What Makes Good Travel Writing?

Travel writing is a vast genre. It includes everything from informational pieces that provide a run-down of a hotel’s facilities, to narrative pieces that blur the boundaries of non-fiction and fiction.

What do these very different kinds of travel writing have in common? They both need to take the reader to another place; and in particular, to make them want to be in that place. Someone browsing the website of a travel company to compare hotels wants to understand what it would be like to be in that hotel before they book it. The couple of hundred words on the page about that hotel need to do that, both by explaining in a broad sense what that hotel is like (friendly? exclusive?), and what it has (a restaurant? cable TV?). The person reading the page sees these details, and can imagine themselves in that hotel, drinking in its bar, lying by its pool. The hotel is an ongoing story, which they can see themselves being part of.

More descriptive, narrative travel pieces (such as a travel blog or feature article) also use details to create a story and help the reader imagine they are in the place being described. The atmosphere of a place can be captured using those details: what does it look, sound and smell like? In a descriptive piece of writing, such as a resort guide, the reader needs to know what it would be like to be on that beach and swimming in that sea. In a narrative piece, the writer should take the reader on a journey with them. They don’t need to include practical details, such as where the hotels are in relation to the beach. They need to be walking down the road, chatting to the locals and haggling in shops. They are both part of the writer’s story, and able to imagine themselves in the same place, creating their own story.

Of course, all good writing tells a story. It always needs to be engaging and interesting, to make the reader want to know more. If the subject is travel, then ‘wanting to know more’ becomes ‘wanting to be there’.