Wanderlust in Words: Tips for Crafting Compelling Travel Writing
Anyone can travel the world, but it’s much harder to translate it into compelling writing. Travel writing involves nonfictional accounts of a foreign place, its people, culture, and history. It can capture any mood or theme and take the form of novels, articles, or blogs. Many people write travel articles, but it’s hard to differentiate yourself and make your writing unique. How does your experience of a particular city, country, or culture differ from others? What do you bring to the table? How will your readers benefit? Great travel writing shares a few unique features.
Captivate Your Audience in the Beginning
Most journeys start with boarding an airplane, car, or train, and it’s usually not the most exciting experience. While you can dictate your journey if it fits your theme, you will want to draw your readers in somehow. Provide a thrilling, humorous, or tragic anecdote at the beginning to make your readers curious to learn more. If your trip started with a harmless but inconvenient plane crash, you can touch on its absurdity with humor. If the collision was more tragic, you can touch people’s emotions by highlighting the fear of the experience and honoring those who lost their lives. You can utilize several emotions, but make sure your readers want to keep turning the page or scrolling.
Choose a Theme, Emotion, or Niche
Your writing will appear inconsistent if you can’t settle on a theme, message, or feeling. Will your travels provide a learning experience? Will your travels be sad, happy, or funny? Will you focus on the food you ate or the people you met? You can plan and write your story more efficiently by choosing a solid theme or angle. You can combine elements too, such as humor and food (perhaps not all dishes agree with your digestive system, or you’re intolerant to spicy foods in the spice capital of the world.)
Start Traveling
You can’t write a compelling travel piece if you’ve never traveled. Of course, a first adventure can be an exciting read, but you’ll want to ensure you’ve experienced your destination. Research is helpful, but it can’t replace the actual travel. You don’t have to drop a ton of money and travel worldwide. Simply visiting a new restaurant or destination in your town can make a good writing piece if you choose the right angle or mood.
Hone Your Writing Craft
Anyone can travel, but you can’t just start writing out of nowhere. Writing takes a lot of studying and practice. No matter how much you know about writing, you can always learn more. Take a journalism or book writing class. Reach out to other writers and authors for advice. Read other travel blogs, articles, and books. Practice regularly. You can even obtain degrees in writing if you’re committed.
Choose a Medium
What form will your travel writing take? Are you aiming to write for a magazine or newspaper? Did a single travel experience serve as excellent inspiration for a whole book? Once you know the medium your writing will use, planning the outline and selecting an angle and theme can be easier.
Include the Details
The smell of a Pacific Northwest pine forest or the bright lights of New York City at night seem like small details, but they can make your readers feel like they were a part of the experience—an incredible asset for travel writers. Make sure you include small details to help form the big picture. Tap into the five senses. Many readers read travel themes to get a good feel of being there in person; they’ll have a more challenging time doing that without knowing what a place feels, smells, tastes, and looks like.
Let Readers Get to Know You
Why should your readers trust you as an authentic traveler and informational source on a particular area or experience? Tell your own story in the text, too. Tell your readers why you’re traveling, how you’re connected to a place, and what makes your story worthwhile. Don’t be afraid to overshare your personal life as you take readers through your travel journey. They can understand how you view a particular area or experience by sharing what it's like to be you.
What Makes It Unique?
Anyone can look up the capital city of a country and write about its attractions, landmarks, and official languages. What makes your travel writing unique? Were you involved in an accident? Did you witness a critical historical moment? Does your family have ancestry or ties to the place you’re visiting? Did you learn a valuable lesson? There are many ways and reasons travel writing can be unique and exciting, but make sure you make it known in your writing. We all take away many different things when visiting a new place. Set yours apart from the rest!
Conclusion
Travel writing is a fun and interesting way to share an opinion or perspective of one’s travels, including a place’s culture, scenery, landmarks, and history. To write compelling travel writing, choose a theme, angle, and medium beforehand. Tapping into the reader’s emotions can allow travel writing to be more memorable. Don’t forget to include vivid details and information about yourself as the author to help readers connect.
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