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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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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.

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IB Language and Literature 2.0

Group 1 english higher and standard level, faraway places: travel writing.

“Is it lack of imagination that makes us come to imagined places, not just stay at home?” Elizabeth Bishop, poet (1911–1979)

In this section you’ll come to understand the conventions of travel writing , learn a bit about the history of the genre, question why people are compelled to travel – and to write about it – and investigate the overlap between language and literature that exists in the wide and varied genre of travel writing. You’ll read non-fiction texts that feel like stories and see imaginary scenes presented as fact. You’ll learn to decode elements of travel writing and question texts more closely, finding analysis points and learning to evaluate various pieces of writing. These kinds of skills underpin your success in Paper 1 at the end of your course. Begin your study by reading The Travel Narrative from the list of articles below, and then choose one or two more pieces of wider reading to enrich your study:

• The Travel Narrative (IB Textbook)
• A Short History of Travel Writing (Traveltester article)

Reading Challenge

This is a longer and more challenging piece of reading, but spending time on this piece, and discussing it with your teacher, will help you master this topic:

• The Elasticity of Place (an interview with a travel writer)

Class Activit y 1: why do we travel?

As you will have learned by now, people travel – and write about the places they visit – for a variety of reasons. the most common are:

• to find the self
• curiosity about the ‘other’
• religious or spiritual reasons;
• to search for one’s roots;
• to be informed
• to experience ‘awe’

In this activity, you’ll practice identifying these purposes in travel writing. Visit Travel Tales, a collection of stories and articles curated and edited by Lavinia Spalding. Slowly scroll down the home page of her site, reading the titles and blurbs of the various stories you find there. Can you infer the purpose of travel from these snippets of information? Refer to The Travel Narrative (above) for more information of the purposes of travel writing.

Class Activity 2: seven travel stories

The travel genre is wide and varied – and this small collection of travel stories will give you a little taste of some famous (and not-so-famous) writers’ work. You may recognise one or two of these names, such as Bram Stoker and Bill Bryson.

Inside the booklet you’ll find seven short travel tales: either read them yourself, or divide them amongst the people in your class. Use this powerpoint to record your observations about the genre of travel writing. However many extracts you attempt, feed back what you’ve done to the rest of the class.

Areas of Exploration Guiding Conceptual Question

‘Cultural practices’ refers to traditional or customary practices of a particular ethnic, national or cultural group. They can be considered in the same way as symbolism in literary texts; physical manifestations of abstract beliefs and values . One reason we travel is to discover the beliefs and values of different people, as practiced in rites and traditions which have often been passed down from generation to generation. Before you work through the resource below, can you think of any practices that are special in your culture? These may include religious, medical, artistic, culinary, political, family or any other behaviour that reveals underlying beliefs and values:

• H ow do texts reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?

Discussion Points

After you’ve got your head around the material in this section, pair up, pick a question, spend five minutes thinking and noting down your thoughts – then discuss your ideas with a friend and report back to the class:

• Why is travel writing important? How is it different from other kinds of journalism?
• In the twenty-first century, is travel writing still necessary? Given that technology can connect us with people and places all around the world, and we can watch videos, read blogs, and browse the social media of people who live in other places, what is the point of reading first person accounts of travel by outsiders to those places?
• Is there a difference between a traveller and a tourist? What makes a person one rather than the other? Is it preferable to be one over the other?

Learner Portfolio

Watch Livinia Spalding’s Tedtalk (above) and, if you have not done so already, visit Travel Tales to browse some of the stories from her collection. Near the end of this talk Lavinia issues a challenge: to write your own literary travel story, inspired by a place you’ve been or a person you’ve met on a journey you have taken. Take her up on this challenge by writing a piece of literary non-fiction about a place you have been ora journey you have taken in your life. Make the purpose of your writing clear: is it to find the self; discover the ‘other’; become informed; search for your roots; take a religious or spiritual journey, experience ‘awe’ – or some combination of purposes?

Paper 1 Text Type Focus: travel writing

At the end of your course you will be asked to analyze unseen texts (1 at Standard Level and 2 at Higher Level) in an examination. You will be given a guiding question that will focus your attention on formal or stylistic elements of the text(s), and help you decode the text(s)’ purpose(s). Travel writing is an extremely fluid genre and you could be presented with a text that contains a variety of tropes (such as maps, photographs, itineraries, reported or direct speech, humour, metaphors… the list goes on) and may even share similarities with literary texts. Use these practice texts to familiarise yourself with the different features of Travel Writing and add them to your Learner Portfolio; you will want to revise text types thoroughly before your Paper 1 exam. You can find more information – including text type features and sample Paper 1 analysis – by visiting 20/20 . Read through one or two of the exemplars, then choose a new paper and have a go at writing your own Paper 1 analysis response:

• A Fish with Hair
• The Mangyan of Mindanao
• Enter Tasmania’s Labyrinth ( Past Paper)
• Cycling Tips (Past Paper)
• Taj Mahal (Past Paper)
• Long Enough in Jo’burg (Past Paper)
• Travel Tales (Past Paper)
• Hunting Moose (Past Paper)

Key features of travel writing

• Viewpoint: travel writing often documents the personal experiences of someone exploring a new place or country so is often first person.
• Perspective: an outsider’s perspective is common when reading travel writing, particularly if the destination is new, exotic or remote. Alternatively, the piece might be written from an insider’s perspective and is inviting you to visit or share an experience in a different part of the world.
• Structure: look out for chronological timelines, past – present structures or a linear journey of discovery. Guidebooks will have clear headings and subheadings and will probably include box-outs and the like.
• Information: travel writing often seeks to be informative and can present you with facts and figures, names and dates, historical or architectural or geographical information and more.
• Description: if the writer is trying to make the destination tantalising, or to help transport the reader, you might find examples of visual imagery, vivid description , even figurative comparisons , helping you visualise a far-off place.
• Visuals: photographs, maps , or floor plans of famous locations are all visual features that you might encounter in travel writing, particularly guidebooks.

Body of Work: Alison Wright Photography

Alison Wright is an author, photographer and speaker who has published several collections of photo-essays including  Faces of Hope: Children of a Changing World  and  The Spirit of Tibet: Portrait of a Culture. Her most recent collection from 2018 is titled Human Tribe . Her mission is to document endangered cultures and traditions from around the world, including raising awareness of human rights and other issues. Alison has won numerous awards and accolades including the Dorothea Lange Award in Documentary Photography for her photographs of child labor in Asia and a two-time winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award. She was named a National Geographic Traveler of the Year in 2013. Here is a small selection of her photography to use in class, or you can explore Alison’s complete body of work here .

The presentation of beliefs and values through images is a powerful tool that can help preserve minority cultures in the face of globalisation and help to balance historical injustice by educating those who have lost touch with the past or with alternative ways of living. Texts of all kinds – written, spoken, visual – can help protect cultural heritage that might otherwise be lost. Alison Wright’s work can be seen in the wider context of cultural preservation , an important global issue in our increasingly homogenised and globalised world.

Towards Assessment: Individual Oral

“Supported by an extract from one non-literary text and one from a literary work, students will offer a prepared response of 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions by the teacher, to the following prompt:  Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of two of the texts that you have studied. (40 marks) “

Alison Wright’s photography would make a good text to consider using in your Individual Oral. Here are two suggestions as to how you might use this Body of Work to create a Global Issue. You can use one of these ideas, or develop your own. You should always be mindful of your own ideas and class discussions and follow the direction of your own thoughts, discussions and programme of study when devising your assessment tasks:

• Field of Inquiry: Culture, Identity and Community
• Global Issue: Cultural Preservation

Though the colonial era has passed, its legacy lives on in the education systems, laws, political systems and other cultural practices that have displaced indigenous traditions and beliefs. In this context, the reassertion of minority cultures through texts is a powerful tool that can help balance out historical injustices and educate those who have lost touch with alternative ways of life. You could easily pair her work with any literary text that reveals aspects of culture, describes cultural practices, or reflects cultural beliefs and concerns.

• Field of Inquiry: Beliefs, Values and Education
• Global Issue: Encountering the ‘Other’

An important purpose of travel writing is for us to encounter ‘other’ people and make connections with people who may be very different to ourselves. In a world of suspicion and insularity, it is through building bridges between cultures and learning to understand different ways of life that we can settle our differences peaceably. In this context, Alison Wright’s photography invites us to ‘meet’ individuals from cultures that are very different to the urbanised or westernised cultures a lot of us may be more familiar with.

Sample Individual Oral Here is a recording of the first ten minutes of an individual oral for you to listen to. You can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this talk as a way of improving your own oral presentations. Be mindful of academic honesty when constructing your own oral talk. To avoid plagiarism you can: talk about a different global issue; pair Alison Wright’s photography with a different literary work; select different passages to bring into your talk; develop an original thesis.

Possible Literary pAirings

• Broken April by Ismail Kadare – you might like to consider the idea that some cultural traditions are worth preserving, while others should rightly be consigned to the dustbin of history and Kadare subtly implies the Kanun is a dying tradition.
• John Keats’ poetry – In Ode on a Grecian Urn , the speaker tries to imagine what life might have been like for the people engraved on the surface of an urn.
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw – the play is awash with peculiar Victorian mores revealing all kinds of beliefs and attitudes about class, poverty, prudery, morality and more. Doolittle’s speeches, Mrs Higgins’ at-home or conversations between Higgins, Pickering and Mrs Pearce could all be passages that you might like to select for this activity.
• Border Town by Shen Congwen – written just as China was beginning to modernise, and recently rediscovered by a new generation of Chinese readers, Congwen’s novella paints a picture of the lives and traditions of local Miao people in West Hunan, and can be valued as a record of a way of life that has largely disappeared in one of the world’s fastest-changing countries.
• The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami – these stories are set in a world traumatised by history, and most of the characters are victims of a peculiar kind of ‘collective amnesia’. They seem stuck in the present and can’t move on in their lives. Some critics have interpreted Murakami’s writing as a response to the tumultuous events of Japan’s history – a past that many would like to simply forget. Approaching this activity from this unusual angle would be a challenging, but possibly very interesting, way to pair a literary and non-literary body of work.
• Charlotte Mew’s poetry – writing at the start of the twentieth century, what does Charlotte Mew reveal about the lives, attitudes and values of the people in her poems? What kind of society did she live in? What was life like for ordinary people – and for women, disabled people and those who were mentally impaired?
• Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee – the ‘civilised’ world’s encounter with the fearsome ‘other’ is a major theme of Coetzee’s novel and could make an ideal piece with which to compare Alison Wright’s photography.

Towards Assessment: HL Essay

Students submit an essay on one non-literary text or a collection of non-literary texts by one same author, or a literary text or work studied during the course. The essay must be 1,200-1,500 words in length. (20 marks) .††

If you are an HL student who enjoyed this section of work, and find the topic of travel writing interesting, you might consider this Body of Work to write your Higher Level Essay. You could extend your research beyond Human Tribe to include some of her other published collections. Angles of investigation might include: to what extent you think she is successful in her aim of bridging the gap between different cultures; whether her photography constitutes a modern form of travel writing; to what extent her photography reveals and represents cultural practices; whether you feel the photographs form or impose an identity onto people from an outsider’s perspective. Here are some suggestions for you – but always follow your own lines of inquiry should your thoughts lead you in a different direction:

• How is colour and composition used to present ideas about identity in Alison Wright’s photography?
• How does Alison Wright imply a close connection between people and the natural world in her photography collections?
• How does Alison Wright use metonymy in her photographic work?
• Explore the symbolism of eyes in Alison Wright’s photographic collections.
• In what ways does Alison Wright’s photography meaningfully negotiate our encounter with unfamiliar people and places?

Wider Reading and Research

• Outpost Magazine – a Canadian adventure-travel publication published six times a year, Outpost is known for its long-form adventure narratives from across the world.
• My Favourite Travel Book – six famous travel writers nominate their favourite travel books.
• The Most Inspiring Talks on Travel – a selection of the best Tedtalks about travel, including Lavinia Spalding’s talk.
• The Truth About Tribal Tourism – visit this Rough Guide blog to discover how your sustainable tour may not be as friendly to people or places as you might have thought…

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• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Tips for travel writing

Write in the first person, past tense (or present if the action really justifies it), and make your story a personal account, interwoven with facts, description and observation.

Many writers start their piece with a strong – but brief – anecdote that introduces the general feeling, tone and point of the trip and story. Something that grabs the reader's attention and makes them want to read on. Don't start with the journey to the airport – start with something interesting, not what happened first.

Early on you need to get across the point of the story and trip – where you were, what were you doing there and why. If there is a hook – a new trend, discovery or angle – make that clear within the first few paragraphs.

Try to come up with a narrative thread that will run throughout the piece, linking the beginning and end; a point you are making. The piece should flow, but don't tell the entire trip chronologically, cherry pick the best bits, anecdotes and descriptions, that will tell the story for you.

Quotes from people you met can bring the piece to life, give the locals a voice and make a point it would take longer to explain yourself. Quote people accurately and identify them, who are they, where did you meet them?

Avoid cliches. Try to come up with original descriptions that mean something. Our pet hates include: "bustling markets"... "azure/cobalt sea"... "nestling among" ... "hearty fare" ... "a smorgasbord of...".

Don't use phrases and words you wouldn't use in speech (such as "eateries" or "abodes"), and don't try to be too clever or formal; the best writing sounds natural and has personality. It should sound like you. Don't try to be "gonzo" or really hilarious, unless you're sure it's working.

Check your facts! It's good to work in some interesting nuggets of information, perhaps things you've learned from talking to people, or in books or other research, but use reliable sources and double-check they are correct.

Write economically – don't waste words on sentences that could be condensed. Eg say "there was a..." not "it became apparent to me that in fact there existed a...".

Moments that affected you personally don't necessarily make interesting reading. Avoid tales of personal mishaps – missed buses, diarrhoea, rain – unless pertinent to the story. Focus on telling the reader something about the place, about an experience that they might have too if they were to repeat the trip.

Five more tips from Guardian travel writers

Author Giles Foden says he always feels travel writing benefits from a cinematic approach, in that you need to vary the focus – wide lens for setting and landscape; medium lens for context and colour; zoom lens for detail and narrative – and switch between the views in a piece. It may sound a bit precious, but it's a very handy tip for varying the pace of an article. Andy Pietrasik, head of Guardian Travel

Travel journalism should add to the wealth of information already out there in guidebooks and on websites, so try to seek out the more off-the-beaten-track places to eat, drink, visit – often the places locals might frequent. Revealing a new or different side to a destination will give your story a richness that you won't get with a description of a visit to the tourist cafe in the main square. Isabel Choat, online travel editor

What sets good travel writing apart is detail, detail, detail. Which cafe, on what street, overlooking what view? You must sweep the reader up and carry them off on the journey with you. Paint an evocation of where you are so we can experience it along with you. Be specific and drop "stunning", "breathtaking" and "fantastic" from your lexicon, otherwise it's just a TripAdvisor entry. Sally Shalam , Guardian hotel critic

An important rule of creative travel writing is to show, not tell, wherever possible. Readers want to feel as if they're eavesdropping on a conversation, or being shown something secret and magical. People don't like being told what to think. If a child wearing rags made you sad, for example, describe the child, their clothes, the way they carried themselves. Assume readers are sentient. If you write it well, they will "feel" what effect the encounter had on you. This is much more powerful than saying, "I felt sad." Mike Carter, Guardian contributor and author of One Man and his Bike

My golden rule when writing a piece is to include as much visual description as possible. It's easy to presume a lot, but your readers don't know what you've seen. So explain it as vividly as possible. Don't ever describe something as "characterful" or "beautiful" – this doesn't mean anything to anybody but you. Describe things as if you were explaining them to a blind person. To say a building is "old" isn't good enough; explain the colours, the peeling stucco, the elaborate, angular finishes on windowsills, the cleaning lady in a faded blue smock who was leaning out of a second-storey window with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. There is a thin line between elaborate, colourful, evocative writing and pretentious tosh, but it's better to lean towards the pretentious tosh side of the spectrum than to be dull and presumptuous. Benji Lanyado, Guardian writer and blogger

• Travel writing competition
• Travel writing competition 2011
• Travel writing

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Most viewed.

Beginners Guide to Travel Writing

So you want to be a travel writer? Good. You can! This beginners guide to travel writing intends to answer your most basic questions and get you pointed in the right direction.

Thousands of people from various backgrounds – many with no previous media or journalism experience – share stories of their trips and adventures on countless websites, blogs, magazines, newspapers, newsletters and social media platforms. No degree or certification is required and doing so doesn’t require a lot of money – no additional money, in fact, if you already own a computer with internet access and a smart phone.

At its best, travel writing offers deep personal enrichment, unforgettable experiences and a little side income to boot. Understand this, however, pursuing travel writing typically works best for those using it as a side hustle, primarily for experiences and perks, or in retirement, separate of a primary income. While there are thousands of travel writers, there are very few full-time, on-staff with a media outlet, professional, this-is-how-I-support-myself travel writers. There are more professional athletes than there are travel writers making their living exclusively this way.

As you read our guide to travel writing for beginners , no attempt will be made to sugarcoat the realities, to oversell the benefits or discount the obstacles. This guide is informed directly by the personal experiences of TRAVEL WRITERS UNIVERSITY and the TRAVEL WRITERS CAFÉ staff and the hundreds of successful and failed beginning travel writers we have worked with.

The best news is, if you’re serious about starting travel writing, there is a proven, repeatable, simple – but not easy – step-by-step process to follow which will get you there and a supportive network of likeminded people going through a similar journey. The process and teachings are cataloged in detail at TRAVEL WRITERS UNIVERSITY and the support network exists in our TRAVEL WRITER’S CAFÉ Facebook group.

TWU is a premium on-line resource where members receive access to hundreds of informational articles related to advancing in the field from tips on improving your writing and photography, to editor contact information and pitching strategy. The CAFÉ is our Facebook members community where we share member’s published stories, hot leads from editors looking for pitches, and general support along with regular instructional video webinars and chats. One monthly membership of only $49 dollars provides access to both services.

TWU and CAFÉ founder Noreen Kompanik started her travel writing career exactly where you are today . She was a registered nurse who loved traveling with no writing experience. She was intrigued about the possibilities of travel writing. Through some relatively expensive in-person and online courses, a lot of trial and error, and dogged determination, she has worked her way to the top of the travel writing profession with over 600 “bylines” – published stories – in major print and digital outlets. She takes roughly 20 “press trips” – all expenses paid, invitation only trips to write about a destination or accommodation – every year to Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and across the United States. She earns tens of thousands of dollars annually for the privilege of doing so.

This lifestyle can be the upside of travel writing.

TWU and the CAFÉ share what she’s learned, along with the expertise of her travel writer business partners, streamlining the process from beginner to intermediate , providing a clear blueprint to follow in her footsteps.

TRAVEL WRITERS UNIVERSITY / TRAVEL WRITERS CAFÉ ADVANTAGE

“I love being a part of the community where I can learn from the best what I need to succeed as a travel writer. The monthly Roadmaps and Bonus Articles include actionable information that has upped my writer’s game. Opening the Travel Write’s Cafe Facebook group is the first thing I do each morning. The support and encouragement from fellow members helps me to stay motivated. Kristi and Noreen have given me the tools and confidence I need to continue to reach for higher goals. In the past year, I have landed press trips I never dreamed would happen.” – TRAVEL WRITERS CAFÉ member Sharon Kurtz.

Freelancing

As mentioned, full-time travel writing jobs are exceptionally scarce. Filling them, most times, are writers, reporters and journalists with degrees in those fields and years of experience which have allowed them to slowly work up the ranks in that field.

Don’t let that discourage you. The VAST majority of travel writing is not done by these people, it’s done by a global community of freelancers. Freelancers are non-staff writers, independent contractors typically writing for a variety of different publications – online and in print.

Publications would love to have large teams of exclusively staff writers producing stories, but doing so is far too expensive. Even two or three staff writers earning a livable salary with benefits and travel stipends to report their stories would require a vastly greater investment from the publication than using even hundreds of freelancers each year and paying them a couple hundred dollars per article.

Freelancing is a hustle, no doubt, but if you want to start travel writing without starting your own blog or website – and we’ll get to that later – freelancing is how you’re going to do it.

Almost all travel publications, even the big ones like National Geographic and BBC, rely heavily on freelancers for content (stories). Freelancing involves “pitching” editors story ideas you’d like to write. This means sending the editor(s) at the publication you’d like to see your article appear in an email detailing the story you’d like to write and why it would be a good fit for that outlet.

Who to pitch? Where to pitch? How to pitch?

These are the first obstacles encountered by beginning travel writers. At TWU and in the CAFÉ, we take the mystery out of this process leading writers by the hand through it. With our travel media industry contacts, we have hundreds of editor email addresses and are constantly updating our members about new writing opportunities.

Travel publications NEED content. They NEED freelancers. They’re constantly on the lookout for new writers. We go where they go to look for writers and pass their “calls for submission” – want ads for stories – on to our members.

To have stories published as a freelancer, you first pitch publications and if they’re interested, an editor will tell you exactly what story angle to take, word length, etc.

Pitching editors can be a time consuming, exhausting, frustrating effort. For beginners and experienced travel writers alike, many pitches go unanswered. Pitching also happens to be essential for beginning and advancing your travel writing journey.

At TWU and the CAFÉ, we make this process as painless as possible by continually providing members hot leads to editors looking for stories – editors with smaller publications and at the biggest media companies. Editors across the globe looking for an endless variety of stories from all seven continents and subjects ranging from dining and drinking, to resorts, museums, family travel, budget travel, sports, theme parks, art and culture, nature, history, outdoors, all-inclusive, you name it.

Our expert staff personally review member pitches when necessary, making sure every word is just right to maximize its potential for being accepted.

TWU co-founder Kristi Dosh ran her own successful public relations company, Guide My Brand , for several years. She successfully pitched her clients to media outlets across the world. She is an expert on pitching and works with TWU and CAFÉ members on crafting their pitches.

TWU also provides members with instructional ROADMAPS to improve their pitching success . ROADMAPS are detailed explainers written by seasoned travel writers providing insight into a specific travel writing related subject. ROADMAPS are one of the most important resources offered by TWU for beginning and intermediate travel writers alike

ROADMAPS focused on pitching include:

“Perfecting your pitch strategy”

“Improve your pitching success with timing”

“Pitches that work”

“Overcoming your fear of pitching”

“Successful pitches – word for word!”

TWU and CAFÉ members also have the opportunity to receive individual help with their pitching and specific pitches. Our pitch review service puts your pitches in the hands of our experts for a word-by-word analysis to ensure your pitch has the greatest opportunity at success.

TRAVEL WRITERS UNIVERSITY / TRAVEL WRITER’S CAFÉ ADVANTAGE

Not only do we aide writers with their pitch strategy and individual pitches, we connect our writers directly to editors. This may be the most valuable service offered at TWU and in the CAFÉ.

TWU has an entire section of FEATURED PUBLICATIONS profiling dozens of travel-related outlets in-depth, what kind of stories they’re looking for, and contact information for editors.

TWU also features ROUNDUPS , bite-sized entries offering hundreds of suggested travel publications to write for and how to contact them.

Check out this FREE article specifically for beginners providing a list of 13 travel websites which accept pitches and stories from FIRST-TIME, unpublished writers.

Another obstacle beginning writers face is how to achieve their first few “clips” – examples of their published writing. Most editors require would-be writers send them links to a few of their previous clips to demonstrate their writing ability. Anyone new to travel writing, naturally, won’t have any examples of their previous work so this often presents a roadblock to advancement.

We remove that roadblock for beginners and, best of all, the TWU and CAFÉ travel writing ecosystem also includes our own travel websites! We own and operate Rovology.com , a general North American focused travel website, TravelbyVacationRental.com , a global review service for travel by vacation rental properties, and BookCottages.com , a European focused general travel and vacation rental review site.

Writing for these publications is open EXCLUSIVELY to TWU and CAFÉ members, guaranteeing our members respected bylines and advancing them through the difficult beginning stages of travel writing. Countless TWU and CAFÉ members have used story assignments and/or promised coverage on one of our owned and operated websites to secure free rental stays and travel perks.

Lastly, every Friday in the CAFÉ, we post FREELANCER FRIDAY compiling the best travel-related calls for submissions we’ve discovered after scouring our contacts and industry sites for travel editors in need of fresh stories.

Here’s an example of a FREELANCER FRIDAY from December of 2022:

No travel writing instructional service does more to put its writers directly in contact with editors than TWU and the CAFÉ. Period.

TWU and the CAFÉ go beyond the empty promises and lofty aspirations where other beginning travel writing educators stop. Our program offers serious tools for beginners committed to travel writing and access to resources clearly laying out the steps to follow to advance your career. Actionable, specific, detailed advice with direct, individual support available at every stage of your development.

Starting your own travel blog or website

Many beginning travel writers chose to start their own blog or website as opposed to, or in addition to, freelancing. Doing so prevents them from having to pitch ideas to editors and allows them to write about whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. Until said blog or website begins receiving enough traffic to start generating revenue, this will be done without monetary reward, but the freedom and flexibility are attractive.

Starting your own travel blog or website does require additional knowledge of basic coding, content management systems, graphic design – or your willingness to pay someone for helping you. While not terribly expensive, the web hosting and support does require an additional monetary investment on your end.

Understanding search engine optimization best practices and social media marketing will prove invaluable in any effort to launch your own travel blog or website.

If you have these skills, if you’ve created websites previously, this may be the right path for you. Hundreds of travel bloggers writing for sites of their own creation you’ve never heard of make great money and travel widely producing content exclusively for their own sites. A hundred times more tried unsuccessfully and quit.

TWU co-founder Kristi Dosh also specializes in the economics and realities of launching personal websites. A blogger, website creator, writer, reporter and journalist since the early 2000s, Dosh has built a brand and career around her sports website – businessofcollegesports.com – and has also developed the TWU and CAFÉ owned and operated sites.

From SEO strategies and social sharing, to advertising networks, sponsored content, direct sales, affiliate sales, WordPress, web hosting, backlinks and more, Dosh understands the nitty-gritty, back-end work required of successful websites living in that world daily. She shares what she has learned and continues to learn through her ongoing education in these always-evolving field.

Dosh works regularly with TWU and CAFÉ members, counseling them on if starting a personal blog or website is a good idea for achieving their goals, and if so, how best to pursue doing so.

TWU has published a “travel blogging toolkit” to assist your efforts.

What to write about

Paris, London, Rome, African safari, India, Mexico City, Yellowstone National Park – all of these can make for wonderful travel stories. All of them have made for countless wonderful travel stories. Compelling travel writing, however, doesn’t require a popular destination, fabulous resort or luxury experience.

Chances are you live in, adjacent to or within 50 miles of a city, town, park, attraction, beach, river, lake, hotel, hiking trail, museum or historical site that people visit which, in the right hands, could make for a fantastic travel story. Does your city, or one nearby, host an annual festival, concert, sporting event? These can make for great stories.

Your beginning travel writing journey should start local, with what you know best. As much as travel publications are looking for once-in-a-lifetime “travel porn” stories from Tierra Del Fuego, they also want the quirky festival story from a small town. Under the radar, off the beaten path, undiscovered, out of the way locations and attractions which haven’t already been written about endlessly make for great pitches and stories.

Bottom line is, you needn’t spend a lot of money traveling to become a travel writer. Start in your own back yard.

We have an entire ROADMAP detailing how to start your travel writing career by focusing on stories local to you.

When thinking about what to write, and how to distinguish yourself in the crowded field of freelance travel writers, think about niches. What aspect of travel are you most passionate about? What aspect of travel are you most knowledgeable about?

TWU and CAFÉ expert and travel writer Chadd Scott has developed his personal niche of arts writing within the travel sector to a contributor position at Forbes.com and freelance bylines for Fodors.com, SouthernLiving.com and Afar.com, along with various print publications. Doing so has landed him so many press trip invitations, he’s had to TURN DOWN invitations to Venice, Vienna, Toronto, Miami and other destinations because he’s simply too busy.

Scott helps members define their niches, like he has. He’s found that by identifying a niche, writers are better able to focus their efforts and stand out to editors. Instead of writing about an ecotourism experience in Utah one week and air travel trends the next, writers committing to a niche they’re passionate and knowledgeable about write with greater authority and attract the attention of editors and industry professionals in those areas more quickly, accelerating their rate of advancement.

Effective niches are often related to geographies – specific cities, states/provinces, regions or countries. Madison, WI, British Columbia, England’s Lake District, Kenya. Scott has further established a niche around Florida, where he lives, hosting a weekly podcast and writing regularly about the state.

Effective niches can also be related to activity. Birdwatching, camping, backpacking, sailing, music, golf, genealogy.

Effective niches can target specific travelers: luxury travel, LGBTQ+ travel, travel for women, travel with kids, Black History travel, travel targeting specific religious affiliations.

Food and wine are popular travel niches. Too popular, in fact, to be effective for most. Drill down. Instead of defining your niche as “food” writing, how about pizza, barbecue, tacos, food trucks or sushi? Instead of writing about “wine,” focus on a specific varietal or region of production. Food and wine are such popular niches, you’ll need to drill down on them.

Anywhere people travel and anything they do while traveling or travel for, could represent a travel niche for you to explore and advance your career.

Here’s another FREE article from TRAVEL WRITERS UNIVERSITY offering advice to help start your creative juices flowing!

How good of a writer do I have to be?

Are you a good enough writer to be a travel writer? Answer these questions honestly:

• Do you like reading?
• Do you write clear, effective emails at work? Do you write professional proposals or summaries or reviews at your current job?
• Did you get good grades in grammar and writing classes?
• Could you write a good book review? Did you work for your student newspaper or yearbook?
• Do you enjoy writing? Do you journal?
• Do you have something to say? Are you funny? Are you observant? Are you empathetic?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, chances are, you are a good enough writer to begin travel writing. And you’ll improve the more you write.

Most travel writing isn’t brilliant prose. You don’t need to have Maya Angelou or Earnest Hemmingway talent to become a travel writer. It takes no particular storytelling genius to write “7 best pubs in Chicago” and similar list-based stories popular with many travel publications.

Writing is a talent, sure. We each have an innate ability to communicate through the written word we’re born with. It is also a skill that can be improved with instruction and practice.

Like most things in life, you don’t have to be great to start, but you’ve got to start to be great… and candidly, 99% of travel writers never achieve “great.”

TWU has published many ROADMAPS related to improving your writing including:

“5 structural elements of an article”

“Writing strong ledes” (a “lede” is an opening to a story)

“Creating a sense of place”

“Creating a compelling title”

“5 ways to become a better writer”

Our staff also offers one-on-one coaching to assist anyone who feels they need extra attention to improve their writing skills.

Expectations

When will that first press trip invitation to the Four Seasons in Fiji land in your inbox? Are you a celebrity with millions of social media followers and direct access to editors at major media outlets? If so, pretty soon. If not, it could take a while.

In all seriousness, beginning travel writing takes time. It takes time before you’re receiving invitations to free stays at hotels and free meals at chic restaurants. It takes time before you’re being paid for your writing. It takes time before your bylines appear in outlets your friends and family read.

How much time depends on your willingness to put in the work, to send the pitches, to be consistent with your efforts. Countless beginning travel writers who are all fired up about the potential of this pursuit lose interest after a few weeks and a few unreturned pitches. They lose interest when the reality of the grind and the work and the writing – which, make no mistake, is hard – push the fantasies of jetting off to Tokyo on a press trip out of their head.

They lose interest when life gets in the way. When kids and jobs and spouses and families evaporate their available free time to pitch and write and network and learn. When those same things fail to support the pursuit. When available nights and weekends to pursue beginning travel writing necessitate being filled with movies and music and downtime to give your body and mind a break.

Travel is supposed to be fun, and there’s nothing wrong with simply being a traveler, not a travel writer.

How do you know if you have what it takes?

Can you commit three hours a week to your beginning travel writing? To reading Roadmaps, to reading travel writing, to pitching, to writing? If so, if you adhere to the TWU program and participate in the CAFÉ, we can almost guarantee you’ll be a published travel writer after four months. Published in “Travel + Leisure?” No. Published somewhere, yes.

Will you get paid for that work? Maybe, maybe not. If you are paid, it might only be $20 USD. Even the biggest travel publications, the one’s you’ve heard of, only pay freelancers a few hundred dollars for articles of 1,000 words or more.

We can’t state this more directly, do NOT pursue beginning travel writing if your primary motivation for doing so is monetary.

When will that first press trip invitation come? Again, how fiercely are you willing to pursue this? To pitch? To write? To pitch progressively bigger and bigger outlets? Maybe a year? Probably longer, but here’s another benefit to membership with TWU and the CAFÉ: Noreen, Kristi, Chadd and our staff receive so many press trip invitations we can’t take them all and regularly share leads and contacts for them with members.

TWU and CAFÉ membership has been kept purposefully limited. We’re not spending thousands of dollars a month on Facebook ads targeting dreamers and the easily deceived into joining our programs with little hope of success. We take our greatest satisfaction in our members succeeding. In their bylines and press trips.

We are distinguished by the individual attention we provide our members. We don’t have thousands of members, we don’t have hundreds of members, but the members we do have, we care about, we support, and we are invested in seeing succeed.

We hope you’ll become one of those few and experience the rewards of travel writing we have.

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Great Travel Writing Examples from World Renowned Travel Writers

Are you ready to be a better travel writer? One of the best ways to do this is to read great travel writing examples from great travel writers.

Writing about travel in a way that keeps your reader reading is not always easy. Knowing how to write an irresistible first paragraph to entice the reader to keep reading is key. Writing a lede paragraph that convinces the reader to finish the article, story or book is great travel writing.  This article features travel writing examples from award-winning travel writers, top-selling books, New York Times travel writers, and award-winning travel blogs.

Ads are how we pay our bills and keep our blog free for you to enjoy. We also use affiliate links; if you make a purchase through them, we may receive a small commission at no cost to you.

The writers featured in this article are some of my personal favorite travel writers. I am lucky to have met most of them in person and even luckier to consider many friends. Many I have interviewed on my podcast and have learned writing tips from their years of travel writing, editing and wisdom.

11 Great Travel Writing Examples

Writing with feeling, tone, and point of view creates a compelling story. Below are examples of travel writing that include; first paragraphs, middle paragraphs, and final paragraphs for both travel articles as well as travel books.

I hope the below examples of travel writing inspire you to write more, study great travel writing and take your writing to a higher level.

Writing Example of a Travel Book Closing Paragraphs

Don George is the author of the award-winning anthology The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George , and the best-selling travel writing guide in the world: How to Be a Travel Writer .

He is currently Editor at Large for National Geographic Travel, and has been Travel Editor at the San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle, Salon, and Lonely Planet.

I had the wonderful opportunity to see Don speak at Tbex and read from one of his books as well as interview him on the Break Into Travel Writing podcast. You can listen to the full podcast here .

Below is the closing of Don’s ebook: Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus: Dispatches from a Year of Traveling Close to Home

I continued hiking up to Lost Trail and then along Canopy View Trail. Around noon I serendipitously came upon a bench by the side of the trail, parked my backpack, and unpacked my lunch. Along with my sandwiches and carrot sticks, I feasted on the tranquility and serenity, the sequoia-swabbed purity of the air, the bird and brook sounds and sun-baked earth and pine needle smells, the sunlight slanting through the branches, the bright patch of blue sky beyond.

At one point I thought of shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, the Japanese practice that has become widely popular in the U.S. This was a perfect example of shinrin-yoku, I thought: Here I am, alone in this forest, immersed in the sense and spirit of these old-growth redwoods, taking in their tranquility and timelessness, losing myself to their sheer size and age and their wild wisdom that fills the air.

I sat there for an hour, and let all the trials, tremors, and tribulations of the world I had left in the parking lot drift away. I felt grounded, calm, quiet—earth-bound, forest-embraced.

In another hour, or two, I would walk back to the main paved trail, where other pilgrims would be exclaiming in awe at the sacred sequoias, just as I had earlier that day.

But for now, I was content to root right here, on this blessed bench in the middle of nowhere, or rather, in the middle of everywhere, the wind whooshing through me, bird-chirps strung from my boughs, toes spreading under scratchy pine needles into hard-packed earth, sun-warmed canopy reaching for the sky, aging trunk textured by time, deep-pulsing, in the heart of Muir Woods.

• You can read the whole story here: Old Growth: Hiking into the Heart of Muir Woods
• Please also download Don’s free ebook here:  Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus
• In addition to writing and editing, Don speaks at conferences, lectures on tours around the world, and teaches travel writing workshops through www.bookpassage.com .

Writing Example of a Travel Book Intro Paragraphs

Francis tapon.

Francis Tapon , author of Hike Your Own Hike and The Hidden Europe , also created a TV series and book called The Unseen Africa, which is based on his five-year journey across all 54 African countries.

He is a three-time TEDx speaker. His social media username is always FTapon. I interviewed Francis on the Break Into Travel Writing podcast about “How to Find An Original Point of View as a Travel Writer “. You can listen to the full podcast here .

Below is the opening of Francis’ book, The Hidden Europe:

“This would be a pretty lousy way to die,” I thought.

I was locked in an outhouse with no way out. Outhouses sometimes have two latches—one on the outside and one on the inside. The outside latch keeps the door shut to prevent rodents and other creatures who like hanging out in crap from coming in. Somehow, that outer latch accidentally closed, thereby locking me in this smelly toilet. I was wearing a thin rain jacket. The temperature was rapidly dropping.

“This stinks,” I mumbled. It was midnight, I was above the Arctic Circle, and the temperatures at night would be just above freezing. There was no one around for kilometers. If I didn’t get out, I could freeze to death in this tiny, smelly, fly-infested shithole.

My mom would kill me if I died so disgracefully. She would observe that when Elvis died next to a toilet, he was in Graceland. I, on the other hand, was in Finland, not far from Santa Claus. This Nordic country was a jump board for visiting all 25 nations in Eastern Europe.

You can find his book on Amazon: The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us

For $2 a month, you can get Francis’ book as he writes it: Patreon.com/ftapon

Intro (Lede) Paragraph Examples of Great Travel Writing Articles

Michele peterson.

Former banking executive Michele Peterson is a multi-award-winning travel and food writer who divides her time between Canada, Guatemala, and Mexico (or the nearest tropical beach).

Former banking executive Michele Peterson is a multi-award-winning travel and food writer who divides her time between Canada, Guatemala, and Mexico (or the nearest tropical beach). Her writing has appeared in Lonely Planet’s Mexico from the Source cookbook, National Geographic Traveler, Conde Nast’s Gold List, the Globe and Mail, Fifty-five Plus and more than 100 other online and print publications.

She blogs about world cuisine and sun destinations at A Taste for Travel website. I met Michele on my first media trip that took place in Nova Scotia, Canada. I also had the pleasure of interviewing about “ Why the Odds are in Your Favor if you Want to Become a Travel Writer” . You can listen to the full podcast here .

Michele’s Lede Paragraph Travel Writing Example

I’m hiking through a forest of oak trees following a farmer who is bleating like a pied piper. Emerging from a gully is a herd of black Iberian pigs, snuffling in response. If they weren’t so focused on following the swineherd, I would run for the hills. These pigs look nothing like the pink-cheeked Babe of Hollywood fame.

These are the world’s original swine, with lineage dating back to the Paleolithic Stone Age period where the earliest humans decorated Spain’s caves with images of wild boars. Their powerful hoofs stab the earth as they devour their prized food, the Spanish bellota acorn, as fast as the farmer can shake them from the tree with his long wooden staff. My experience is part of a culinary journey exploring the secrets of producingjamón ibérico de Bellota, one of the world’s finest hams.

You can read the full article here: Hunting for Jamón in Spain

Perry Garfinkel

Perry Garfinkel has been a journalist and author for an unbelievable 40 years, except for some years of defection into media/PR communications and consulting.

He is a contributor to The New York Times since the late ’80s, writing for many sections and departments. He has been an editor for, among others, the Boston Globe, the Middlesex News, and the Martha’s Vineyard Times.

He’s the author of the national bestseller “ Buddha or Bust: In Search of the Truth, Meaning, Happiness and the Man Who Found Them All ” and “ Travel Writing for Profit and Pleasure “.

Perry has been a guest on my podcast twice. He gave a “ Master Class in Travel Writing ” you can listen to the full podcast here . He also shared “ How to Find Your Point Of View as a Travel Writer ” you can listen to the full episode here .

Perry’s Lede Travel Article Example from the New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — A block off Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown – beyond the well-worn path tourists take past souvenir shops, restaurants and a dive saloon called the Buddha Bar – begins a historical tour of a more spiritual nature. Duck into a nondescript doorway at 125 Waverly Place, ascend five narrow flights and step into the first and oldest Buddhist temple in the United States.

At the Tien Hau Temple, before an intricately carved gilded wooden shrine and ornate Buddha statues, under dozens of paper lanterns, Buddhists in the Chinese tradition still burn pungent incense and leave offerings to the goddess Tien Hau in return for the promise of happiness and a long life.

You can read the full article here: Taking a Buddhist pilgrimage in San Francisco

Elaine Masters

Elaine Masters apologizes for pissing off fellow travelers while tracking story ideas, cultural clues, and inspiring images but can’t resist ducking in doorways or talking with strangers.

She’s recently been spotted driving her hybrid around the North American West Coast and diving cenotes in the Yucatan. Founder of Tripwellgal.com, Elaine covers mindful travel, local food, overlooked destinations and experiences. Elaine was a guest on my podcast where we spoke about “ How to Master the CVB Relationship “. You can listen to the full podcast here .

Elaine’s Lede Example

I jiggered my luggage onto the escalator crawling up to the street. As it rose into the afternoon light, an immense shadow rose over my shoulder. Stepping onto the sidewalk, I burst into giggles, looking like a madwoman, laughing alone on the busy Barcelona boulevard.  The shadow looming overhead was the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. It had mesmerized me forty years earlier and it was the reason I’d finally returned to Spain.

You can read the full article here: Don’t Miss Going Inside Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s Beloved Cathedral

Along with his wife, photographer Mary Gabbett, Bret Love is the Co-Founder/Editor In Chief of Green Global Travel and the Blue Ridge Mountains Travel Guide.

He’s also an award-winning writer whose work has been featured by more than 100 publications around the world, including National Geographic, Rolling Stone, American Way, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Bret’s Lede Example

Congo Square is quiet now. Traffic forms a dull drone in the distance. A lone percussionist taps out ancient tribal rhythms on a two-headed drum. An air compressor from Rampart Street road construction provides perfectly syncopated whooshes of accompaniment.

Shaded park benches are surrounded by blooming azaleas, magnolias, and massive live oaks that stretch to provide relief from the blazing midday sun. It’s an oasis of solitude directly across the street from the French Quarter.

Congo Square is quiet now. But it’s here that the seeds of American culture as we know it were sown more than 200 years ago. And the scents, sounds, and sights that originated here have never been more vital to New Orleans than they are now, more than a decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

You can read the full article here: Treme, New Orleans (How Congo Square Was The Birthplace Of American Culture)

Middle Paragraph Examples of Great Travel Writing Articles

Mariellen ward.

Canadian travel writer and blogger Mariellen Ward runs the award-winning travel site Breathedreamgo.com , inspired by her extensive travels in India.

She has been published in leading media outlets worldwide and offers custom tours to India through her company India for Beginners. Though Canadian by birth, Mariellen considers India to be her “soul culture” and she is passionate about encouraging mindful travel.

Mariellen’s Middle Paragraph Example

While the festival atmosphere swirled around me, I imbued my  diya with hope for personal transformation. I had come to India because a river of loss had run through my life, and I had struggled with grief, despair and depression for eight years. I felt I was clinging to the bank, but the effort was wearing me out. Deciding to leave my life and go to India was like letting go of the bank and going with the flow of the river. I had no idea where it would lead me, what I would learn or how I would change. I only knew that it was going to be big.

You can read the full article here: The River: A tale of grief and healing in India

Joe Baur is an author and filmmaker from Cleveland currently based in Berlin. His work has appeared in a variety of international publications, including BBC Travel, National Geographic, and Deutsche Welle.

He regularly reports for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and is the author of Talking Tico detailing his year of living in Costa Rica and traveling around Central America. I interviewed Joe about “ How to Find Unique Travel Stories “. You can listen to the full podcast here .

Joe Baur’s Middle Paragraph Example

I first became aware of the Harz mountains and the Brocken when reading the works of some of Germany’s great writers, like Goethe and Heinrich Heine. Legends of witches congregating with the devil being the main theme of the mountain’s mythology. I, however, was more interested in a refreshing time spent in nature rather than reveling with the devil.

The first stage from Osterode to Buntenbock was a warm-up to the more rigorous stages ahead. It began on sidewalks before sliding into the forest sporting a healthy shade of green — a gentle jaunt that made my hiking boots feel a bit like overkill given the dry, pleasant weather.

You can read the full article here: Follow the witch through the forest: 5 days hiking Germany’s Harz

Samantha Shea

Samantha is a freelance travel writer with bylines in Matador Network, GoNomad and more. She also runs the travel blog Intentional Detours which provides thorough guides and tales related to offbeat adventure travel in South Asia and beyond.

When she’s not writing she enjoys cycling, hiking, the beach, as well as language learning.

Samantha Shea’s Middle Paragraph Example

Suddenly, the spark of a match pulsed through the early-fall afternoon and my head snapped towards the men. Amir touched the flame to an unidentifiable object that seconds later made itself known by the deep earthy scent of Pakistani hashish.

Amir’s ice blue eyes focused intently on his creation: a combination of tobacco and nuggets of greenish-brown charas. He forced the mixture back into the cigarette, before bringing it to his pursed lips, flicking the match, and setting flame to his high.

I reached out from the cot to take my turn and took a deep inhale, acutely pleased. I savored the familiar burn of the drag, the rows and rows of corn and apple plants in front of me, the stuttered cacophony of animal exclamations behind me, and the generosity of the men to my left, some of whom we had just met an hour before.

You can read the full article here: Thall Tales: A Hazy Afternoon in Thall, Pakistan

Final Paragraph Example of Great Travel Writing Articles

Cassie bailey.

Cassie is a travel writer who has solo backpacked around Asia and the Balkans, and is currently based in Auckland. Alongside in-depth destination guides, her blog has a particular focus on storytelling, mental health, and neurodiversity.

Cassie’s Final Paragraphs Example

So my goal is to feel, I guess. And I don’t mean that in a dirty way (although obvz I do mean that in a dirty way too). This is why we travel, right? To taste crazy new foods and to feel the sea breeze against our skin or the burn on the back of our legs on the way down a mountain. We want to feel like shite getting off night buses at 4am and the sting of mosquito bites. We know we’re going to feel lost or frustrated or overwhelmed but we do it anyway. Because we know it’s worth it for the ecstasy of seeing a perfect view or making a new connection or finding shitty wine after a bad day.

My goal is never to become numb to all of this. To never kid myself into settling for less than everything our bodies allow us to perceive. I’m after the full human experience; every bit, every feeling.

You can read the full article here: Goals inspired by life as a solo backpacker

Lydia Carey

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City who spends her time mangling the Spanish language, scouring the country for true stories and “researching” every taco stand in her neighborhood.

She is the author of “ Mexico City Streets: La Roma ,” a guide to one of Mexico City’s most eclectic neighborhoods and she chronicles her life in the city on her blog MexicoCityStreets.com .

Lydia’s Final Paragraphs Example

Guys from the barrio huddle around their motorcycles smoking weed and drinking forties. Entire families, each dressed as St. Jude, eat tacos al pastor and grilled corn on a stick. Police stand at a distance, keeping an eye on the crowd but trying not to get too involved.

After this celebration, many of the pilgrims will travel on to Puebla where they will visit some of the religious relics on display in the San Judas church there. But many more will simply go back to their trades—legal and illegal—hoping that their attendance will mean that San Judas protects them for another year, and that he has their back in this monster of a city.

You can read the full article here: San Judas de Tadeo: Mexico’s Defender of Lost Causes

I hope you enjoyed these examples of travel writing and they have inspired you to want to write more and write better! The next article that will be published is a follow-up to this and will include travel writing examples from my first travel writing teacher, Amanda Castleman. This article will include travel writing tips from Amanda and travel writing examples from her students as well as one from her own writing.

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Alexa Meisler is the editorial director of 52 Perfect Days. Born in Paris, France she has since lived in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. She currently resides in San Diego with her husband and son where they enjoy exploring California and Mexico.

Travel has always been a part of her life; traveling to such places as Morocco, Tangiers and Spain as a young child as well as taking many road trips to Mexico with her grandparents as a young girl. Since then, she has traveled abroad to locations such as Russia, Taiwan and throughout Europe.

Prior to working at 52 Perfect Days she was a freelance travel writer; focusing on family and women’s adventure experiences.

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What is Travel Writing?

For thousands of years, travellers have written about their experiences exploring the furthest reaches of the world, both to record their journeys for personal reasons and as a guide for those who might follow.

Before the internet age, even as far back as Ancient Greece, stories of distant lands were popular because many people would never have had an opportunity to visit themselves.

But what is travel writing like today? With the internet, sharing experiences of our travels has never before been so easy, and arguably travel writing in one form or another is more popular ever.

Definition of travel writing

Travel writing is a genre that describes a writer’s experiences, observations, and feelings while travelling to different places. 

It often includes descriptions of the landscape, culture, people, and events that the writer encounters, as well as their personal thoughts and reflections on these experiences. 

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How Many Pages is 3,000 Words?

On average, 3,000 words is equivalent to 6 pages of A4 single-spaced or 12 pages if double-spaced. This takes into account a font size of…

How Long Does it Take to Write a 3,000 Words Essay?

Writing an essay and completing it before a deadline is an important skill for any student, but even those experienced in time management might find…

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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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• INTELLIGENT TRAVEL

Why (and How) Travel Writing Moves Us

I sat down with   Don George , editor at large at   National Geographic Traveler   and author of   Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing , and asked him to wax philosophical about how and why travel writing gets under our skin, who inspired him to become a travel writer in the first place, and what he thinks about the explosion of travel blogging and the future of the craft itself.

Here’s what he had to say:

Leslie Trew Magraw: Why do you think travel writing has such a wide appeal?

Don George: Really great travel writing is ultimately about connection.

As human beings, connection is incredibly incredibly important to all of us; it’s the thing we need to keep going. And, so, when we vicariously are connected to a place and an experience that has very much gotten inside of a writer and moved him in some way, it enriches us and expands us–which, I think, is why great travel writing has this allure, this influence, this effect. You feel like a bigger richer better human being for having read it, whether it’s an article in a magazine, a blog post, or a book.

On another level I think there is a popular sense that what travel writers do is kind of go “la la la” around the planet and have wonderful experiences and write about them and, somehow, someone magically pays for them, and what could be better than the life of the travel writer?   Those of us who actually make a living in the field know that while there are moments of that, there are lots and lots of moments when we are somewhere thinking, “Why in the world did I become a travel writer?”

For me, I have to say I feel incredibly lucky to have made my living as a travel writer and editor. I can’t imagine a more fulfilling thing. Part of that fulfillment is getting to connect with readers, which enriches my life in ways I can’t express. I feel like a bigger, fuller, richer human being because of the way readers have reacted to my pieces.

LTM: Is there someone you can point to that you can learn about the craft from?

DG:   The person I consider to be my personal mentor in this regard is   John McPhee . He’s been a staff writer at   The New Yorker   forever.

[At Princeton] he taught me that non-fiction writing is every bit as   worthy   as fiction writing, that a great non-fiction writer should be revered in the same way a novelist is, that writing really is a   craft –something you can work at and improve, that every single word counts, and that reading is just as important of an act for a writer as writing. He made me respect the very act of non-fiction writing–both the responsibility that you have as a non-fiction writer and the opportunity that you have.

I hold him up hugely as an example of a great writer who gets research right, his sentences are meticulous. He is just an amazing case study for what great writing is.

LTM:   What’s your favorite piece of travel writing?

DG:   For me the best travel book ever written is   The Snow Leopard   by Peter Matthiessen .   It’s   an amazing textbook on some level about how incredibly rich and engaging a work of non-fiction can be.     It also literally changed my life because it inspired me to make a decision that I had been afraid to make: to take the leap and become a travel writer myself.

Pico Iyer is another writer that I just revere because his sentences are just so incredibly polished and honed and lyrical, and the rhythms of his writing are so beautifully modulated.

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LTM: How do you feel about the explosion of travel blogging, and what do you feel are a writer’s responsibilities to his or her readers, regardless of the platform he or she is using?

DG: I have deeply ambivalent feelings about the explosion of blogging. On the one hand, I think it’s very liberating for writers to realize that they can just publish their own work–that they don’t have to deal with the whole traditional process of submitting their work to an editor who may not read it, like it, or publish it.

While that’s great, it means that, as a reader, you have to wade through this forest of uncurated content to find the good stuff. That’s hugely daunting for readers and, in a way, it’s kind of daunting for writers, too. Even though it might be easy to publish yourself, there is a certain lack of incentive to make yourself better or to hold yourself to a higher standard.

In this vein, I think that it’s important for bloggers to keep in mind that they are serving a reader, and that the reader deserves the most accurate content, the most honest content, and the highest quality content possible. It’s really all about engagement. I think it’s crucial for bloggers to keep certain standards in mind and to think about the writer/reader relationship. In my mind it’s a sacred relationship that needs to be nurtured and respected.

Leslie Trew Magraw   is the editor and producer of the Intelligent Travel blog network at National Geographic. Follow her on Twitter   @leslietrew .

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Webinar: How to write travel features to wow your editor

Meera dattani chairs our next webinar collaboration on how to write great stories & get re-commissioned.

Save the date! Our next webinar collaboration with Meera Dattani is hitting your screens on 29 November 2023 at 1pm GMT . The 75-minute webinar will explore the nuts and bolts of writing excellent travel features to impress your editor and get you re-commissioned time and again.

The panel for this month’s webinar is a cracking line-up of editors, former editors and freelance writers. See below for more detail and book your space via this link (recordings available for those who can’t attend).

Reserve spot for £6

The panellists

Phoebe Smith is an adventurer and award-winning presenter, broadcaster, author, photographer and host of the Wander Woman Travel Podcast . With a focus on regenerative travel, wildlife conservation and adventure, she is the current Sustainability Travel Writer of the Year. She is also co-founder of the #WeTwo Foundation, a charity that changes the lives of underprivileged young people using the tool of adventure.

Jane Dunford is Deputy Head of Travel at The Guardian and has been a travel writer and editor for over 20 years, contributing to various publications, from trade titles to newspapers and glossy magazines. She's an advocate for sustainable, ethical travel and passionate about wild, remote places.

Daniel Fahey is a writer, editor, journalist and lecturer whose work has appeared in the Independent, the Telegraph, Time Out, and National Geographic, among others. Fahey has also worked in-house at Lonely Planet. He commissioned guidebooks and articles as a Destination Editor and later identified and developed writing talent as a Content Sources Manager. Today, Fahey works as a freelancer, and commissions and edits digital articles for Lonely Planet.

Book now for £6

This webinar is the second in our collaboration curated and hosted by travel journalist and editor Meera Dattani, a freelance travel and culture journalist, senior editor at digital publication Adventure.com and founder of Travel Writing Webinars , with bylines in Wanderlust, Evening Standard, Telegraph and others. Former Chair and Events Director of the British Guild of Travel Writers, she is also a speaker and moderator on external panels about travel writing and the travel industry.

You can now buy the recording of our first webinar on the art of pitching here for just £6.

Ready for more?

$ 545.00

Travel writing—and getting paid to travel—seems like an unattainable dream. But don’t let the naysayers fool you. It is absolutely possible to live that dream, and make a living doing so. Accomplished travel writer Jennifer Billock will show you how with this course on the fundamentals of travel writing. Learn how the industry works and how to make your trips work for you.

This eight-week class combines weekly writing workshops with readings. You’ll learn the basics of writing about travel for publications and the web. We’ll cover types of travel writing, press trips, what it’s like on the trip itself, writing a feature, and being mindful of issues within the industry. Participants in the class will receive a list of potential travel writing markets. Each week includes a writing assignment. Class members are encouraged to participate in critiques of one another’s work.

Jennifer is great! She truly cares about what she’s teaching and she is very open and responsive. —Sequoia Armstrong

Travel Writing Course Outline

Each week includes suggested readings, all of which will be available on the web.

Unit 1. The Wide World of Travel Writing

I will introduce the class and how it works and go over discussion participation guidelines and best practices. Then we will discuss several different types of travel writing, including how-to, front-of-book, service, essay, and feature.

Assignment: Post your bio in the discussion section. Write a 500-word essay about your most meaningful travel moment.

Unit 2. Traveling at Home

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques, and any comments on the suggested reading. We will then discover the world of travel writing at home and stories you can find in your own community.

Assignment: Go to a public place in your community and observe for 30 minutes. When you come back, write a 500-word piece about what you saw.

Unit 3:  All About Press Trips

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques. Media trips are the bread and butter of a professional travel writer’s job. This unit discusses everything you need to know about them—including how to get them, how to find the best stories, publication guidelines, and ethics.

Assignment: Prepare an introductory letter.

Unit 4:  Before and During Your Trip

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques, and any comments on the suggested reading. We will then discuss the pre-work that needs to be done before a trip, including research, finding contacts, and brainstorming potential stories. Next, we will discuss the work to be done while on a trip, including interviews with locals, photography, taking evocative notes, and discovering the real story.

Assignment: Go to an event or happening in your community. While you’re there, take notes, interview people, and take some photos (this can be done with a cellphone). When you return, write an 800-word travel story about the event and what it was like.

Unit 5:  Travel Features

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques, and any comments on the suggested reading. We will then have a more in-depth discussion about travel features, including setting, characters, perspective, scenes, and narrative arc.

Assignment: Create a thorough outline for a travel feature based on a travel experience you’ve had (or feel free to road trip and find a story that way).

Unit 6:  Issues in the Travel Industry and Your Role as the Writer

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques, and any comments on the suggested reading. We will then discuss current issues in the travel industry, including over-tourism, inclusion, colonialism, and sustainable tourism. We will also discuss your role and responsibilities as a travel writer when it comes to these issues.

Assignment: Write a 1,200-word travel feature from the last assignment’s outline with these considerations in mind.

Unit 7:  All About the Travel Publication

First we will have a short discussion about the last assignment and critiques. Then, we will break down the travel publication, including publication tiers, demographics, and how to “read” the publication to know exactly what to pitch.

Assignment: Write a breakdown of your favorite travel magazine.

Unit 8:  Market List and Pitch Workshop

Each student in the class will receive a list of publications looking for travel-related content. After discussing the reading and assignment critiques, we will talk about best practices for pitching stories and read some successful queries.

Why Take a Travel Writing Course with Writers.com?

• We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
• Small groups keep our online writing classes lively and intimate.
• Work through your weekly written lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
• Share and discuss your work with classmates in a supportive class environment.
• Award-winning instructor Jennifer Billock will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Let’s take a trip together. Join our online travel writing class!

Student feedback for jennifer billock:.

I could not be happier with Jen’s commitment both to my personal development and the class as a whole. Jen went above and beyond in creating a supportive workshop environment. Not only did she provide thoughtful criticism of our weekly assignments, she helped me build the confidence to pitch and land my first food writing piece, with a second on the way! Jen is kind, enthusiastic, and a smart reader—basically, she’s the whole package as an instructor and writer.   Jenn Hall

This course was incredibly valuable to me - both in terms of developing the quality of my writing and learning about the business side of food writing. Jennifer's feedback on our submissions was thoughtful and very useful. The guidance she provided, and the specific feedback on my writing, helped develop both the quality of my writing and my ability to self-criticize.  Steve Paris

Jennifer was great!! She truly cares about what she's teaching and she is very open and responsive. Will highly recommend Jennifer and if she offers another course I'd be very interested in taking it.   Sequoia Armstrong

I enjoyed the class, content and dynamism of Jen throughout the class. My writing has improved considerably since I started doing these courses. I would (and have), recommend the classes.   Patricia Lopez

Jennifer Billock was incredibly helpful, fast to reply to questions, present with discussions and assignments and a wealth of useful information and tips. The organization of the course and lessons was very well done, easy to follow, and engaging. She provided lots of rich examples of the styles of writing being explored and her teaching style was very friendly, respectful and approachable. I was really impressed with the course and thankful for her guidance and expertise. Claire Keeler

I loved this class. I though the lessons and assignments were varied enough to cover multiple aspects of food writing. I enjoyed exploring sides of food writing that I would not have ventured into on my own, like writing recipes and covering a science-related food story. - I really enjoyed working with Jennifer. Her feedback was very useful, and I liked that she got to know the three of us in the class individually. Plus, although she is a successful and busy writer, she wasn't condescending to us newbies. Pamela Hunt

The content was relevant, engaging, and challenging. Jennifer was great! I've never used Writers.com before, and after my experience with Jennifer, I will def try another course. Katherine Levey

“I could not be happier with Jen’s commitment both to my personal development and the class as a whole. Jen went above and beyond in creating a supportive workshop environment. Jen is kind, enthusiastic, and a smart reader—basically, she’s the whole package as an instructor and writer.” —Jenn Hall

About Jennifer Billock

Jennifer Billock is the author of two cookbooks and five history books. She is an award-winning writer, bestselling author, and editor. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Playboy, mental_floss, Lucky Peach, National Geographic Traveler, and Conde Nast Traveler. She has taught writing courses for local colleges and mentors young writers on a regular basis. Jennifer also co-hosts the podcast Macabre Traveler and edits the Kitchen Witch Newsletter.

Jennifer's Courses

*Private Class | Food Writing: Meals And Manuscripts Food Writing: Meals And Manuscripts Fundamentals of Travel Writing Food Writing: Food-Focused Memoir

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Mastering the Art of Travel Writing: Tips for Students

D o you love writing and traveling? Do you dream about seeing the world and discovering hidden gems in every country you go to? Then you might have considered becoming a travel writer. Even though this is one of the dream jobs many students have, it comes with challenges too. Mastering the art of travel writing is not hard, but you have to put in a lot of dedication, effort, and time. This is a captivating genre that allows you to share your experiences, observations, and adventures from your journey . Writing about travel is what you, as a student, might aspire to.

So, you are probably looking for some tips and tricks on how to get started. What is travel writing? Are there more types of travel writing? Learn more about some travel writing tips that can enhance your craft and help you create engaging stories. While some spots can inspire you to write fascinating posts, you can take matters into your own hands and improve your skill.

Immerse Yourself in Traveling

Well, you cannot be a travel writer if you are not traveling. This is why it is essential to travel extensively. Explore distinct places , cultures, and landscapes. Get to know the locals, talk with them and find out more about the local traditions and social norms. Every country is different from another one. And even though some beliefs or lifestyles might be similar, there are so many things that tell them apart. And you can learn more about this by traveling and talking with locals too.

However, as a student, you have academic responsibilities too. Getting an education in school is not only about attending classes or what notes you take during teaching but about writing essays and assignments too. And traveling around the world is time-consuming, which might make you fall behind your deadlines. Thankfully, there are essay writers for hire, essay writers that are skilled and professional and can help you complete your assignments. Getting some much-needed help will help you follow your passion and travel around the world . This way, you will gather experiences you can write about.

Maintain a Travel Journal

To write a travel short story or an article for your blog, you need to travel. But you also need to observe the peculiarities of every place you go to. You may not have time every day to write an article, but there is a solution. You could maintain a travel journal. Have it with you everywhere you go.

Write down your thoughts, impressions, and experiences while they are still fresh in your mind. This way, you make sure you do not forget anything worth mentioning. When you will sit down and write your articles later, this journal will be an invaluable resource.

Take Photos

If you want to become a travel writer, you have to write, of course. But photos can add more value to your travel stories or articles. So, whenever you can, aim to capture high-quality photos . Learn more about the art of photography to complement your words with images.

Read Widely

Besides practicing the art of writing more and traveling around the world, you could hone these skills by reading too. It is known that reading helps you expand your vocabulary as you learn new words that will help you convey the message effectively.

But, reading what other travel writers have published will help you learn more about writing techniques. How do they tell a story? How do they hook you and capture your attention? Reading widely does not mean that you will end up copying others. It just serves as a source of inspiration that will help you develop your unique voice.

Honesty and Authenticity

Many students who are aspiring to become travel writers think that they only have to share positive experiences from their travels. Indeed, when you discover new places and cultures, everything you see might be through some pink lens.

However, readers appreciate honesty and authenticity. So, help them see your experience through your eyes. Do not be afraid to share the parts of the trip that were not as pleasant. This will help them have a clear idea of what to expect from specific places. They are looking for genuine insights.

What to Keep in Mind?

Writing about traveling and trips around the world is an art. To excel in this craft, not only do you need to improve your writing skills, but also gain as much traveling experience as you can. For those who might not have the time or expertise, there are paper writers for hire who specialize in travel content. However, do not forget that travel writing is a journey in itself. Embrace the process, keep practicing, and let your passion for exploration and storytelling shine through your words.

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Article updated on April 2, 2024 at 7:00 AM PDT

ChatGPT 3.5 Review: First Doesn't Mean Best

While ChatGPT 3.5 isn't as robust as 4.0, nor does it generate images, for most inquiries it gets the job done. Just be sure to double-check.

Our Experts

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.

ChatGPT 3.5

• Decent accuracy
• Prone to hallucinate on more complex queries
• Poor job of citing sources
• Leaves it up to user to cross-reference Google

Basic info :

• Price: Free
• Availability: Web or mobile app
• Features: Voice recognition
• Image generation: No

ChatGPT is mind-blowing, but not without faults. When OpenAI's chatbot stormed onto the internet in late 2022, it dazzled with its ability to answer seemingly any question with a unique answer. 

This type of power, being able to ask open-ended questions and get back useful answers, is not how traditional internet search works. Putting questions into Google yields links to various articles and Reddit threads with people giving their research and opinions. It's up to you, the end user, to absorb all that information and synthesize a conclusion in your head. 

ChatGPT does that synthesis for you. It truly does feel like a calculator, but not for numbers, instead, for the wealth of human knowledge found online. 

There are different tiers to ChatGPT. The one available for free, version 3.5, uses 175 billion parameters. Think of parameters as the number of pieces of information. The more parameters a model has, the better it can understand language and produce nuanced sentences. While that certainly is a lot, it pales in comparison to ChatGPT 4.0, which reportedly has 1 trillion parameters , but costs money based on the number of inputs and outputs. For this review, I tested the free version.

How CNET tests AI chatbots

CNET takes a practical approach to reviewing AI chatbots. Our goal is to determine how good it is relative to the competition and which purposes it serves best. To do that, we give the AI prompts based on real-world use cases, such as finding and modifying recipes, researching travel or writing emails. We score the chatbots on a 10-point scale that considers factors such as accuracy, creativity of responses, number of hallucinations and response speed. See our page on  how we test AI  for more.

When using ChatGPT, keep in mind that the service automatically collects the information you put into its system, so be mindful of giving the service any personal information. For more information, see OpenAI's  privacy policy .

It's hard to recommend ChatGPT 3.5 as a shopping aid. Because its training data is only up until September 2021 , it lacks information about newly released products. It's hard to ask it to make comparisons on the latest TVs and cars if ChatGPT 3.5 has nothing to work with. 

Google Gemini and Perplexity are all connected to the open internet, meaning that information on new products is present. Microsoft Copilot was recently updated to incorporate GPT-4 Turbo, a more advanced AI model from OpenAI that has training data up until April 2023 . Like Gemini and Perplexity, it too is linked to the open internet to bring in links and other more recent bits of information. Anthropic's Claude isn't connected to the open internet, but its training data goes up until August 2023, so at least it's a bit more recent. 

Searching for recipes on Google can be a slog. Finding a good recipe sometimes means having to scroll through paragraphs of needless backstory to get to the recipe itself. 

ChatGPT cuts out all that fluff and gives you a recipe, instantly, while also allowing you to add additional variables specific to your dietary needs. These types of recipes might not be as easily available via a Google search.

For example, I asked ChatGPT for a chicken tikka marinade recipe and it produced one in seconds, minus a backstory of visiting an Indian restaurant for the first time on Curry Mile in London. When I asked it to make a vegetarian version, ChatGPT remixed it instantly, swapping the chicken for paneer, an Indian cottage cheese. 

At the same time, ChatGPT 3.5's recipe generation lacked context. While ChatGPT does get straight to the point, the author of this other recipe I found pointed to the importance of using Kashmiri chili powder, kasuri methi (dried fenugreek), chaat masala, amchur (dried mango powder) and black salt. ChatGPT's version of this recipe was noticeably barebones by comparison.

When asking Gemini this same question, it was able to include ingredients like Kashmiri chili powder and amchur. I guess there's some secret sauce Google is using to get a bit more culture out of its recipe generation. In our tests, Gemini performed the best, followed by Microsoft Copilot (in creative mode), then ChatGPT 3.5, and it was a tie between Perplexity and Claude. However, no AI chatbot excelled at this test.

Research and accuracy

Research can be a slog of jumping between Google searches, research papers and public libraries. Generative AI can condense all of that hard work, absorbing the wealth of published knowledge online and helping synthesize information and giving specific answers to specific questions. 

It's also handy if generative AI can pull up the sources it's referencing. However, ChatGPT 3.5 doesn't source much at all. 

Whatever information ChatGPT dumps on your screen requires having to go to Google to actually find it and link to it, which ChatGPT makes challenging. Often, when asking ChatGPT for an exact source, it'll say that as an AI language model, it doesn't have direct access to real-time data or the ability to browse the internet. The inability to easily cross-reference sources makes the actual real-world usefulness of ChatGPT questionable. Sure, among friends, you may cite ChatGPT and get away with it. But for school or work, you'll be left scrambling on Google, potentially on a futile chase looking for a source that might not even exist.

It seems that OpenAI has tweaked ChatGPT to often not point to specific papers or sources when asked. This could have been because in the past it would make up papers that didn't exist. One user on Reddit from 10 months ago said that when asking, "Give me some papers on the relationship between homeschooling and neuroplasticity," ChatGPT would point to a paper that didn't exist. Asking that question now, ChatGPT says as an AI model, it can't browse the internet or access specific papers. However, when asking questions regarding the neurological implications of COVID-19 on health, ChatGPT immediately pointed to four sources, all of which were easily found on Google. 

It doesn't help that ChatGPT 3.5, at times, would hallucinate. Hallucinations are when an AI chatbot produces an incorrect answer but says it with confidence. It wasn't always immediately obvious and took some additional digging around on Google before I realized that ChatGPT 3.5 was making up factoids. 

This inconsistency is annoying, as it's hard to pin down why ChatGPT 3.5 bars citing some pieces of information while allowing others. 

Compared to other Chatbots, Claude performed the best at synthesizing different bits of research as well as linking to sources. Copilot, in creative mode, also performed similarly to Claude, finding the nuances in a complex topic. Google Gemini, with its access to the open internet, did a better job than ChatGPT 3.5, but hallucinated in odd ways, making up the names of studies that didn't exist. And Perplexity, while it did a decent job, worked in sources that weren't academically reliable. 

Summarizing

ChatGPT 3.5 certainly shows its limits when asked to summarize an article. I asked it to summarize an article I wrote earlier this month regarding ChatGPT's impact across the tech scene at CES 2024 . I pasted the entire article into 3.5 and the summary it yielded was lacking. It picked up the background information and mentioned the main thesis, but failed to bring the point home. It also abruptly stopped its summary, ending midway through a sentence. When I asked why it had stopped summarizing, ChatGPT 3.5 apologized and gave another summary, only to abruptly stop at the same spot. 

ChatGPT has a 4,096 character limit, according to Android Authority , meaning it can't summarize a 940-word article. Essentially, don't expect it to help you parse through large legal documents or terms of service agreements.

In comparison, Gemini has the ability to summarize articles just based on a link, but its link-based summaries were barebones and rather useless. When I pasted the whole article into Gemini, however, it actually did a better job of summarizing my article than ChatGPT 3.5.

Perplexity and Claude failed to get the full scope of my article.

Looking up travel ideas for major cities like Los Angeles or Tokyo isn't hard. The internet is packed with websites, TikToks, tweets and other options showcasing the most populous cities in the world. What about Columbus, Ohio, though? That's where an AI chatbot can come in handy, filtering through TripAdvisor, Reddit and other posts to put together a serviceable itinerary.

When I asked ChatGPT 3.5 for a three-day travel plan in Columbus, it did a surprisingly solid job of putting together packed itineraries full of activities. It recommended places to see as well as restaurants to visit. And unlike Google Gemini, all the restaurants it recommended were actually real. Why Gemini was more prone to hallucinations than ChatGPT in this test isn't clear. But it does point to how much tuning OpenAI has done to ensure information remains accurate. 

According to CNET's Bella Czajkowski , who's from Columbus, the only potential ding was that ChatGPT 3.5 recommended going to the Short North Arts District both on the first and third day. Generally, people like travel plans that don't repeat locations. 

Perplexity made vague recommendations whereas Claude performed well, but had one error. Gemini hallucinated the most, making up the names of restaurants that didn't exist.

Of the chatbots, Copilot performed the best, making a clean and organized list of activities, all bullet-pointed, along with pictures and emojis. 

Writing emails

ChatGPT does well in writing basic emails. From finding an excuse for not turning in your homework on time to an apology for missing an event, ChatGPT returns results that read believable, if not always genuine. When asking it to generate an email asking your boss for time off, ChatGPT 3.5 does default to overly formal-sounding language, but asking it to lighten up the language does create something more passable. Still, it'll require some tweaking to sound believably human. Even when asked to dilute some of the formality, it can still come across as robotic. So, ChatGPT will certainly give a solid template, but will require some editing to make it sound real. 

Comparatively, Gemini wrote emails well and was easy to tune to make it sound more casual and humanlike. Perplexity performed well at writing basic emails, but faltered on more complex topics, often coming off as robotic. Claude performed the best, crafting sentences with great nuance and believability. Copilot had no problems writing basic emails, but it refused to answer prompts about more controversial topics.

ChatGPT 3.5 is fine for most people, but there are better options

For most basic queries and even a few more complex ones, ChatGPT 3.5 will get the job done for most people. The answers it yields are serviceable, and often with a bit of tweaking, is still a lot less work than writing things yourself. 

That's not to say that ChatGPT 3.5 should be used as an end-all solution. It's a tool that, when used in conjunction with Google and other resources, can help cut time down on research and discovery. Still, to get the most out of it, questions have to be worded in a manner that can get AI chatbots to respond most accurately. This is referred to as prompt engineering, a subspecialty that may become a necessary skill as AI chatbots permeate throughout the tech we use. 

While ChatGPT 3.5 is user-friendly enough so that most people can still find value in it, it's best to keep your guard up and not to take ChatGPT's answers as absolute. It's always best to do a bit of fact checking, which means that Google will still be your web browser's homepage for the time being. 

It raises the question: Why use ChatGPT 3.5 when you can use Microsoft Copilot, which uses GPT-4 Turbo, for free? Given that GPT-4 Turbo reportedly uses over 1 trillion parameters , which are values that make an AI model more accurate, and is connected to the internet, there really isn't any reason to download the ChatGPT app. 

Given its drawbacks, it's hard to recommend ChatGPT 3.5 over Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude, despite how revolutionary it was back in November 2022. 

Editor's note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create a handful of stories. Reviews of AI products like this, just like CNET's other hands-on reviews , are written by our human team of in-house experts. For more, see CNET's AI policy and how we test AI .

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