Writing a Travelogue

A travelogue is a person’s account of a journey to another country or place. It can either be a written
report with many factual details or a narrative story about personal impressions and experiences
supported by images.

Steps for Writing a Travelogue

1. Decide on the purpose of your travelogue. Whether it is for a magazine, for friends, or for
yourself—determine your writing style.

2. While traveling, take notes about what you see, places you visit, and people you get acquainted
with. Keep a diary of your impressions. If you don’t have enough time to write, perhaps a
recorder would be a smart option for keeping a diary. Also, collect various brochures, tourism
maps, and guides. They may come in handy when you start writing a travelogue.

3. Take as many pictures as possible. A photograph doesn’t necessarily need to capture an historic
or famous place. Sometimes, a photo of a crowded street, neon signboard, or an old man,
conveys a stronger impression of a place you’ve visited than the images of monuments anyone
can see on the Internet.

4. When you return home, take time to review your recordings. Sort them out by date, personal
importance, or based on any other criteria. Choose photographs which best illustrate the
brightest moments of your journey.

5. Create an outline of your travelogue. This must not be a detailed report yet. The outline is
necessary for you to structure your thoughts and to see if the story flows logically and is easy to
understand.

6. After you’ve completed the outline, write the full travelogue. Try to make it as interesting as you
can. Add vivid descriptions, historic and factual information, and educate your readers on the
customs and traditions of the country you’ve visited.

Topic Selection

Since a travelogue is written after your trip to another country or place, the main topic of this type of
writing is a description of your experience there. Though your travelogue can contain may areas of
focus, when writing a travelogue, you can concentrate on:

 local customs and traditions

 cuisine

 depictions of places of interest, local history, and culture

 your adventures

 prices and transportation

 entertainment

Key Points to Consider

1. A description of nothing but places you’ve visited and exotic food you’ve eaten will most likely
be perceived as a boring travelogue rather than an interesting read. A travelogue needs a
central idea, which will be the backbone of your whole piece of writing. Life lessons you’ve
learned during the voyage, your reflections about the differences between the place where you
live and the place you’ve visited, or at least some historic theme could serve as such a backbone.

2. Deviate from the common tourist routes and make explorations on your own. This way, you can
add lots of interesting, distinctive places into your descriptions, which will definitely add value to
your travelogue.
 3. Keeping a travelogue within the structure of an essay is a sound way to present your material. In
the introduction, you can provide some background about the place you are writing about and
also describe your traveling conditions. In the main body, introduce the information you want to
convey to your readers based on the recordings and notes you’ve made during the journey.
Finally, summarize the experience from the trip. Share your thoughts about it, your findings, and
what you will be contemplating after in regard to the trip.

4. You don’t necessarily need to write about the attractiveness of the place you’ve visited. The
journey most likely won’t consist only of nice events, places, and people. Describe the
difficulties you faced, strange customs, sanitary conditions, etc.

Do and Don’t

Do
 Do include not only personal experiences,
but also information that will be useful for
those who will want to visit the country
you describe. Give your readers an idea
about transportation costs, hotels, and
resorts. Give advice about the
entertainment in the area or about places
of interest to visit.
 Do try to convey the atmosphere of the
place you visited. Talk to the locals about
their lives or problems and benefits of
living in that place. Include fragments of
these interviews.
 Do provide a historical and cultural
background about the place you’ve been
to.
 Do add some humor in your writing. You
might want to describe some funny
situations that occurred during the voyage
or a humorous spin on some serious
problems you managed to solve.
 Do proofread and edit your travelogue.
Don’t
 Don’t shoot pictures of yourself in the
background of historical monuments for a
travelogue. Such pictures are okay for your
personal photo album, but for a travelogue
it is better not to choose them.
 Don’t repeat or retell the information that
is usually typed in various tourist
guidebooks.
 Don’t use stock photos or other photos
that can be found on the Internet.
 Don’t indulge in the judgment of the other
country’s customs and traditions and don’t
mock aspects of that country that are
unusual or weird to you. Some cultural
peculiarities may seem odd and
uncommon to you, but don’t claim them to
be bad or stupid. This doesn’t speak in
your favor and prevents your readers from
having their own opinion. It can facilitate
prejudice against the country you are
describing.
 Don’t wait long to write your travelogue.
Do it immediately after you return home,
while your impressions are fresh and you
can recall events clearly.

Common Mistakes When Writing a Travelogue

– Focusing only on factual information. Though it is important, a lack of emotions may turn your
story into a boring log.

– Being excessively enthusiastic about describing your feelings and thoughts.

– Relying only on memories when writing a travelogue. You can never remember all the details,
all places, all the impressions, and all factual information. Therefore, ignoring the importance
of taking notes during the journey will probably result in a raw and inexact travelogue.

– Being too critical or too in awe. Try to describe both positive and negative moments of your
journey. This way, you will create a fuller and more vivid story.