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Travel writing is an opportunity to share an experience, broaden the understanding of faraway places, and write compelling personal accounts that open the eyes of readers. For the budding traveller, improving their travel writing skills can turn their experiences into stories brimming with life, excitement, and emotion. To do this effectively, however, takes more than just a desire. The would-be writer needs to focus on a number of measures that help bring out the character of a place, make their story vivid and compelling, and communicate their experiences and impressions to great effect.
In this post, we will cover some of these measures in a series of short guides to improving travel writing, based on our series of tips on travel writing that we posted online recently. These short tutorials will cover a number of helpful actions that students can take to bring more life to their writing, making for more interesting and enjoyable reading.
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Focus on Details
It’s those details that bring a place to life, and are the foundation of great travel writing: they make your reader feel as though she is travelling with you, experiencing the place through your senses. Look for the tiny things that make a place what it is: the aroma of a spice market; the feel of cobbles under…
Encourage tactile, olfactory, visual, auditory or gustatory sensations for your readers when you write, to invite them to the ‘place’ you’re showing: ‘that Sunday, there was just a whiff of cedar about the air.’ Don’t simply tell, but show what you see with a description that connects readers to the scene. Creating this sense of place results in more interesting prose. However, don’t get too carried away with a laundry list of descriptions. The most effective writing is sparing.
Capture Emotions and Reactions
Travel writing is as much about feelings as it is about places. What were you thinking when you saw the sun come up over those mountains, or how did you feel navigating through that crowded street? Again, share those feelings and you embroider your writing and let the reader inside your head. The personal reaction keeps the reader hooked up to you as a storyteller.
Be honest about your feelings. If something was disappointing, frustrating or surprising, say so. Good travel writing is shot through with emotion, and readers appreciate an honest appraisal.
Practice Storytelling
That’s why good travel writing isn’t about listing places visited or activities done, but should tell a story. My number-one tip for budding travel writers would be to learn to tell a story.
Above all, impose a structure: a beginning, a middle, an end. Present your theme or question, your central conceit. Perhaps it’s how you handled an adversity, or made a discovery, or botched a cultural exchange. And then – as you write, and this is important – keep things moving. You’ll give your travel pieces far more forward momentum this way, and keep your readers on board. Students can also benefit from dissertation services review, which provides insights into quality academic services that can help them refine their research and writing process.
Here’s a comparison table showing the difference between basic and effective travel writing:
| Aspect | Basic Travel Writing | Effective Travel Writing |
| Descriptions | “The beach was beautiful.” | “The golden sand stretched for miles, with waves crashing softly.” |
| Emotions | “I was excited to be there.” | “My heart raced as I caught my first glimpse of the ancient city.” |
| Structure | No clear flow or narrative. | Clear beginning, middle, and end with a central story or theme. |
| Details | “We ate at a local restaurant.” | “We sat at a tiny café, savouring fresh pasta while locals chatted nearby.” |
| Personal Reflection | “I liked the museum.” | “Exploring the museum reminded me of my childhood fascination with ancient history.” |
Use Dialogue Where Possible
Adding conversations or snippets of dialogue can enliven your travel writing and make it more interesting. Even a short interaction with a local can bring colour to your prose, and help your reader to better understand the culture you’re describing.
Another tip: if you speak to an interesting stall-holder at a market, write down their dialogue – it tells you something about local habits, humour, thinking patterns or whatever. Of course, don’t say anything in your piece that you wouldn’t have said to the person concerned. But generally, as long as you don’t stereotype or make assumptions about who people are, you can preserve everything you hear.
Avoid Clichés and Overused Phrases
‘Hidden gem.’
‘Off the beaten path.’
‘Breathtaking views.’
If you write about travel, you’ve probably used this kind of language. You’re not alone. It’s tempting to use clichés – they’re part of the travel writer’s lexicon. But they do nothing for your writing. Clichés are familiar, overused, and make generic writing seem generic. Why snooze when you can startle instead? Sometimes it’s hard to see the clichés in your work. Clichés can be like visual static in a photograph. With a little squinting, you can make out what’s there. But when an image is truly cliché, nothing is visible at all. Fresh expressions are critical. They make your writing unique.
Don’t tell your reader that a place had ‘stunning views’, tell them what the view was – this way, your readers can decide for themselves whether your subjective description of the view is correct; from time to time, put your reader into the view – let them be walking the path before you.
Be Respectful and Culturally Aware
A good travel writer has an understanding of the importance of respect – for the people, the culture, the environment – and doesn’t feel the need to make generalised judgments about a place or its customs that are based on things we already ‘know’ to be true about it even if we have never been there, or are ignorant about real experiences from real people. Show, don’t tell, from a place of curiosity, not certainty.
You are writing about cultural practices: instead of condemning, try to explain. If something seems strange to you, there is a good chance that someone has already explained why it is that way. If you want to be more than a tour guide of the exotic, take the time to find that out. It will broaden your mind – and make your writing more robust.
Edit and Refine Your Work
But, as with any piece of writing, travel writing gets better when it is edited. Once you have finished your first draft, resist the temptation to rush off and send it to an editor; instead, leave the piece for a day or even a week, and then review and revise it. Cut loose all those words that bind your writing. Remove any muddle from your sentences; simplify your construction; jettison the excess adjectives and adverbs.
If a section doesn’t quite work, then rewrite that bit. If the piece seems bloated, hack away at it. Read the whole thing out loud, or get a friend to do the same: they are often more sensitive to the obvious than you are.
Conclusion
Learning how to write about your experiences, both on the road and after you arrive home, will take time, and it can require a great deal of patience. But taking the time to concentrate on details, record emotions, tell stories and watch for clichés will get you writing more accurate, engaging travel narratives. Stay curious, be respectful, and never stop editing your work, and your travel writing will shape up accordingly. After a while, your writing will start to feel like that personal view of travel you took back with you – and hopefully your audience will feel like you’re inviting them in for a visit.
Now you should be ready to leave your comfort zone to become the good, if not great, writer you aspire to be, prepared to make every place you visit feel real for those who read about your adventures – and for yourself when you reread your stories later on. But first, remember to pack your notebook!