A Travelogue!

A travelogue is a person’s account of a journey to another country or place.It  is quite a popular genre. Travel writing generally gives detailed information about the attractions of a place so that people get tempted to go there on their vacations. It can either be a written report with many factual details or a narrative story about personal impressions and experiences supported by images.  Hence, writers involved in travel writing should follow some specific rules to make their travelogues more appealing and interesting to the readers.

RESEARCH ABOUT THE PLACE

Decide on the purpose of your travelogue. Whether it is for a magazine, for friends, or for yourself—determine your writing style. Before writing about a particular destination make a thorough research of it. If you are able to go to the place then it gives you a first hand experience about it. You could find for yourself what the place is all about. You could even ask the local people about its legends and other information related to that place. You could tour all over the place and find out for yourself all its hidden secrets that would attract a tourist bent on having fun. Hence, you could build up quite a reliable picture in your travelogue.

While traveling, take notes about what you see, places you visit, and people you get acquainted with. Keep a diary of your impressions. If you don’t have enough time to write, perhaps a recorder would be a smart option for keeping a diary. Also, collect various brochures, tourism maps, and guides. They may come in handy when you start writing a travelogue.

You could look up books available in the library or you could serf the net. If you find some pictures of it then it could also help you a lot in your write ups as it would give you a clearer idea about the looks of the place

Create an outline of your travelogue. This must not be a detailed report yet. The outline is necessary for you to structure your thoughts and to see if the story flows logically and is easy to understand.

After you’ve completed the outline, write the full travelogue. Try to make it as interesting as you can. Add vivid descriptions, historic and factual information, and educate your readers on the customs and traditions of the country you’ve visited.

HIGHLIGHT THE VARIOUS ATTRACTIONS

when writing a travelogue, you can concentrate on:

local customs and traditions

cuisine

depictions of places of interest, local history, and culture

your adventures

prices and transportation

entertainment

 A travelogue needs a central idea, which will be the backbone of your whole piece of writing. Life lessons you’ve learned during the voyage, your reflections about the differences between the place where you live and the place you’ve visited, or at least some historic theme could serve as such a backbone.

CULTURAL BACKGROUND

Giving some cultural background of the place makes your travelogue richer in its content. People like to know the background and culture of a place they are planning to visit. It gives them a distinctive idea of what to expect from that place. It also helps them in their choice of clothes, accessories, etc. So, do remember to include this little bit of information in your travel writing.

THE STRUCTURE OF TRAVELOGUE

Keeping a travelogue within the structure of an essay is a sound way to present your material.

 In the introduction, you can provide some background about the place you are writing about and also describe your traveling conditions.

In the main body, introduce the information you want to convey to your readers based on the recordings and notes you’ve made during the journey.

Finally, summarize the experience from the trip. Share your thoughts about it, your findings, and what you will be contemplating after in regard to the trip.

You don’t necessarily need to write about the attractiveness of the place you’ve visited. The journey most likely won’t consist only of nice events, places, and people. Describe the difficulties you faced, strange customs, sanitary conditions, etc.

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