13 ways TO improve YOUR travel writing

Last Updated: 10/15/20 | October 15th, 2020

To me, the crux of all online endeavors is good writing. With so many blogs out there, if you can’t write engaging stories, you’ll never get anywhere! So today, I want to introduce one of my favorite travel writers, David Farley, who is going to share his writing tips for fellow bloggers and writers out there!

I always thought that once I started writing for glossy travel magazines, I could relax a bit because I’d “made it.”

Nö!

Then I thought that once I began penning pieces for the new York Times, I could say I was successful.

Nicht. Beim. Alles.

OK, maybe when I had a book out, published by a major publishing house, things would get a bit easier for me. Ich wünsche!

Writers, in some ways, are a sorry lot. rarely do they ever look at something and say “perfect!” maybe for a moment — but give a writer a day and he or she will come back to that same article and find dozens of mistakes. writing is a craft you never perfect.

We’re always striving to be better. Creatives tend to be perfectionists. writing requires you to keep learning and improving.

But that’s good because that drive makes writers improve their work. and only through practice and effort do we end up with the Hemingways, Brysons, Gilberts, and Kings of the world.

If you’re a travel blogger, you probably started off not as a writer with a journalism background but as a traveler looking to share your experience. You probably didn’t have any formal training or someone to peer over your shoulder and give you advice.

So today I wanted to share some tips to help you improve your travel writing or blogging. because the world always needs good writers — and good writing helps get your story heard more!

These tips, if followed, will better your writing and make a huge difference in the reach of your writing!

1. Read

This is number one. because whenever a budding writer asks me how they can improve, it’s my first piece of advice. read good writing. absorb it. let it sink into your soul. When I was first starting out, I was sick one weekend, so I spent three days lying in bed reading every page of that year’s best American travel writing anthology. After I finished, I opened up my laptop and started writing for the first time in days. What came out surprised me: it was the highest-quality writing I’d done to date. and it was all because I was absorbed in good writing and it filtered through me back onto the page in my own writing.

(Matt says: Here’s a collection of some of my favorite travel books that can inspire you. I also have a monthly book club you can join!)

2. Do it for love

Maya Angelou wrote, “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.” Don’t get into travel writing for the money — after all, that would be totally unrealistic. and please don’t gravitate to the genre because you want free trips and hotel rooms. “Instead,” Ms. Angelou added, “do [it] so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.” Or, in other words, strive to become such a good writer that the editors of all the publications you have been dreaming to write for can’t ignore you anymore.

3. Don’t be attached to linear writing

You need not compose a piece from beginning to middle to end. sometimes that’s not the ideal structure of the story. Sure, maybe you’ve already figured that out. but if not, it’s ok to just get a few scenes and paragraphs of exposition down “on paper.” then you can step back and take a look at the bigger picture and rearrange what you have, figuring out the best way to tell the story.

4. tap into your own sense of motivation and drive

The students of mine at new York university who have been most successful were not always the most talented in the class. but they were the most driven. They’d read enough quality writing and thought about it — understanding what made it so wonderful — that there was just something about writing that they got. They weren’t born with that understanding, but ambition drove them to seek out better writing and then to think about it, to analyze what made it good (or not so good).

Drive also inspires future successful writers to go out on a limb, to render themselves vulnerable, by reaching out to more accomplished writers to ask for advice, or by introducing themselves to editors at events or conferences. Don’t be shy! Standing in the corner quietly won’t get you as far as putting your hand out to introduce yourself will.

5. try to figure out what gets your mind and writing flowing

Let me explain: I can sit down at my laptop and stare at a blank Word document for hours, not sure how to start a story or what to write about. then I’ll respond to an email from a friend who wants to know about the trip I’m trying to write about. I’ll write a long email with cool and interesting anecdotes about my experience and include some analysis of the place and culture. and then I’ll realize: I can just cut and paste this right into the empty Word doc I’ve been staring at for the last three hours!

Several of my published articles have blocks of texts that were originally written as parts of emails to friends. The “email trick” might not work for everyone, but there is inevitably some trick for the rest of you — be it talking to a friend or free-associating in your journal.

6. understand all aspects of storytelling

There are two types of travel writing: commercial and personal essay (or memoir). In commercial travel writing, you should make the various parts of the story an intrinsic aspect of your knowledge: from ways to write a lede to the nut graph, scenes, exposition, and conclusions. For memoir and personal essays, know what narrative arc means like the back of your typing hands. It helps to get an intuitive understanding of these things by paying attention to writing — to reading like a writer — as you read nonfiction (and travel) articles.

Quick Note: If you’re looking to improve your writing, David and I created a detailed travel writing course. through video lectures and deconstructed stories, you’ll get the course David taught at NYU and Columbia – but without the price. It comes with monthly calls as well as edits and feedback on your writing! If you’re interested, click here to learn more.

7. Don’t stress if your first draft is shit

Ernest Hemingway said, “The first draft of anything is shit.” and he wasn’t kidding. I find this true when I’m writing a personal essay or travel memoir. I write and I write and I write, and I’m not exactly sure what I’m putting down on paper.

What’s the point of this? Ich frage mich.

Why am I even doing this?

But here is where patience comes in: eventually, the clouds part, the proverbial sunbeam from the heavens shines down on our computer monitors, and we see the point of it all: we finally figure out what it is we’re writing and how to best tell that story. It just happens like magic sometimes.

And not all at once: sometimes it’s bit by bit, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. but as I mentioned, patience is key, because we never know when that divine magic is going to be activated. but sit around long enough and it will happen, I promise you. (Just be cautious when taking Hemingway’s other writing advice: “Write drunk, edit sober.”)

8. write what you know

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell,” said writer Neil Gaiman, “because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you.”

9. When you’re finished with a draft, read it out loud

Preferably, print it out and read it out loud. This will allow you to better hear how the piece sounds, and unacceptable segues and clunky sentences or turns of phrases will jump out at you in a more obvious way.

For longer stories or books, it can also be good to print out your story and line edit it the old fashioned way. This way you see the story on paper and as a reader. You can pick up a lot more mistakes and errors when you do this.

10. always get another set of eyes on your writing

While all writers make mistakes, it’s harder to spot them without an editor. Editors are very important, but they don’t necessarily have to be someone with formal training. While hiring a copyeditor is always great, getting a friend to read your blog or story can be just as good. You don’t always see the forest through the trees and having another set of eyes is ultra-important to the writing process.

Matt says: I like having someone who doesn’t know about travel read my drafts. I have a friend who doesn’t travel much who reads my blog posts because she helps me make sure I include the important details I might have skipped. When you’re an expert on something, you often fill in the blanks in your mind. You go from A to C automatically; step B becomes subconscious. getting someone who doesn’t know the steps will help ensure you include explain everything in your post and don’t leave your readers going, “Huh?”

11. learn to self-edit

This is where many people go wrong. They write, they read it over, they post. and then feel embarrassed as they say, “Oh, man, I can’t believe I missed that typo.” You don’t need to be a master editor, but if you follow a few principles, it will go a long way: First, write something and let it sit for a few days before editing.

After your first round of edits, repeat the process. get another set of eyes on it. print out a checklist of grammar rules to go through as you edit.

As you review your work, say to yourself, “Did I do this? Habe ich das getan?” If you follow a cheat sheet, you’ll catch most of your mistakes and end up with a much better final product!

12. improve your endings

The two most important parts of any article or blog post are the beginning and the end. Endings matter more than you think. They are the last thiDie Leute erinnern sich an Ihre Geschichte. Hier können Sie Ihren Standpunkt wirklich nach Hause schlagen und den Leser fasziniert lassen. Eine durchschnittliche Geschichte kann durch ein solides Ende gerettet werden. Verbringen Sie einige Zeit mit einer Schlussfolgerung, die die Punkte verbindet und zu einer Art Lösung führt.

Alle Geschichten brauchen ein Ende. Denken Sie an Ihre Lieblingsgeschichten – und Ihre am wenigsten Lieblings -Favoriten. Diejenigen mit den großen Enden sind wahrscheinlich diejenigen, an die Sie sich am meisten erinnern.

13. Ziel für Fortschritte, nicht Perfektion

Allzu oft höre ich von Schülern, dass sie nicht in einem Beitrag veröffentlichen oder ein Stück einreichen möchten, weil es nicht perfekt ist. Sie wollen weiter basteln und weiter bearbeiten. Während Sie auf jeden Fall sicherstellen möchten, dass Ihre Arbeit die beste ist, die sie sein kann, ist Perfektion am Ende des Tages der Feind des Fortschritts. Wenn Sie immer darauf warten, dass jedes einzelne Wort perfekt ist, werden Sie für immer bearbeiten.

Wenn es um Blog -Beiträge geht, lernen Sie, gut genug zu akzeptieren. Hit veröffentlichen, wenn es gut genug ist.

Warten Sie nicht auf Perfektion, weil es selten kommt. Akzeptiere dein Bestes und mach weiter. Andernfalls basteln und bearbeiten Sie, bis die Kühe nach Hause kommen und Sie nie irgendwohin kommen.

Schreiben ist ein Handwerk. Es braucht Zeit. Es braucht Übung. Ziel für Fortschritte, nicht Perfektion.

***
Schreiben ist eine Kunstform. Es braucht viel Übung. Wenn Sie selbst ein Blogger sind, kann es schwieriger sein, Ihre Arbeit zu verbessern, da Sie keine erfahrene Stimme haben, die Ihnen Tipps und Ratschläge gibt und Sie dazu drängt, besser zu werden. Wenn Sie es nicht auf sich nehmen, besser zu werden, werden Sie es nie sein. Selbst wenn Sie nicht gesegnet sind, unter einem Redakteur zu arbeiten, können diese 13 Tipps Ihnen helfen, Ihr heutiges Schreiben zu verbessern und ein viel besserer Blogger zu werden. Schreiben Sie Geschichten, die die Leute lesen möchten!

David Farley schreibt seit über zwanzig Jahren über Reisen, Essen und Kultur. Seine Arbeiten wurden unter anderem in der AFAR Magazine, der New York Times, der Washington Post, Condé Nast Traveller, erschienen. Er hat in Prag, Paris, Rom und jetzt New York City gelebt. Er ist Autor einer respektlosen Neugier und war Gastgeber für National Geographic.

SIE DA! Wenn Sie noch mehr suchen, haben David und ich einen detaillierten Reisekurs für Reiseschreibungen erstellt, um Ihr Schreiben auf die nächste Ebene zu bringen. Durch Videovorträge und Beispiele für bearbeitete und dekonstruierte Geschichten lernen Sie, wie Sie Ihr Schreiben verbessern und erhalten können:

Monthly calls with David

Edits and feedback on your writing

Probe Pitch -Vorlagen

Sample book proposals

A private Facebook group where we share job opportunities.

If you’re interested, click here to learn more. 

Buchen Sie Ihre Reise: Logistische Tipps und Tricks
Buchen Sie Ihren Flug
Finden Sie einen billigen Flug mit Skyscanner. Es ist meine Lieblings -Suchmaschine, weil sie Websites und Fluggesellschaften auf der ganzen Welt durchsucht, sodass Sie immer wissen, dass kein Stein unversucht bleibt.

Buchen Sie Ihre Unterkunft
You can book your hostel with Hostelworld. Wenn Sie an einem anderen Ort als einem Hostel übernachten möchten, verwenden Sie Booking.com, da sie konsequent die günstigsten Preise für Gästehäuser und Hotels zurückgeben.

Vergessen Sie nicht die Reiseversicherung
Die Reiseversicherung schützt Sie vor Krankheiten, Verletzungen, Diebstahl und Stornierungen. Es ist ein umfassender Schutz für den Fall, dass etwas schief geht. Ich mache nie eine Reise ohne sie, da ich sie in der Vergangenheit oft benutzen musste. Meine Lieblingsunternehmen, die den besten Service und Wert bieten, sind:

SafetyWing (best for everyone)

Versichern Sie meine Reise (für über 70)

MedJet (für zusätzliche Evakuierungsabdeckung)

Ready to book Your Trip?
Schauen Sie sich meine Ressourcenseite an, damit die besten Unternehmen auf Reisen verwendet werden können. Ich liste alle auf, die ich benutze, wenn ich reise. Sie sind die besten im Unterricht und Sie können sie auf Ihrer Reise nicht falsch machen.