the differences between these and articles found in travel magazines such as National Geographic Traveler . Use this comparison as a basis for a discussion of audience and purpose.
• For some additional ways to write about travel, consult Ten Ways to Write about Your Vacation , which includes writing prompts that can be used as starting points or as more polished pieces.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Assess students’ finished travel writing by comparison to the genre conventions established during discussion and in the Elements of Good Travel Writing . Finished pieces can be shared with peers, family, and/or the school at large via a “travel” edition of a school publication.
• Calendar Activities
• Student Interactives
• Professional Library

Students read a section from On the Road that deals with cross-country travel and reflects Kerouac's unique writing style. Students then attempt to write a narrative using Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness style.

Families are invited to a June literacy fair to end the school year and get students on the right track for the summer.

This interactive invites students to create original multigenre, multimodal works--one drawing and three written texts--making the tool flexible for multiple writing activities.

• Print this resource

Explore Resources by Grade

• Kindergarten K

Re-thinking Travel Writing pp 145–164 Cite as

Travel Writing and its Re-Imagining Within History and Creative Ethnography

• Ben Stubbs 6  
• First Online: 31 March 2024

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Literary Journalism ((PSLJ))

This chapter examines how travel writing has been influential in the past re-thinking of the ethnography and history disciplines. Through a more open and creative approach recognising the style of practitioners such as Michael Jackson and Stephen Muecke within ethnography, and post post-modern theory, the ‘from below’ perspective and the acknowledgement of narrative and multiple voices in history writing, this chapter demonstrates the cross disciplinary usefulness of travel writing when these other areas have faced their own periods of uncertainty. This provides further material to reflect on as travel writing recalibrates in the post-COVID era.

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Stubbs, B. (2024). Travel Writing and its Re-Imagining Within History and Creative Ethnography. In: Re-thinking Travel Writing. Palgrave Studies in Literary Journalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56188-7_7

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Travel writing is changing in the 21st century. Here's what it looks like

Having travelled the world to interview some of the greatest names in travel writing, academic and author tim hannigan reflects on how the genre is changing in the 21st century..

The need for travel books to provide solid, practical information about far-off destinations has probably passed in this era of mass information. But what a sensitive travel writer can still do is to provide space for the voices of the people they meet along the way.

Having researched historical travel books, what are your thoughts on traditional travel writing?  

I can’t think of any other literary genre as potentially contentious as travel writing. Historically, it’s been dominated by privileged male authors — often Etonian-educated — representing other countries and other cultures sometimes in decidedly colonialist terms. It’s little surprise that postcolonial scholars have given the genre a bit of a hard time. By its very nature, travel writing is always going to have the potential to stir up controversy, and anyone writing — or reading — travel books need to be sensitive to that. But as it becomes more diffuse and diverse, I think we’re beginning to move away from the idea that, ethically, there might be something fundamentally wrong with travel writing.

Can or should travel writing be a force for good?

Although travel writing has often been criticised for its complicity with colonialism and for reproducing outdated stereotypes, I think its basic impulse is a positive one: to encounter other peoples, find out about other places. In recent decades, a lot of British travel writing has had a domestic focus, with much blurring of the distinction between travel and nature writing. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in a way it mirrors a political and cultural turn away from the wider world. Surely a genre that travels beyond our own shores, seeks international connections, is a force for good — even if it makes some mistakes along the way.

Is it a writer’s responsibility to exercise restraint on exoticisation, or could doing so perhaps ignore the potential for the sense of wonder inherent in good travel writing?

The great challenge for a responsible travel writer is finding the right balance. Wanting to experience the atmosphere of a foreign land is one of the reasons people read travel books, and conjuring up that atmosphere is part of the writer’s job. But we should always remember that what’s ‘exotic’ to the writer and their audience is simply ‘home’ to someone else.

Read more: Enter the National Geographic Traveller (UK) Travel Writing Competition

What did you learn from reading the diaries of some of the great travel writers of the 19 th and 20 th centuries?

When I started digging around in the archives of the great explorer Wilfred Thesiger I was expecting to find a tight connection between his raw travel journals and the finished books. But it soon became clear that his writing process had been fraught and complex, and his crafted literary narratives had travelled a long way from the strictly factual details recorded in the diaries.

Where does the frontier between fact and fiction lie in travel writing?

Perhaps the thorniest of all questions about travel writing is ‘where does the frontier between fact and fiction lie?’ Many writers insist they make nothing up; others openly embrace elements of fictionalisation. But when you start digging a bit deeper, that clear distinction quickly breaks down, and it turns out that almost everyone rejigs chronology, shifts characters around, creates composites. You could say the frontier between fact and fiction is crossed the moment a travel writer sits down at their desk and starts typing.

With information about destinations so easy to find, which elements of well-known places should travel writers be communicating?

The need for travel books to provide solid, practical information about far-off destinations has probably passed in this era of mass information. But what a sensitive travel writer can still do is to provide space for the voices of the people they meet along the way — those that scholars sometimes call ‘the travellee’. That’s something you’ll never get from Wikipedia and Tripadvisor.

Who excites you most in the world of travel writing at the moment?

Travel writing has opened up and branched out over the past couple of decades. Writers like Kapka Kassabova, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Monisha Rajesh complicate what it means to be an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’. Others such as Taran Khan and Samanth Subramanian have shaken up outdated notions about travel writers invariably starting out from the old imperial power centres. There’s a greater diversity of voices and perspectives in the genre than there used to be, and that’s really exciting for a reader like me. But at the moment, I’m particularly looking forward to the new book from a grand veteran — Colin Thubron’s The Amur River , out in September. In some ways, Thubron is the archetype of the traditional elite traveller — an actual Old Etonian. But his books have always been far more sensitive and self-reflective than the most simplistic critiques of the genre would suggest.

Are you optimistic about the future of travel writing?

Travel writing has existed for far longer than the novel, and it turns up in virtually every literary culture around the world. It’s universal and flexible. That gives me confidence that travel writing of some kind will be around forever.

Did researching your book make you question your love of travel writing?

I set out on my own journey in search of travel writing with a sense of trepidation, an ethical unease. Was there something fundamentally wrong with travel writing? And would my own love of the genre as a reader survive? But it was all OK in the end. I’ve come away with a greater appreciation for its challenges and its complexity, and for its rich heritage — and that has only deepened my love for it.

Tim Hannigan is the author of  The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre  (Hurst, £20).

Published in the October 2021 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > Four tips for writing a memoir

Four tips for writing a memoir

Everyone possesses a life story that’s worth sharing. Life’s experiences, from joys to sorrows, loves, and loves lost, collectively shape us, and connect us through shared human experiences. Because of this connection, memoirs can palpably resonate with readers. The key differentiator between your memoir being a best-seller or relegated to the bargain bin, aside from personal fame and popularity, lies in the quality of your writing. Tell your story in a way that truly resonates with your audience by applying these four invaluable tips for writing a memoir.

What is a memoir?

A memoir is a narrative that highlights a specific moment in an author’s life. Often mistaken for an autobiography, memoirs tend to offer a more intimate perspective. Authors unpack a vulnerable and impactful moment that profoundly influenced them in a way that forges a connection with their readers. These authentic, real-life experiences are shaped by the author’s emotional response to an event, emphasizing personal interpretation and how it affected them rather than serving as a historical account.

Tips for writing a memoir

If you’ve decided to write a memoir, it’s important to remember that you’re not giving an account of your entire life. Instead, narrow your lens and focus on a few specific moments that influenced you, as opposed to an entire autobiography. Now that you understand the essence of a memoir, let’s explore some essential tips to enhance your writing:

Select a snapshot of your life

1. tell the truth.

Above all, your audience must trust you. While a memoir allows you to infuse your feelings and interpretations into events, it must remain grounded in fact, not fiction. Present the events as they occurred truthfully. The essence of a memoir lies in delving deeply into how an event transformed you, so maintain honesty with both yourself and your readers as you write.

2. Make your memoir a narrative with rich characters

Breathing life into well-developed and relatable characters is what truly brings a story to life, whether it’s a poem , short story, or memoir. When referencing people in your life, delve into their character by considering their motivations, their connection to you, and other pertinent factors as you recount your story. This approach allows readers to establish a personal connection with these individuals, making your narrative more engaging and emotionally resonant.

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3. Consider joining a memoir writing group

Give thought to becoming a part of a memoir writing group or workshop. Fellow writers can serve as excellent editors, offering valuable feedback and support. Additionally, such a group can provide you with accountability, enabling you to track your progress while gaining fresh perspectives on your writing.

4. Avoid cliches and stereotypes

To connect with your audience, it’s important to keep your story feeling fresh by steering clear of clichéd phrases and stereotypes in your memoir. Find your unique voice and embrace its originality using colloquialisms , tone , and delivery, allowing your writing to stand out without relying on tropes.

Memoirs possess the inherent power to weave compelling narratives. Effective memoirs, devoid of clichés and stereotypes, can immerse audience members in genuine experiences. Use these tips to dig deep into your personal experiences and deliver truthful, impactful narratives to your audience. For more techniques to captivate readers with accounts of your personal experiences, learn more writing tips .

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Virginia Assistant Commissioner, Reports of Operations and Conditions, Monthly Narrative Reports, May–Dec. 1868, Part 5

About the project.

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, often referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established on March 3, 1865. The duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau included supervision of all affairs relating to refugees, freedmen, and the custody of abandoned lands and property. These documents come from the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia, Series 6: Reports of Operations and Conditions in Virginia.

Additional resources are available on the  Freedmen's Bureau Instructions Page . Please help us transcribe these records to learn more about the lives of formerly enslaved men and women during the Reconstruction Era.

The monthly narrative reports of operations and conditions of the Bureau in Virginia, January 1866–December 1868, are arranged chronologically. These reports were sent to the Assistant Commissioner by the assistant superintendents of the districts in compliance with circular 6, January 29, 1866, issued by the Assistant Commissioner. This circular prescribed that the monthly reports would show the condition of Bureau affairs in the subdistricts, the state of feeling between whites and freedmen, and all matters concerning the general welfare of freedmen. The reports also include such matters as the relations of the Bureau with civil authorities in the districts, the relations between freedmen and their employers, and the quality of justice meted out to freedmen in the local courts.

About Project Difficulty

Level 1 - beginner.

Content: all typed Language: English Format: letters, diaries, flyers, pamphlets, and one-page documents Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Content: mostly typed, handwritten in print, or otherwise very clearly written/readable Language: English Format: memorabilia, advertisements, image captions, telegrams, diaries, letters, notes Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: none required

Level 3 - INTERMEDIATE

Content: typed and handwritten materials in cursive or print Language: English Format: newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, letters/diaries/notes that may include annotations or margin notes Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: experience reading cursive writing may be useful

Content: handwritten materials, primarily in cursive or somewhat difficult to read (predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries) , audio recordings that are relatively easy to hear/decipher, and scientific materials Language: English and/or other languages that use Roman script but may require the use of diacritics (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.) Format: audio recordings, letters, diaries, notes and other written materials, projects with templated fields and special instructions Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: some knowledge of non-English Roman-character/script languages and diacritics may be useful, as well as experience reading cursive handwriting. A general knowledge or familiarity with scientific terminology.

Level 5 - ADVANCED

Content: handwritten materials in cursive (from the 19th century or earlier) or in a non-Roman script language, audio recordings that are difficult to hear or are not in English, specialty materials/projects such as numismatics projects and the Project Phaedra notebooks Language: foreign languages that use non-Roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Greek/Cyrillic, Native American and Indigenous languages, etc.) and English Format: audio recordings, columned data/tables, manuscripts, letters, diaries, notes, currency sheets, coins Subject Area Expertise/Special Skills: knowledge of a specific language and access to a keyboard with the characters in that language may be required for certain projects. Experience reading cursive handwriting and familiarity with 19th century (or prior) handwriting and conventions/abbreviations may be useful, as well as knowledge of scientific terminology, astrophysics data, or linguistics.

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APRIL 1, 2024 | NATIONAL TOM FOOLERYS DAY | NATIONAL SOURDOUGH BREAD DAY | NATIONAL IEP WRITING DAY | APRIL FOOLS' DAY | TAKE DOWN TOBACCO NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION | NATIONAL ONE CENT DAY

NATIONAL TOM FOOLERYS DAY

April 1 is National Tom Foolerys Day on the National Day Calendar, and we are celebrating with harmless pranks, silly tricks, shenanigans, and, of course, tomfoolery. April 1 also happens to be the birthday of Tom Foolery, a character developed by Kalahari Resorts, home to America’s largest indoor waterparks. This is no April Fool’s joke! We are dedicating an entire day to celebrating the spirit of adventure, play, and a little bit of trickery, in all of us. Read more...

NATIONAL SOURDOUGH BREAD DAY

National Sourdough Bread Day on April 1st recognizes one of the world's oldest leavened breads. Read more...

NATIONAL IEP WRITING DAY

The first Monday in April is National IEP Writing Day to honor all special education teachers and team members who write Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities.  Read more...

APRIL FOOLS' DAY

April Fools' Day on April 1st has long been a day when practical jokes and tricks are played on the unaware. It's a time when children convince their parents they've broken a bone. Parents get in on the planning, too. Classic April Fools' jokes include caramel covered onions or fake doggy doo-doo in inconvenient places. Businesses launch impractical or unbelievable products for the fun of the day and newspapers print incredible headlines catching readers off guard. Read more...

TAKE DOWN TOBACCO NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

Take Down Tobacco National Day of Action is a national day of activism that empowers youth to stand out, speak up and seize control against Big Tobacco. A part of the Kick Butts campaign, the initiative not only empowers students to say no to tobacco and e-cigarettes but also gives them the tools to become a tobacco-free generation. Read more...

NATIONAL ONE CENT DAY

What do Benjamin Franklin, the phrase "mind your business," April 1st, and National One Cent Day all have in common? The answer is the penny, which we recognize on National One Cent Day. Read more...

On Deck for April 2, 2024

National Days

NATIONAL PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY DAY

N ATIONAL RECONCILIATION DAY

SAAM DAY OF ACTION

NATIONAL FERRET DAY

April 1st Celebrated History

Panorama , a BBC television programme, runs a segment on the Swiss spaghetti harvest.

NASA selects its first seven astronauts who become known as the Mercury 7.

They included Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. Of the seven, Alan Shepard would be the first American in space. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Gus Grissom would die tragically with two other astronauts (Ed White and Roger Chaffee) when a fire erupted during a pre-launch test for the first manned Apollo 1 flight. They were the first casualties of the NASA space program.

American Motors releases the first Gremlin off the assembly line.

Australian millionaire Dick Smith towed what appeared to be a giant iceberg into Sydney Harbor. It was an accomplishment he had been promising to do for months and now he had. It was also time to chip off chunks and fill everyone’s drinks. Well, until his prank was revealed by a sudden rain that washed away fire suppression foam and shaving foam showing a small wooden mountain draped with plastic sheeting loaded on the barge.

The Taco Liberty Bell and other patriotic businesses wipe out National Debt. Or that's what the headlines would have read if their April Fool's prank had gotten carried away. Their full-page ads informed the public that the fast-food chain had purchased the national treasure to offset our nation's debt and encouraged other businesses to do the same.

National Day Calendar releases an article about the successful production of yolkless eggs.

Sergei Rachmaninoff - 1873

The Russian pianist and composer produced immensely moving music like his 1901 Piano Concerto No. 2. In 1917, the Russian Revolution drove him and his family out of the country. He eventually settled in the United States where he continued playing and composing until his death in 1948.

Lon Chaney - 1883

Known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney literally transformed how we perceive cinema. The actor, make-up artist, and director's pioneering work set the stage for magnificent and compelling artistry and technique. Chaney's influence is still felt throughout the industry today.

Florence Blanchfield - 1884

Florence Blanchfield was the first Army nurse to be granted a regular Army commission. She joined in 1917 and served during World Wars I and II. Her efforts brought about equality in pay and rank to women in the Army and Navy.

Alberta Hunter - 1895

The internationally known jazz and blues singer hung up her microphone in 1954 and pursued a career in practical nursing. Following graduation, Hunter continued her nursing career until 1977 when she picked up her microphone once more.

Anne McCaffrey - 1926

The American Irish writer is best known for her science fiction work, especially her Dragonriders of Pern series. She is a science fiction writer of firsts, becoming the first woman to win both the Hugo Award (1968) and the Nebula Award (1969).