Writing is like drawing, a lot of people believe they can’t do it. Yet writing and drawing are skills anyone can learn. All you need is to enjoy it and to practise. Talent is overrated. In this article we show you how to write better travel reports, and if all goes well you might even get your travel report published in a book. More on that at the end of the text.
Already a pro travel writer, don’t need any of this and want to jump straight to the book campaign with the Paul Pietsch Verlag? Click here to go straight down.
So how do I write a travel report?
Google will tell you right away on the first page how it’s done:
- Answer the who-what-when-where questions.
- Write short and factual.
- Keep the right chronological order.
- Avoid direct speech.
- Write in the simple past, and in the past perfect for anything earlier.
- Avoid unimportant information.
Original source: https://www.studienkreis.de/deutsch/reisebericht-schreiben-tipps/
Because what was maybe compulsory for the German essay in year seven is the exact opposite of an exciting travel report as we imagine it. We don’t want to write short and factual, nor tell everything in the right chronological order. Why should we avoid direct speech? Wouldn’t that liven things up? Right, so back to the start.
How do I begin?
Keep a diary again! It’s best to start making notes during the trip itself. Handy if you don’t write them on random scraps or napkins that you can’t find later, but in a travel notebook. (Small hint: we have notebooks for exactly this purpose in the Matsch&Piste shop.) If you don’t feel like writing on the road, you can use the dictation function on your phone. And here’s a tip from a fellow journalist: every evening she writes a few bullet points into a WhatsApp group that she is the only member of.
Note down important details like the names of places, sights, restaurants or people you visit or meet. Add when you were there and, ideally, the address. Small tip: take a photo of the place with your phone. That helps you remember it better afterwards, and the photos are tagged by GPS straight away (as long as you’ve switched the function on in the settings), so you can find the address again later.
Go through the world with open eyes. A good writer is first of all a good observer, so watch the details. Do you find the man behind the counter unlikeable? What backs up that impression? Or is the waitress especially friendly, and you think that’s worth a mention? What exactly do you find friendly about her? Her polka-dot skirt? The funny hairstyle? Her freckles? Or the white teeth behind her huge smile?
From chronology to time bubbles
“On the first day we drove from Pamplona to Lodosa. On Tuesday, our second day, we set off …” But what if nothing interesting happened on Tuesday? And nothing on Wednesday either?
Yes, but I have to write down exactly when I was where! No, you don’t. If the day was boring, just leave it out. I find it helpful to picture the report not as a timeline, but as independent time bubbles connected by a thin thread, your trip. So just work your way from high point to high point. From little story to little story.
The hard structure
Introduction. Main part. Ending. You don’t need more structure than that. For us as a travel magazine it’s always nice if, in the last paragraph, you write something about yourself or yourselves and where our readers can find out more about you, for example on a blog, on Instagram or something similar.
Oh, actually I forgot one thing. Subheadings. And paragraphs in general. A paragraph essentially stands for one thought. Normally it runs to three to five sentences. Paragraphs and subheadings make a text easier to read.
Those blasted tenses
Travel reports are often written in the past tense, because you’re reporting on events that have already happened. It’s also the natural tense we use when we tell people about our experiences.
But you can also use the present tense to give your readers the feeling that they are living the trip along with you. The action feels more immediate that way, and readers can put themselves in the situation more easily.
Tell me a story, Baby
Find stories within the story. Imagine you’re sitting by the campfire a month later. Which parts of the trip would you want to tell someone, grinning the whole time or barely able to hold back your laughter? Those are exactly the things that belong in a travel report.
Maybe it’s the story of the time you wanted to buy a sheepskin in Romania and the pharmacist, who spoke neither English nor any other language you could understand, all but dragged you into her car to take you to the nearest shepherd. There you actually managed to get your longed-for sheepskin, which sadly stank so badly that there was no way you wanted it in your car for more than a day.
Or the story where you spent the night in a riverbed, because you knew for sure it wouldn’t rain that night. Then a thunderstorm caught you out and you only just managed to escape the flood.
It doesn’t always have to be sweetness and light. In other words, the most beautiful experiences don’t have to be the only ones that make it into your travel report. Nerve-racking experiences can find a place here too. If they end well, all the better.
Show, don’t tell
So which is it? Show or tell? Well, both really. If you want to say the area was poor, then don’t just write: “We drove through a poor district.” Describe it instead.
“Shacks of corrugated iron with roofs of tarpaulin line the window. Shredded plastic bags hang like tinsel in the bare trees. A toothless goatherd wanders with his charges over the barren ground beside the road. They nibble at withered blades of grass that stick out of the earth like spikes next to the rubbish. Above the district drifts the smoke of burning car tyres.”
Be authentic. WTF!
Seriously? Authentic. For me the non-word of recent years. Everywhere we’re supposed to be authentic. And what does that even mean? We’re supposed to be real, to be ourselves. Not do anything just to please others.
So if you found the sunset boring, leave it out. Or enjoy the way everyone else stares spellbound in that one direction instead of at their phone as usual. But whatever you do, don’t write that you enjoyed the beautiful sunset just because you think you have to. And if the sunset was the highlight of the day, then write why you liked it and what was special about it.
For example like this: “As the sun slowly disappeared behind the mountains in the evening, the summit of Mont Blanc turned a soft pink. Pink mountains, sounds cheesy, but for me an unforgettable sight. Good thing the waitress came over to our table all excited earlier, to point out this evening spectacle. A sunset you rarely get to see. Unless you’re a waitress in a restaurant at the foot of Mont Blanc.”
But with feeling, please!
Avoid the clichés and phrases your readers have already read a thousand times. “The path was arduous.” “The view was breathtaking.” “The palms sway in the wind.” “The bazaar was a colourful hustle and bustle.” Boring!
Describe instead how YOU feel, what you notice, what you smell, what you hear. Can you feel the soft fabrics under your hands at the bazaar? Or are the fabrics more on the rough side? Is it warm or cold? Are you constantly being jostled? Do you feel harried or relaxed? Do the metal plates sparkle in the light? Have you got the scent of curry and cloves in your nose? Or is it stuffy and musty?
Language, a side matter with a big effect
Your language and your writing style are decisive for the effect of your travel report. Use clear, precise language and vary sentence lengths and structures to make your text flow and stay interesting. And no worn-out expressions like “the picturesque little fishing village”, or standard phrases like “the charming old town invites you to linger”. Look instead for unique, fresh turns of phrase that make your travel report vivid and memorable. There’s more on the subject of language in the second part.
Pimp my travel report
Travel reports live on images. The images in the head that the reader gets when they read your stories, and the images you make with your camera. Do take a bit of time for photos. Holiday snaps are perfect for torturing your family, sure. But in travel reports, good photos are a big plus. Here you’ll find a few tips on how to take nice photos on your trip.
On top of your story, in a travel report you can also list useful information. For example how you prepared for the trip, what you should definitely think of before setting off, which campsites you liked (with addresses), and which info, books or websites you used to prepare for your trip.
And now you!
Did you know that your next travel report could be published in a book? Matsch&Piste and the Paul Pietsch Verlag are looking for the best travel reports. And the best bit: we’re turning them into a book!
If you’d like to be part of it, send us your travel report by 18/09/2023. From the entries, we, the Matsch&Piste editorial team together with the Pietsch Verlag, will pick the 15 best travel reports. The reports will appear in spring 2024 in a collected volume from the Paul Pietsch Verlag.
Your travel text should be between 15,000 and 20,000 characters (including spaces) long. Finished writing? Then send your finished travel report with photos to reisebericht@matsch-und-piste.de