Travel Writing Advice

Two apparently contradictory elements are key to modern travel writing.

(1)           nobody cares what you did.

(2)           you have to be part of the narrative

The once-in-a-lifetime trip is a yawn to the reader unless there is more to it and the more is story....and the author is part of  that story because the day of the so-called neutral observer is over.

Nearly all contemporary travel writers include their own dreams and memories of childhood as well as chunks of historical data… Self reflexivity and instability…offer the writer a way to show the effects of his or her own presence in a foreign country and to expose the arbitrariness of truth and the absence of norms.


Casey Blanton, Travel Writing: The Self and the World 2002

And a quote from Ernest Hemmingway that is as useful to bear in mind when writing as when travelling….

“Never mistake motion for action.”