How to write travel
Gen Z are looking to ditch the clichés and switch up how they portray experiences on social media. But spectacular places, people and adventures can leave you lost for original, compelling words...
Right now, we all have many, many questions about travel. Will we ever be able to leave Britain again? Is there anywhere left in Cornwall that isn’t solidly booked for the next nine months? And is sleeping under canvas in a farmer’s field really a holiday?
However, when I was editor-in-chief at British Airways’ High Life magazine, the question people usually wanted answering was: how do I become a travel writer?
Previously, I’d been on the features desk of a newspaper. When I told my fabulous but forthright colleague, Ruth Metzstein that I was going to High Life, she laughed. “Yeah, right. You hate travel journalism.”
She had a point. I did hate most of it – simply because good travel journalism is the hardest thing to write. Really hard. Bad travel writing is easy: use cliches; start at the airport, or hell, even your own front door; write about you – a lot – and at least for the whole of the first paragraph; don’t talk to locals; don’t have a point of view; don’t have a point to your feature.
The first travel writer to inspire me was gonzo journalist, Hunter S Thompson. Ok, I didn’t read his book, take off to the Mojave Desert and take enough drugs to kill a rhinoceros. But the idea of the US started to appeal (I’d narrow-mindedly dismissed Reagan’s America as too right-wing to visit). A few years later, I travelled to the US for the first time, driving 2,000 miles from east to west with my dad. We even drove through Barstow (although no drugs were beginning to take hold; instead we were arguing about how fast dad was driving). We spent our final night in Vesuvio Cafe, paying homage to another travel writer, Jack Kerouac. Even now, decades later, it remains one of the most important and memorable trips I’ve ever taken.
Today, if you can write about travel in a truly brilliant, unique way, that makes people laugh, cry and want to follow in your footsteps, then you are part of a small chapter of writers, which includes Robert Macfarlane, Dervla Murphy, Paul Theroux, Kari Herbert, Horatio Clare, Katherine Boo, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Alain de Botton (whose The Art of Travel provides witty aphorisms on such useful issues as holiday romances, hotel minibars, airports and sightseeing).
When I started at High Life, I made a point of trying to avoid travel journalism and commissioned travel writing, instead. I’ll admit the difference is subtle, but hugely important if you want to write travel well.
Don’t forgot who you are
You’re a travel writer, not a tour operator. You don’t want to book your readers’ holidays. You don’t have a clue what their budget is, or whether they would prefer a beach or city break, outdoor adventure or a cultural tour, whether they’ll be flying solo or taking the kids and the in-laws and the dog. Unless you are specifically writing a hotel review, the chances are that your readers won’t need to know how many beds the hotel has (presumably your readers will only be sleeping in one of them) or what to order from a far-flung resort buffet they’ll likely never sample.
Good stories start with a good idea
The ‘Comb Test’ dictates that a good writer should be able to write 600 words on any topic. But, writing anything is much easier if you have a good idea - and to be a commissioned writer of any sort, the first thing you need is an idea.
Over the years, I lost track of the number of writers who emailed me saying, “I’m going to [insert name of interesting country here] – do you want me to bring anything back?” I usually managed to resist replying, “Well, if you’re passing through Duty Free, I’d love a bottle of Laurent-Perrier and I’m running low on Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino Eau de Parfum...”
But, naming a country is not an idea. If a writer contacted me saying, “What about doing something on Lagos?” I’d say no. When a writer contacted me saying,
What about doing something on Lagos Fashion Week? It’s incredibly creative, visitors can sit in the FROWS of the actual shows, this year buyers from Selfridges will be attending, plus London to Lagos is one of British Airways’ busiest routes
– that was a yes. That was the feature I commissioned a new reporter, Yinka Ibukun, to write and today it remains of one my favourite-ever High Life features.
Read the job description
In a word, your job is to inspire. As High Life editor, I was in a joyous position of being able to commission my favourite writers to go to places that I knew would interest them (and our readers) and that they would report back on in style.
To be honest, it didn’t always work. More than once, I’d commission a brilliant writer (often someone I had admired for ages) only for them to file a 1,500 word piece that was a play-by-play of everything that happened on their trip. If I was really unlucky, these “what I did on my holidays” pieces often included sections I’d recognise as lightly-rewritten press releases.
But, when it did work, it was so satisfying. A reader sent us a slightly-alarming postcard from Iraq to tell us how much he was enjoying following in the footsteps of High Life columnist and BBC Foreign Editor, John Simpson. When Stephanie Ross visited Sierra Leone, to look at its nascent tourism industry following an 11-year civil war, her feature was astute, vivid and full of warmth: the first person to book a trip there after reading it was our client at British Airways.
The explosive, funny Booker prize winner DBC Pierre was commissioned to write about Australia’s most remote wineries. I didn’t hear from him again for two years – but when I did, the feature he filed was pure joy. The elusive wineries (used to receiving only a handful of visitors a year) were besieged by dozens of travellers. Pierre followed this up with a relentlessly compelling feature on Mexico City’s food and drink scene. One of his interviewees was our art editor’s grandma, the 93-year old Maria Concepción Moreno, who had grown up in the tequila state of Jalisco and had been drinking mezcal since she was 11. As mentioned, I’m still planning my trip to Mexico, but in the meantime? I drink much better tequila.
Clichés
A cliché is a worn-out expression, overused to the point that it has very little meaning left in it – and in travel, clichés are as common as the Leaning Tower of Pisa pose on Instagram. No wonder a survey by Topdeck Travel has revealed that Gen Z are planning on ditching the clichés – once we can travel again.
Are you writing about Delhi or another city that has a large gap between the wealthy and the poor? This means you are virtually obligated to call it a “city of contrasts”. These are three of the most-overworked words in travel, easily applicable – as they are – to almost every city in the world.
Another cliché that’s long-overdue to enter the Room 101 of travel writing is the country comparison: as in “Croatia is the next Italy,” “Montenegro is the next Croatia,” or “Albania is the next Montenegro.”
Other words that are the bane of travel editors everywhere include ‘quaint’, ‘charming’, ‘rustic’, ‘unspoiled gem’, ‘breathtaking view’. I could go on, but I will leave that to my fellow travel editors, a quick poll of whom added the following: ‘heart of the city’; ‘epitome of luxury’; ‘home away from home'; ‘best-kept secret’; ‘hidden gem’. (For the full list of some of the worst travel clichés, as voted for by some of the best travel editors, see below.)
Show don’t tell
Sure, you could write, ‘I’d always dreamt of visiting India’, but wouldn’t it be better to say: ‘On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to India’? These words are Dervla Murphy’s (who did cycle to India and turned the tale into her first travel book, although she was a bit older than ten). ‘The unspoiled gem of a crater was breath-taking’? Or, ‘In the forests a vast crater yawns in softening ground, swallowing thousands of trees’. That’s Siberia, as described by Robert Macfarlane.
We increasingly make do with an impoverished language: for our landscapes, our cities, our coastlines, shores and snowscapes. But it needn’t be that way. Read a description of a landscape by Macfarlane and you’re just as likely to come across an aquabob (a Kent variant for icicle) as a zawn (Cornish derivation for wave-smashed chasm in a cliff). Unusual and vivd language makes for a much more imaginative experience in the reader’s mind.
And finally? Learn from the best
Let’s return to Hunter S Thompson. Before he was successful, he used to retype his favourite novels in full in order to get the “feel” of being a writer. “If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it,” Thompson said in 1997. “Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald—these were writers that were very big in my life —so yeah, I wanted to learn from the best I guess.” If you want to write great travel, read the best. Read publications you want to write for and aim high: The New Yorker, Granta, Out There et al. That’s the great thing about having ambitions to write brilliantly – everything you need to know is out there to discover.
We care about writing better and more effectively. If you want to learn to write in a way that will lift your travel brand, destination, hotel, restaurant, bar or blog above the rest, get in touch at forthwrite.co.uk
The worst travel clichés – as voted for by some of the best editors
Amidst
Always crops up in travel, and almost only in travel. See also ‘amongst’ and ‘whilst’.
Beguiling
Always raises suspicion
Best-kept secret
Unless you have discovered a previously unknown island, probably don’t use.
Boasts
As in ‘the hotel boasts three pools’.
Breathtaking
Instead of an actual description. A ‘breath-taking view’ gives you no idea what the view is.
‘City of contrasts’
The definition of any city?
‘Croatia is the next Italy’
Or, “Montenegro is the next Croatia,” or “Albania is the next Montenegro.” A phrase long-overdue to enter Room 101 of travel writing.
Divine
A word luxury journalists are overly predisposed towards.
East meets west
We can’t say for sure that anyone has ever visited Istanbul and not described it as where ‘east meets west’.
Epicentre
It's the point on the earth's surface vertically above the focus of an earthquake. If you're writing about seismology, it's a great word. Otherwise, centre is the word to use. And it's shorter.
Exquisite
Can a couch be exquisite?
Glamping
If you're going to use it, at least define it, e.g. ‘Life under canvas but with ensuite and a wood-burning stove’. (Only guessing here).
Gem
As in ‘hidden gem’.
Iconic
Frequently encountered describing bedrooms, spa treatments or even the mixologist’s new cocktail.
Instagram-worthy
It was good. For about five minutes in 2010.
Ireland
Where lazy travel writers entreat you to “Drink a pint of the Black Stuff, while chatting to friendly locals in a pub playing live Irish music". As editor John O'Ceallaigh says, “Such clichés are trite, reductive and superficial – yet when I go back home, that's exactly what I do.”
Jaw-dropping
See ‘breathtaking’ above
Mecca
Holiest shrine of Islam, and a busy Saudi city. Nothing else.
Mouthwatering
Little is more annoying than writers enjoying ‘mouth-watering meals’ and not telling you a single thing they ate, or the style of cuisine.
Nestled
Unless referring to birds in a nest. There are way too many hotels nestling in palm trees.
Sottsass-inspired
Articles littered with endless lists of designers expect readers to know who they are. And if they don’t? Saying it was a Sottsass-inspired room tells you absolutely nothing.
‘Something for everyone’
Really? For everyone?
Staycation
This describes a holiday when you stay at your home and venture out for hours/days to do touristy things. It does not mean UK holidays. But if you want a cutting-edge (ouch!) cliché while you're here, try this one: vacci-cation.
‘Steeped in history’
Probably first trotted out to describe Bethlehem in 4BC.
Sublime
Used – way too much – usually in alliterative descriptions from sandy beaches to a salmon
Offers
As in ‘the hotel offers a range of spa treatments’.
Paris of the East/West/South/North
Not every destination can be a Paris, Venice or Rome. The next best thing? Just add this suffix.
Picture-postcard views
Particularly irrelevant now no one under the age of 30 knows what a postcard is.
‘The size of Wales’
The country was first used as a unit of measurement in 1844. Today, comparing anything to the size of Wales endures – strange considering that even the ardent patriot probably couldn't tell you how big Wales is.
‘Trained at Noma’
Is there a chef who hasn’t been ‘trained at Noma’? Although what it mostly means is that they zipped through the kitchen on a fleeting internship.
Visit
Unless referring to a website . ‘Visit’ instantly takes all the magic out of travelling. There are few more mundane phrases. Except ‘well worth a visit’.
‘Washed down with…’
As in ‘Washed down with Sauvignon Blanc’.
‘When the borders reopen’
Enough already.
Where old meets new
Doesn’t old always meet new?
‘Working on my tan’
Vacuous, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the most-overworked phrases in travel.
Thanks to Simon Calder (broadcaster and travel correspondent at The Independent), Susan Ward Davies (travel editor, The Calendar Magazine), Lisa Grainger (travel editor, Times LUXX), Uwern Jong (editor-in-chief, OutThere), Francisca Kellett (co-founder at Mundi & Co), John O'Ceallaigh (The Luxury Travel Edit) and Pat Riddell (editor, National Geographic Traveller) and Tom Grond.
This is a hugely wonderful and profound piece: years of experience compressed into something as enriching as it’s funny.
A wonderfully capsulated piece. I just made that up. Maybe it’ll become a travel cliche one day.