How to be a Travel Writer

by Don George

  The stalls are unnumbered and unnamed, but I like the crab stall toward the extreme north-west corner of the market run by Robert, who spent much of his life in Wichita, Kansas – you will spot the phone number 813-9780 above his stall.

  This piece is lively, quick, picturesque, and to the point. Without wasting a word, Gold captures the look, feel and smell of the place for the armchair traveler and conveys the essential information for anyone visiting Seoul who might be moved to stop by. With fishy pith, he serves up a tasty combination of food, culture and practical advice.

  Now consider this can’t-stop-reading lead from a Guardian piece by Jane Dunford on mushroom hunting:

  Sitting at a table in an antique-filled dining room in the New Forest, I’m trying to identify a series of objects laid out before me. On one plate sits what looks like a dried human liver. It’s big and red, but underneath it’s the pale color of naan bread.

  ‘When it’s really fresh there’s jelly on top and it seems to drip blood if you cut into it,’ says Jackie, my host.

  This is a beefsteak mushroom, she reveals, very popular with London chefs and delicious when thinly sliced and fried with garlic. The large, fluffy-looking ball turns out to be a Chicken of the Woods – which does indeed have a headless hen-like appearance – and then there’s a plate of more mushroomy-shaped mushrooms, ‘spongy underneath’ boletes and dimpled chanterelles.

  I’m on a seminar at Gorse Meadow Guest House near Lymington with 10 other fungi fans, delving into the fascinating world of mushrooms. There are, I learn, around 3000 types in the New Forest alone, but we’re only interested in identifying about 10 edible varieties.

  This is a good example of a story that uses food as a portal to a deeper understanding of a place. Dunford’s mysterious mushroom lead immediately draws us into her subject and sets us up for an entertaining and illuminating introduction to a corner of England through its fungi.

  Writing about culture

  Culture can take many forms. You might carry readers deep into the soul of Bali by exploring its local dances, evoke Aboriginal values and beliefs on an Australian outback odyssey, or illuminate one side of the New York aesthetic by investigating its booming gallery scene.

  Here’s how Tahir Shah, in the Guardian, introduces us to the soul of Morocco through the city of Fes:

  Abdul-Lateef sits in the shade at the front of his shop, a glint in his eye and a week’s growth of beard on his cheeks. With care, he weighs out half a dozen dried chameleons, wraps them in a twist of newspaper, and passes the packet to a young woman dressed in black.

  ‘She will give birth to a handsome boy child,’ says the shopkeeper when the woman has gone.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Abdul-Lateef stashes the money into a pouch under his shirt. He scans the assortment of wares – mysterious pink powders, snakeskins, live turtles, bundles of aromatic bark, and he smiles.

  ‘We have been helping women like her for five centuries,’ he says slowly, ‘And never has a customer come to complain. Believe me, I speak the truth.’

  Walk through the bustle of Fes’s medina and it’s impossible not to be catapulted back in time. It is as if the old city is on a frequency of its own, set apart from the frenzied world of internet and iPods and all the techno clutter that fills our daily lives. Abdul-Lateef and his magic-medicinal stall are a fragment of a healing system that stretches back through centuries, to a time when Fes was itself at the cutting edge of science, linked by the pilgrimage routes to Cairo, Damascus and Samarkand.

  These days the low-cost airlines shuttle the curious back and forth to Europe. And everyone they bring is tantalized by what they find. Fes is the only medieval Arab city that’s still absolutely intact. It’s as if a shroud has covered it for centuries, the corner now lifted a little so we can peek in. Once the capital of Morocco, Fes is one of those rare destinations that’s bigger than mass tourism, a city that’s so self-assured, so grounded in its own identity, that it hardly seems to care whether the tourists come or not. Moroccans will tell you that it’s the dark heart of their kingdom, that its medina has a kind of sacred soul.

  Doesn’t this make you want to wander into the very heart of Fes, with Shah as your guide?

  A writer’s view: Rory MacLean

  Canadian Rory MacLean (www.rorymaclean.com), long-time resident in the UK and now living in Berlin, is the author of more than a dozen travel and history books, including the UK bestsellers Stalin’s Nose and Under the Dragon as well as Berlin: Imagine a City, a Washington Post Book of the Year.

  I’d always dreamed of being a film director. To that end I wrote dozens of movie scripts, following every trend, choosing ‘saleable’ subjects rather than stories that moved me. The result was a series of flops, tame thrillers and busted blockbusters. But after each movie, to regain my sense of self, I went travelling. And soon I realised that I loved journeying into territory unknown (to me) and writing about the people and places met along the way.

  The best way to establish yourself when you’re starting out is to win a prize. I’m not being flippant. There are dozens of travel writing competitions run by newspapers and magazines. Researching and writing a travel article forces you to focus. Winning a competition opens the door to agents and publishers. I won the Independent newspaper’s first travel writing competition. That enabled me to approach publishers with an idea for a book on Eastern Europe. Then Gorbachev was kind enough to knock down the Berlin Wall, making the subject matter of my book highly topical.

  It usually takes me just under two years to write a book: three months’ preparation, three months’ travel and about 15 months bent over my MacBook.

  An agent is vital. To find one, scan the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook or look up the name of your favourite travel writer’s agent and approach him or her. Books submitted directly to big publishers often go unread.

  Common mistakes? First, many first-time travel writers choose subjects because of their perceived popularity. Second, some of them don’t engage their imagination or sense of wonder. Third, many don’t check their spelling.

  Write. Write. Write. Then write some more. And if you feel you’ve had enough, it’d probably be a better idea to do something sensible like becoming a dentist or raising rabbits.

  Using humor

  Humor is exceedingly tricky because it is so subjective and often so culture bound, but humorous travel pieces are always in demand. Travel humor tends to work best when it contains at least a dose of self-deprecation; making fun of others is not nearly as engaging or entertaining as making fun of yourself. Some great humorists whose work rewards close scrutiny include Mark Twain, Bill Bryson, David Sedaris and Dave Barry.

  Here are a couple of examples from the last two. First, David Sedaris writing in the New Yorker about an unfortunate incident on a plane:

  On the flight to Raleigh, I sneezed, and the cough drop I’d been sucking on shot from my mouth, ricocheted off my folded tray table, and landed, as I remember it, in the lap of the woman beside me, who was asleep and had her arms folded across her chest. I’m surprised that the force didn’t wake her – that’s how hard it hit – but all she did was flutter her eyelids and let out a tiny sigh, the kind you might hear from a baby.

  Under normal circumstances, I’d have had three choices, the first being to do nothing. The woman would wake up in her own time, and notice what looked like a shiny new button sewn to the crotch of her jeans. This was a small plane, with one seat per row on Aisle A, and two seats per row on Aisle B. We were on B, so should she go searching for answers I would be the first person on her list. ‘Is this yours?’ she’d ask, and I’d look dumbly into her lap.

  ‘Is what mine?’

  Option No. 2 was to reach over and pluck it from her pants, and No. 3 was to wake her up and turn the tables, saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I think you have something that belongs to me.’ Then she’d hand the lozenge back and maybe even apologize, confused into thinking that she’ d somehow stolen it.


  These circumstances, however, were not normal, as before she’d fallen asleep the woman and I had had a fight. I’d known her for only an hour, yet I felt her hatred just as strongly as I felt the stream of cold air blowing into my face – this after she’d repositioned the nozzle above her head, a final fuck-you before settling down for her nap.

  And here’s Dave Barry managing to make fun of himself and a venerable Japanese art form without really offending anyone:

  When it comes to the classical arts, I’m basically an unsophisticated low-rent Neanderthal philistine kind of guy, which is why I’m probably just revealing my own intellectual limitations and cultural myopia when I tell you that Kabuki is the silliest thing I have ever seen onstage, and I have seen a man juggle two rubber chickens and a birthday cake.

  For one thing, all the actors were wearing costumes that made them look like John Belushi on Saturday Night Live playing the part of the samurai delicatessen clerk, only with funnier haircuts. For another thing, since all Kabuki actors are male, a man was playing the role of the heroine. According to the program notes, he was a famous Kabuki actor who was extremely skilled at portraying the feminine character by using subtle gestures and vocal nuances perfected over generations. What he looked like, to the untutored Western eye, was a man with a four-year supply of white make-up, mincing around the stage and whining. It was Belushi playing the samurai whining transvestite.

  In fact, everybody seemed to whine a lot. It was all that happened for minutes on end. Kabuki has the same dramatic pacing as bridge construction. It’s not at all unusual for a play to last 10 hours. And bear in mind that one hour of watching Kabuki is the equivalent of 17 hours spent in a more enjoyable activity, such as eye surgery.

  From time to time, a member of the audience would yell something. This is also part of the Kabuki tradition; at key moments, audience members, sometimes paid by the performers, yell out a performer’s family name, or words of appreciation. Our guide, Mr Sato, had cautioned us that this yelling had to be done in a certain traditional way, and that we should not attempt it.

  It was a good warning – although I’m not sure what I would have yelled anyway. Maybe something like: ‘NICE HAIRCUT!’ Or: ‘WAY TO MINCE!’

  While gently poking fun at his subject and at himself, Barry also manages to slip in some key facts about Kabuki.

  Researching your story

  Whether you specialize or widen your view, each new trip poses the same question: how do you develop a story from scratch? You’ve researched the publications that interest you, the passions that arouse you and the subjects that are currently popular. Now it’s time to put your research to work.

  A fundamental issue, particularly for aspiring newspaper and magazine writers, is the question of timing. Should you come up with story ideas before you travel or after you return? In the beginning you may find it easier to pitch articles from trips you’ve already taken – you know the place, and know exactly what you want to write about, making it infinitely easier for you to write a convincing proposal, or query letter, for that article. (We’ll talk more about proposals and query letters in chapter 3.)

  As you develop a collection of published articles (known as a clip file or a portfolio) and a reputation, you may want to try pitching ideas for subjects and trips you haven’t yet made. The difficulty is knowing what exactly you want to write about before you’ve made the trip. To be convincing, you’ll need to do a good deal of research so you can paint a compelling portrait of your subject and of its relevance to the publication in question without having experienced it. (A more advantageous situation is when you have visited a place in the past and are returning to update your impressions and experiences.)

  Pre-trip research

  Whether you’re hoping to pitch your story pre- or post-trip, in order to get the most out of your journey, you’ll need to do some research. Start by buying a few good guidebooks and thoroughly studying the place you’re planning to visit – everything from history and cultural background to specific events and attractions. These days, many destinations have English-language newspapers or magazines. You may be able to track down copies before you leave home, depending on the destination, and you can find and read many of them online. Studying these publications will give you a sense of local flavor and help you discover what news stories and events are capturing residents’ interest. Reading travel literature set in the country you’re planning to visit can also open up story ideas and offer deeper insights into the character of the place.

  After you’ve done all this research – studied the markets, the trends, yourself, and the place you’re preparing to visit – you should have a well-grounded idea of what you’re likely to find in that place and what experiences or topics are most likely to impassion you. One more factor to consider, however, is that the best travel stories are often the unanticipated ones that you stumble upon when you’re actually in a place. The best practice is to have a story idea in mind before you take your trip, and at the same time be open to discovering an even better story while you’re there. Having a preconceived idea will give your trip preparations and itinerary a focus and framework. Of course, if you’ve interested an editor in a particular story pre-trip, you’ll usually need to write about that. But if you find something extraordinary on the spot, all the better – your article possibilities will have doubled.

  Researching on the road

  Of course, all that pre-trip research is just the prelude to the journey itself. Once you’re aboard the train, bus, ferry or plane, the real work begins. As you travel, stay alive to the world around you. Cultivate encounters. Ask questions. Gather brochures and other printed information. If something catches your fancy, follow it. When you can, let serendipity be your guide.

  Use your camera to capture the look of a place; use your cell phone or audio recorder to capture conversations, evocative sounds and snatches of your own impressions when it’s impractical to write them down; use your journal to record on-the-spot notes that will bring your experience back to you later. (For more about these essential tools of the trade, see chapter 5.) Absorb as much as you can, but remember to constantly filter what you’re absorbing, so you retain and focus on the aspects of the trip that most appeal to you and offer the best potential story subjects.

  Exercise 2

  Play traveler for a day in your own backyard. Visit a local museum and pick up all the information you can. Is it open on holidays? Are there any special days when admission is free? What are the upcoming exhibitions and their dates? What artwork moved you the most, and why? Have lunch at a restaurant and take notes. What’s the atmosphere like? What were the other diners like? What was the best dish? How much did it cost? When is the restaurant open? Does it take reservations? Walk around a favorite neighborhood and take notes. After you’ve finished your visit, write three 300-word descriptions – one of the museum, one of the restaurant and one of the neighborhood – in a way that evokes them for someone who’s never been there.

  Finding your focus

  We have already discussed a number of ways to help you narrow your focus before and during your trip, but now let’s consider the aftermath of the trip. You’ve just returned from three weeks in France and everything was great – every day brought new discoveries and treasures, and you want to write about them all. Tempting as that may seem, writing about everything you did on holiday should be kept strictly between you and your diary; you need to find the theme that will interest an editor. If you sounded out a few travel editors before you set off, you’ll already know which stories might be of interest. But if you didn’t, or if you want to try contacting other editors now that you’ve returned, how do you decide what to write about?

  Ask yourself this simple question: what most impassioned you? When you meet people and they say, ‘So, how was France?’, what’s the first story that comes to mind? Focus on that story, because for some reason your internal filter has decided that that particular one captures
something special about your trip. Analyze why the story especially appeals to you, and ask yourself if other people would be interested in reading about it. Also ask yourself why you are choosing to describe that particular aspect of your trip. Think about the connection and resonance your focus has created. Does it capture an illuminating characteristic of French culture or French manners or French food? Does it tie in neatly with something that’s highly topical today or with something that will be news in the future, such as an anniversary or event? Or is it so unusual that it stands out simply as an extraordinary travel experience? This is the seed of your story: seize it, explore it, look at it from different angles, draw it out. Think about what it means to you, but remember that the story isn’t about yourself. A very common mistake that inexperienced travel writers make is to put too much of themselves into a piece; your job as a writer is to be the reader’s portal into a deeper understanding of the place and of the experience of being a traveler there.

  Now, think about other experiences from the trip that support this particular aspect or in some way complement it. You can begin to fashion your story in this way, establishing a central theme and then building upon it. Your final piece will be an exploration of this theme and how it was present in your trip, and ideally you will lead up to it step by step. If you feel you’ve got many seeds from your trip, then that’s great – you’ll be able to write a variety of different articles covering each one for a range of different outlets.