Write Well and Travel Deeply
Lessons from writing a travel blog while living in Southeast Asia and details into the process of describing a destination for readers.
Travel writing — that glorious, too-good-to-be-true pursuit that both writers and travelers aspire to.
What could be bad?
Travel writers get to travel — explore the world, embark on adventures, quench their wanderlust — and they get to write — tell stories of the exotic and outlandish places they’ve been fortunate enough to venture to.
There are numerous directions to go in to start improving your mettle as a travel writer, though sticking to the basics will arm you with a foundation solid enough to jump-start a career.
You must travel and you must write
Travel writers travel and write. Period.
Self-evident but necessary to state explicitly. Traveling requires first a desire to travel and a willingness to be away from your known reality. Home life, stability, friends and relationships all could be strained through prolonged trips and travels.
Reconciling travel with willingness to be away from home is an oft unspoken facet of travel writing. Trips taken at short notice are likely, and they can carry on for undisclosed lengths of time.
These can make for an unstable bedrock to build a life. Navigating the time away from loved ones covers the less glamorous side of travel. Not to mention the jet-lag, the plane rides and airport food, and layovers.
Writing too isn’t always as shiny and pristine of a pursuit, in travel writing or other niches. Travel writers have to have the urge to express themselves, to transcribe their thoughts, experiences, and passions into words on paper. Procrastination haunts us all as writers, though the temptation is steeper for travel writers. Writing remotely in a different country can feel laborious. Temptations to go sightseeing and adventuring lie just outside of the cafe WiFi.
Balancing your ability to pen words and the allure of doing the actual traveling part of traveling is delicate and can be easily swung out of sync. The willingness to sit down and actually do the work — the writing — is vital.
Change your perspective from tourist to traveler
As a travel writer, you don a different hat than a typical tourist. You are no longer that Hawaiian shirt-wearing, too-much-nose-sunscreen tourist looking for relaxation and the hotel buffet.
Sure, there may be some down time, but the mentality has to switch.
Switching your mindset from tourist to traveler means paying attention. Pay attention to where you are and what you’re engaged in. Pay attention to the language and customs and people. Discern subtleties about your surroundings, like the tint of the water or the fumes rising from the barbecue, the accent of the locals when they try to speak English. Pick up details and truly seek them out.
Part of travel writing is to be able to share information and factoids with your readers. To do so, you must adopt a lens of scrutiny wherever you go. Look into the history, the culture, the linguistics — comb through day to day life of the locals and see what pops out.
Sure, the zip line looks fun — but why are there only Americans queuing up to ride it? Why is this menu only in English and why are the beers double the price?
Look around and ask yourself: What are the things around you that are for tourists versus travelers? How can you bridge the gap between the two and weave that into a narrative?
Separate the wheat from the chaff and pull out a story.
While abroad as a travel writer, you’re forced to take a closer inquiry into your surroundings. Look a bit more carefully at things, taste the food slowly and listen to the chatter to try and learn something new. Reflect constantly on your environment and what’s transpiring all around — traveling without pausing to think and reflect makes for much shallower travel writing.
By paying attention, travel becomes layered. Your experience becomes rich with the added backdrop and understanding.
When I was in Thailand, I made sure to pay attention to the little things. The minutia that made the place tick:
Piece together a travelogue
A strong travelogue and travel article will tell a story of a location. A place or culture. The words are meant to bring the place to life for those who cannot be there with you. Approach your travels with your discerning eye and then pick and choose what you want to weave into your tale.
Two fundamentals to include in a travelogue are vivid descriptions and practical information.
Detail the smells and sights and nuances of a place while also providing the reader with some concrete context, facts, and how-to. Focus on conveying the information as if your reader has never been to the place before.
Detail surroundings accurately but in a compelling enough prose to make the reader both want to travel there and also be able to envision what the place is like ahead of time.
A successful travel article is like a teleportation device. It should be able to rip the reader away from reality and plunge them into your experiences.
In combining artistry and pragmatism, the reader should come away feeling as if their understanding of the place has increased because of their vicarious experience through you.
Presenting the information comes with also detailing how the reader could potentially duplicate your experience as the travel writer. Travel writers are considered to be experts about their assignments, and readers want to do what the experts are doing. Explain how you go there and what you’re doing well enough for the reader to mimic it if they so choose.
Throughout the piece, the writer should be present enough to convey that it was you, the travel writer, that engaged in these things you’re describing. It helps to include some dialogue to infuse a more “on the ground” atmosphere.
Then, tie in personal thoughts and ideas about what you think of the place you visited.
Write well and travel deeply
Outside of the things listed in this article, travel writers need to learn how to build a platform and monetize it, learn SEO, and pitch editors stories.
But to maintain contact with the product itself — engaging writing about travel — taking the time to write and see the world as a traveler (rather than a tourist) remains critical. You can’t fake these things.
Prioritize telling the story honestly and truthfully. Relay your observations about your surroundings after giving them the scrutiny of a practiced traveler.
Write travel pieces well, and travel like a traveler.
Travel deeply and thoroughly, without forgetting the details.
Happy trails, fellow adventurers.