Writing About Your Travel

By: Drew Chittick

Travel writing probably doesn’t strike everyone as relevant to their semester abroad.

Some people don’t keep blogs, and the ones that do probably feel like they have a good handle on it, and they may.

But you’ll write about your trips more often than you think. Some of you might keep a journal, most will probably post pictures on Instagram or Facebook, and almost everyone will have a family or friend from home text them and ask how and where they’ve been. So, think of this less as advice on maintaining a long-form travel blog, or how to attract readers, than just as advice on how to show people what you’ve been doing abroad, and give them answers that might actually satisfy their curiosity.

The most fundamental habit you can have is just a slight shift in thinking: write about how you felt, not what you saw. Not just something vague like how you were “blown away” or “just can’t believe it,” really think about how what you saw affected you. If somebody is asking what’s been going on in your life, then they care just as much about you as the goings-on.

With that comes a little shift in how you travel: think about how you’re feeling. Even if you never write a word about your trip, just stopping to notice how this has all impacted you will make your trips feel so much more fulfilling. Your memories of what this village looked like or how that baguette tasted will never last as long as the joy of something adorable but ancient, or the satisfaction of a peek into someone else’s craft.

This last one has a little less to do with you and a little more to do with the person reading what you wrote, but it’s no less helpful: consider how the trip changed you. How were you different from when you left the manor on Thursday to when you got back on Sunday (or Monday)? The change doesn’t have to be drastic, but it shows the person reading what they really want to know: why does this matter to you? Maybe you were just having a down week and Paris cheered you up, or you were pumped on the shuttle to Grantham, but just barely staggered into your room Sunday night. Because if you didn’t allow the trip to make any impression on you, what was the point in going?

I hope this is helpful. Not even just for writing, but just for your travels in general as the semester chugs along. We’re almost a third of the way through. That may sound depressing, but remember: whatever you’ve done so far, you’ve still got time to double it. So, go out, and feel as much as you can as you travel the world.