Changing the Way I Write

The main difference between the first travel guide I wrote and published, and the one I’m writing now, is the inclusion of more stories.

It’s all very well sharing facts and data about your travel destinations which are the bread and butter content of a destination guide, but when you start including more stories in your guides it makes you more human and approachable.

In my first travel guide I included a few personal anecdotes, but it was my first book I focused on establishing my knowledge and expertise than I did about sharing personal insights. I included facts and figures, and instructions to help other independent travelers to experience the destination I was writing about. But I felt more than a little nervous about including my personal insights or experiences, because I didn’t think that’s what a reader wanted to know.

The more travel guides I write, the more personal elements I include. Those first tentative anecdotes have grown into full-blown accounts of my first-hand experience and observations, and I’m less nervous now about including more of these in the travel guides I’m writing now or in the future.

Facts Tell – Stories Sell

There’s a well-known saying in sales circles that: Facts Tell. Stories Sell.

You can tout as many facts as you want, but until you back up these facts with a personal anecdote or story, your reader isn’t going to make an emotional connection to you or your writing. This connection is important, especially when there are multiple books already available in your niche. You need something to differentiate your book from any other book available on Amazon or the wider marketplace, and the only thing that can do that is the aspects that only you can recount.

Why readers should buy your book

When writing your book, you need to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. What are they looking for in your travel guide? What travel niche are you aiming to support? Your travel guide needs to be the solution to their problem:

• they’re a solo traveller and they’re worried about traveling to XX on their own
• they’re travelling with kids and they want to know about kid-friendly travel and events in XX
• they’re luxury travellers and want to make sure they can retain a certain level of comfort and style when they visit XX

You can start off by recount a lot of well-researched facts and figures about the destination you’re writing about, but in order to connect with your target audience you need to focus the topics you’re writing about. Up to this point in your writing, your book will be no different than any other guide book on the market. But as soon as you look at the problems these traveller will have, and add anecdotes and personal stories about your own relevant experiences, they’ll be able to connect more closely with what you have to say. It’ll mean more to them, and your book has something that differentiates it from your competition.

My current travel guide is a baby boomers guide to flash packing around Cambodia for three months. I have my target audience (baby boomers and flash packers) and my destination (Cambodia) … but many of the sight seeing experiences would be generic, unless I can relay my impressions and experiences from a baby boomer’s perspective. My audience feel a connection to what I’m staying, because I’ve not only shared the facts about how to get around the country using cheap transport, or what sights to see when you’re in each town we visited. But I also share our impressions and experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly) of traveling around Cambodia as an older backpacker.

Travel isn’t a Solitary Activity

As well as including your personal insights, you should also include your interactions with people you encountered.

When we travel, although we may fill our days with tours of museums, sights, and galleries, the most vivid memory will be of a person we saw or interacted with. One thing you’re guaranteed when you travel is that there will be other people within close proximity. Unless of course your travel in a bubble, and if you do that, then you’re missing out on one of the most important elements of travel, with is learning about the culture and the people straight from the horses mouth .. and by that I mean locals and your fellow travellers.

Including people in your travel guide, whether it’s a specific person, or a group of people at an event means that you’re populating your travel world with living, breathing individuals. This inclusion will make your travel guides more realistic. As humans we crave that human connection, even if it’s from the pages of a book.

If readers can’t imagine themselves in a specific destination or environment, then having an author recount facts, data, and figures about it, isn’t going to help them connect to your book. So our job as an author is to share personal anecdotes and stories about our travel adventures and of the people we met along the way.

Balancing your Content

Of course there’s a balancing act around your content. If you’re book is nothing but stories and personal anecdotes, then it’s a travel memoir not a travel guide. What I think travel guide authors need to do is balance in the content – a good rule of thumb is 80% travel guide information and 20% travel narrative.  But whatever percentage content split you finally settle on, make sure to put personal stories at the heart of your travel guide.