What Does Travel Writing Really Entail?

 

Pexels - CC0 License

Travel writing looks pretty great from the outside, for obvious reasons. We tend to imagine exploring far-off places, staying in luxury resorts, and getting paid to write about their adventures. If you’re lucky, perhaps you can earn that kind of lifestyle, it’s not necessarily unheard of at all, but the reality involves more early mornings, tight deadlines, and careful note-taking than most would expect.

Most travel writers have a strong purpose in mind, be that staying in hotel suites in Atlanta to get a better idea of the music heritage there, or staying in town for a major international sporting event to comment on the coming and going of individuals present.

This means the job needs good observation skills, a strong writing ability, and the patience to record every detail that might matter later. Good travel writing describes the real experience of a place, not just the tourist highlights everyone already knows about, or necessarily only listing facts (though these are essential too of course). 

Let’s consider how a travel writer may actually approach their craft:

Research Takes More Time Than Travel

Most articles need solid background research for you to really have something interesting to share. It’s easy to think that travel writers just somehow learn everything by visiting a place but that’s not true. History, culture, practical details about getting around don’t just come to us of course, especially not so we can talk about them authoratatively, as all this needs checking before leaving home. Experienced writers, then, will know the basic facts about a place before arrival. That means hours of reading other articles, guidebooks, and local news. The actual trip might only last a few days, but the research can take weeks.

Writing Happens Everywhere

Stories don't wait for perfect writing conditions and usually, you have to write even when you don’t feel like it. That means your notes get taken on buses, trains, and wherever else the moment happens or when you have a good idea to write down, and getting in that habit is important. The quiet hotel room time people imagine rarely exists because while travel writers may have time to deflate and soak in a place, often they don’t, especially if they’re being paid on the company dime to write. This means most writing happens in busy cafes, airport lounges, or back home after the trip ends, and as memory fades fast, everything needs recording right away, even if that means typing on a phone while walking.

Building Contacts Makes The Difference

Travel writing needs good relationships with local people, even if we tend to think of it as a maverick art. This means learning how to speak to tour guides, hotel staff, restaurant owners and more to gain in-roads into a specific area or just understand the background knowledge is key. It could be said that these contacts help writers find the real stories. Cold emailing rarely works anymore, and so you may have to visit a place several times and know several people before it really becomes known to you.

With this advice, we hope you can feel inspired and more informed as you travel write yourself.