Improving your travel writing

Here’s five quotes from Guardian Travel Writers about how to improve your travel writing. I’ve included their travel writing quote, and then provided my insights to highlight how their advice can be interpreted and used as part of your travel writing adventures.

Writing a travel guide takes a different skill set from writing a travel narrative or travel memoir, but there’s no rules to say that you can’t include some narratives or personal insights into the travel guide you’re writing. It’s these personal insights that will make your travel guide stand out from the crowd and make it unique in the marketplace.

Vary the Pace of your Travel Writing by Adjusting the Lens

Author Giles Foden says: He always feels travel writing benefits from a cinematic approach, in that you need to vary the focus – wide lens for setting and landscape; medium lens for context and colour; zoom lens for detail and narrative – and switch between the views in a piece.

My interpretation of this quote as it relates to writing travel guides

You may have a preferred view-point, and rely on it too heavily, but when you’re editing your travel guide book, just double check that each section include a smattering of the wide, medium and macro view of what you’re trying to describe.

Readers have different learning and consumption styles, some like the big picture view and others like the finite detail, so if you deliver what each reader prefers, you can please all of them by varying your viewpoint.

Bring Something New to the Table

Online travel editor Isabel Choat says: You should try to seek out off-the-beaten-track places to eat, drink, visit – often the places locals might frequent. Revealing a new or different side to a destination will give your story a richness that you won’t get with a description of a visit to the tourist cafe in the main square.

My interpretation of this quote as it relates to writing travel guides

There are literary thousands of travel bloggers out there on the internet, as well as travel writers, guidebook writers and journalists so chances are the destination you’re planning on writing about has already been covered. You have to dig deeper to find something worth writing about nowadays, but this is the exciting part of travel writing.

By venturing into the unknown to unchartered territory, you will add freshness to the experience you’re describing and bring your writing alive. Your goal should be to put your own personal stamp on your content, so readers know what to expect when they read one of your books.

Devils in the Details

Sally Shalam, The Guardian’s Hotel Critic says: What sets good travel writing apart is detail, detail, detail. Which cafe, on what street, overlooking what view? You must sweep the reader up and carry them off on the journey with you. Paint an evocation of where you are so we can experience it along with you. Be specific and drop “stunning”, “breathtaking” and “fantastic” from your lexicon, otherwise it’s just a TripAdvisor entry.

My interpretation of this quote as it relates to writing travel guides

When you add descriptive details to your travel writing, you’re helping you’re readers create a picture in their imagination.

When you use generic words like breathtaking, it does nothing to draw them into your narrative. Their idea of breathtaking could be completely different to yours, and as they don’t know what your definition refers to, your description will leave them cold. But as soon as you add descriptive details, these anchor your readers into the scene, and they’re able to built a framework to set their imagination alight.

Show, don’t Tell

Mike Carter, author of One Man and his Bike says: An important rule of creative travel writing is to show, not tell, wherever possible. People don’t like being told what to think. If a child wearing rags made you sad, for example, describe the child, their clothes, the way they carried themselves. Assume readers are sentient. If you write it well, they will “feel” what effect the encounter had on you. This is much more powerful than saying, “I felt sad.”

My interpretation of this quote as it relates to writing travel guides

Although writing a travel guide is heavily reliant on facts and details, you can inject a human element to your travel guides to make them more accessible. Rather than describing a restaurant as romantic and ideal for couples, which doesn’t really draw the reader into the scene, you could instead describe the candlelight, flowers, and warm glow of the restaurant’s courtyard dining area, and the low hum of hushed conversation. Setting the scene for your reader so they can image having a romantic dinner for two at the restaurant you’re describing.

Even though you’re writing a travel guide, you should still aim to take your reader on a journey, where they aren’t being told what to think, but can come to their own conclusions based on your descriptions.  Don’t feel pressured to do “all show” as this won’t work in a travel guide, but a mix of show and tell would be more effective for keeping your reader engaged and maintaining the pace of your content.

Use Words to Paint Pictures

Benji Lanyado, Guardian writer and blogger says: Don’t ever describe something as “characterful” or “beautiful” – this doesn’t mean anything to anybody but you. Describe things as if you were explaining them to a blind person. To say a building is “old” isn’t good enough; explain the colours, the peeling stucco, the elaborate, angular finishes on windowsills, the cleaning lady in a faded blue smock who was leaning out of a second-storey window with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. There is a thin line between elaborate, colourful, evocative writing and pretentious tosh, but it’s better to lean towards the pretentious tosh side of the spectrum than to be dull and presumptuous.

My interpretation of this quote as it relates to writing travel guides

This is another example of show don’t tell and the devils in the details, and the mere fact this writing recommendation is being included again here, should be an indication of the importance of following this advice. If you do nothing else to improve your travel writing, at least work on painting pictures with your words by showing and paying attention to the details.

When you’ve written a first draft of your section or paragraph, review it to see if there are generic descriptions or words that could be improved by being replaced with more detail, or switching your Tell to a Show. This exercise will improve your travel writing, and before long will become second nature. Like any skill you’re trying to built, you need to train your muscles to perform, and in this case you’re training your creative muscles to create more engaging writing.

Read more articles in my How to Write a Travel Guide Series

I’m putting the finishing touches on my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Series, which details a step by step approach for writing and producing your own travel guide. It’s part of a four-part series aimed at helping travel bloggers achieve passive income based on their passions and existing content.

Each month I host a monthly free prize draw and give away a travel writing e-book to the lucky winner. Sign up to join my mailing list to participate.