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Travel writing tells the reader about visiting different places.

A tourist guide - or a more personal account of a journey - will:

• describe places
• inform about cultures
• explain how to do things

They might also:

• persuade the reader to visit
• advise the reader what to do
• entertain the reader with a creative style of writing

Guides are usually written in the third person whereas personal accounts tend to be first person.

Travel writing can take many forms, such as newspaper articles, essays, journals, blogs and autobiography. It can also be written as a book, telling a longer narrative about a journey or place. Many types of travel writing contain the features of literary non-fiction.

Example

Bill Bryson is a famous travel writer. This extract is the opening paragraph from his book The Lost Continent (1989).

I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.

When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever.

The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson

Analysis

In this extract:

• Bryson begins with humour, “Somebody had to.” This amuses the reader and creates a chatty tone. It raises the question ‘Why does he sound negative?’ – intriguing the reader.
• Using the first person forms an immediate connection between Bryson and his reader. He builds on this by opening with an anecdote to entertain them.
• A rule of three summarises “your” future, “settle down with a local girl”, “get a job at the Firestone factory” and “live there forever and ever”. This makes life in Des Moines sound predictable and limited.
• The contrasting options “accept the fact without question” or “spend your adolescence moaning at length” are both awful!
• Describing Des Moines as a “dump” makes the reader imagine a rubbish dump or an ugly place.
• Bryson ends the extract with a repetition of your first “option” - to “settle, get a job and live there forever and ever” – this implies that you have no choice really and cannot escape Des Moines.
• This extract is likely to entertain the reader but unlikely to persuade them to visit Des Moines!