What You Should Know About Travel Writing

  • An Introduction to Punctuation
  • Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
  • M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
  • B.A., English, State University of New York

Travel writing is a form of creative nonfiction in which the narrator's encounters with foreign places serve as the dominant subject. Also called  travel literature .

"All travel writing—because it is writing—is made in the sense of being constructed, says Peter Hulme, "but travel writing cannot be made up without losing its designation" (quoted by Tim Youngs in  The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing , 2013).

Notable contemporary travel writers in English include Paul Theroux, Susan Orlean, Bill Bryson , Pico Iyer, Rory MacLean, Mary Morris, Dennison Berwick, Jan Morris, Tony Horwitz, Jeffrey Tayler, and Tom Miller, among countless others.

Examples of Travel Writing

  • "By the Railway Side" by Alice Meynell
  • Lists and Anaphora in Bill Bryson's "Neither Here Nor There"
  • Lists in William Least Heat-Moon's Place Description
  • "London From a Distance" by Ford Madox Ford
  • "Niagara Falls" by Rupert Brooke
  • "Nights in London" by Thomas Burke
  • "Of Trave," by Francis Bacon
  • "Of Travel" by Owen Felltham
  • "Rochester" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Observations About Travel Writing

Authors, journalists, and others have attempted to describe travel writing, which is more difficult to do than you might think. However, these excerpts explain that travel writing—at a minimum—requires a sense of curiosity, awareness, and fun.

Thomas Swick

  • "The best writers in the field [of travel writing] bring to it an indefatigable curiosity, a fierce intelligence that enables them to interpret, and a generous heart that allows them to connect. Without resorting to invention , they make ample use of their imaginations. . . . "The travel book itself has a similar grab bag quality. It incorporates the characters and plot line of a novel, the descriptive power of poetry, the substance of a history lesson, the discursiveness of an essay , and the—often inadvertent—self-revelation of a memoir . It revels in the particular while occasionally illuminating the universal. It colors and shapes and fills in gaps. Because it results from displacement, it is frequently funny. It takes readers for a spin (and shows them, usually, how lucky they are). It humanizes the alien. More often than not it celebrates the unsung. It uncovers truths that are stranger than fiction. It gives eyewitness proof of life’s infinite possibilities." ("Not a Tourist." The Wilson Quarterly , Winter 2010)

Casey Blanton

  • "There exists at the center of travel books like [Graham] Greene's Journey Without Maps or [V.S.] Naipaul's An Area of Darkness a mediating consciousness that monitors the journey, judges, thinks, confesses, changes, and even grows. This narrator , so central to what we have come to expect in modern travel writing , is a relatively new ingredient in travel literature, but it is one that irrevocably changed the genre . . . . "Freed from strictly chronological , fact-driven narratives , nearly all contemporary travel writers include their own dreams and memories of childhood as well as chunks of historical data and synopses of other travel books. Self reflexivity and instability, both as theme and style , offer the writer a way to show the effects of his or her own presence in a foreign country and to expose the arbitrariness of truth and the absence of norms." ( Travel Writing: The Self and the World . Routledge, 2002)

Frances Mayes

  • "Some travel writers can become serious to the point of lapsing into good ol' American puritanism. . . . What nonsense! I have traveled much in Concord. Good travel writing can be as much about having a good time as about eating grubs and chasing drug lords. . . . [T]ravel is for learning, for fun, for escape, for personal quests, for challenge, for exploration, for opening the imagination to other lives and languages." (Introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2002 . Houghton, 2002)

Travel Writers on Travel Writing

In the past, travel writing was considered to be nothing more than the detailing of specific routes to various destinations. Today, however, travel writing has become much more. Read on to find out what famous travel writers such as V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux say about the profession.

V.S. Naipaul

  • "My books have to be called ' travel writing ,' but that can be misleading because in the old days travel writing was essentially done by men describing the routes they were taking. . . . What I do is quite different. I travel on a theme . I travel to make an inquiry. I am not a journalist. I am taking with me the gifts of sympathy, observation, and curiosity that I developed as an imaginative writer. The books I write now, these inquiries, are really constructed narratives." (Interview with Ahmed Rashid, "Death of the Novel." The Observer , Feb. 25, 1996)

Paul Theroux

  • - "Most travel narratives—perhaps all of them, the classics anyway—describe the miseries and splendors of going from one remote place to another. The quest, the getting there, the difficulty of the road is the story; the journey, not the arrival, matters, and most of the time the traveler—the traveler’s mood, especially—is the subject of the whole business. I have made a career out of this sort of slogging and self-portraiture, travel writing as diffused autobiography ; and so have many others in the old, laborious look-at-me way that informs travel writing ." (Paul Theroux, "The Soul of the South." Smithsonian Magazine , July-August 2014) - "Most visitors to coastal Maine know it in the summer. In the nature of visitation, people show up in the season. The snow and ice are a bleak memory now on the long warm days of early summer, but it seems to me that to understand a place best, the visitor needs to see figures in a landscape in all seasons. Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter. You see that the population is actually quite small, the roads are empty, some of the restaurants are closed, the houses of the summer people are dark, their driveways unplowed. But Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals. "Winter is a season of recovery and preparation. Boats are repaired, traps fixed, nets mended. “I need the winter to rest my body,” my friend the lobsterman told me, speaking of how he suspended his lobstering in December and did not resume until April. . . ." ("The Wicked Coast." The Atlantic , June 2011)

Susan Orlean

  • - "To be honest, I view all stories as journeys. Journeys are the essential text of the human experience—the journey from birth to death, from innocence to wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge, from where we start to where we end. There is almost no piece of important writing—the Bible, the Odyssey , Chaucer, Ulysses —that isn't explicitly or implicitly the story of a journey. Even when I don't actually go anywhere for a particular story, the way I report is to immerse myself in something I usually know very little about, and what I experience is the journey toward a grasp of what I've seen." (Susan Orlean, Introduction to My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere . Random House, 2004) - "When I went to Scotland for a friend's wedding last summer, I didn't plan on firing a gun. Getting into a fistfight, maybe; hurling insults about badly dressed bridesmaids, of course; but I didn't expect to shoot or get shot at. The wedding was taking place in a medieval castle in a speck of a village called Biggar. There was not a lot to do in Biggar, but the caretaker of the castle had skeet-shooting gear, and the male guests announced that before the rehearsal dinner they were going to give it a go. The women were advised to knit or shop or something. I don't know if any of us women actually wanted to join them, but we didn't want to be left out, so we insisted on coming along. . . ." (Opening paragraph of "Shooting Party." The New Yorker , September 29, 1999)

Jonathan Raban

  • - "As a literary form, travel writing is a notoriously raffish open house where different genres are likely to end up in the bed. It accommodates the private diary , the essay , the short story, the prose poem, the rough note and polished table talk with indiscriminate hospitality. It freely mixes narrative and discursive writing." ( For Love & Money: Writing - Reading - Travelling 1968-1987 . Picador, 1988)
  • - "Travel in its purest form requires no certain destination, no fixed itinerary, no advance reservation and no return ticket, for you are trying to launch yourself onto the haphazard drift of things, and put yourself in the way of whatever changes the journey may throw up. It's when you miss the one flight of the week, when the expected friend fails to show, when the pre-booked hotel reveals itself as a collection of steel joists stuck into a ravaged hillside, when a stranger asks you to share the cost of a hired car to a town whose name you've never heard, that you begin to travel in earnest." ("Why Travel?" Driving Home: An American Journey . Pantheon, 2011)
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The Digital Burrow

What is Travel Writing?

For thousands of years, travellers have written about their experiences exploring the furthest reaches of the world, both to record their journeys for personal reasons and as a guide for those who might follow.

Before the internet age, even as far back as Ancient Greece, stories of distant lands were popular because many people would never have had an opportunity to visit themselves.

But what is travel writing like today? With the internet, sharing experiences of our travels has never before been so easy, and arguably travel writing in one form or another is more popular ever.

Definition of travel writing

Travel writing is a genre that describes a writer’s experiences, observations, and feelings while travelling to different places. 

It often includes descriptions of the landscape, culture, people, and events that the writer encounters, as well as their personal thoughts and reflections on these experiences. 

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Posted on Jun 21, 2017

12 Types of Travel Writing Every Writer Should Know

So, you want to be a travel writer?

There are plenty of reality doses out there already, so we’re going to focus on the positives, and what you can do to maximize your chances of travel writing professionally. One of the first steps: you should absolutely know your markets, and what types of travel writing are popular in them. In today’s competitive market, this knowledge can both help you structure your article  and target the right audience.

In this post, we break down modern travel writing into three distinct categories: freelance journalism , blogging, and book writing. Then we identify the prevalent types of travel writing each category is known for, to give you an initial sort of compass in the industry.

Freelance Travel Journalism

Types of Travel Writing - Mosque

The truth is this: the travel sections in major publications (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) are slimmer now, so competition will be tall. But there are other outlets. Local newspapers are sometimes open to travel pitches from freelancers. Certain websites pay for travel articles, while magazines can be great for targeting niche audiences.

So what are the common types of freelance travel journalism?

Destination articles

Here, the game’s in the name: destination articles tell readers about a place they might want to travel one day. One of the most standard type of travel stories, these pieces act as the armchair reader’s bird-eye view of a place. Useful or interesting facts pepper the writing. History, points of interest, natural scenery, trendy spots: a destination article can touch upon them all within the framework of a broad narrative.

Where the average article gives readers a sense of the destination, the best of the best convinces readers that this is a destination they want, nay, need to visit. As such, though some destination articles are written in first person, the focus is rarely on the writer. Instead, the destination is the star of the show.

For examples of destination articles, check out:

  • Besalú, the most interesting Spanish village you probably don’t know (LA Times)
  • In Indonesia (Washington Post)
  • 36 Hours In The Finger Lakes Region of New York (New York Times)

Types of travel writing - Bagan

Special-interest articles

Special-interest articles are offshoots of destination articles. Instead of taking the reader on a tour of an entire country or city, these pieces cover one particular aspect of the destination. This kind of writing can cover anything from art in Colombia, ghost towns in the U.S., trekking in Patagonia, alpaca farms in Australia, motorbiking in Brazil, railroads in France, volunteering in Tanzania — you get the gist.

Since special-interest articles are narrower in topic, many writers tailor them for niche magazines or websites. Before you start pitching, we recommend flipping through the Writer’s Handbook , one of the most useful guides to the freelance publishing market, to see which publications fit your target audience.

For a taste of some special-interest articles, see:

  • Exploring Portugal — From Pork To Port (epicurious.com)
  • This Unsung Corner of Spain is Home to Fabulous Food (Washington Post)
  • Karsts of China's Getu River region attract rock climbers, other travelers (CNN Travel)

Holiday and special events

Holiday and special events travel articles ask writers to write about a destination before the event takes place. The biggest global events are magnets for this type of travel writing, such as the World Cup, the Olympics, the World Expo, fashion weeks, and film festivals. Depending on the publication, regional events work just as well.

Want to see what special events pieces look like? Have a read through these:

  • This summer’s solar eclipse is southern Illinois’ chance to shine (Chicago Tribune)
  • How To Plan A Trip To The 2016 Rio Olympics (Travel & Leisure)

You’ll recognize a round-up article when you see one, as it’ll go, “40 best beaches in West Europe,” or, perhaps, “20 of the greatest walks in the world!” It’s a classic tool in any magazine or newspaper writer’s toolbox, taking a bunch of destinations and grouping them all under one common thread.

Ultimately, a clear motif makes this type of article a breeze to read, as they’re a play on the ubiquitous List Format. But, OK, before you jump at this excuse to sacrifice your belly at 99 food trucks in New York City, remember that your premise should be original, not to mention practical. What’s tough is coming up with X ways to do Y in the first place, as that demands you put in the travel and research to produce a thorough write-up.

Types of Travel Writing - Prairie

Want even more examples of round-up articles? Here you go:

  • 12 new art exhibits to see this summer (Smithsonian)
  • 21 ways to see America for cheap (Huffington Post)
  • 41 places to go in 2011 (New York Times)

Personal essays

Publishers are experiencing something of a personal essay fatigue , so the market for more might be scarce these days. However, quality trumps all, and a good personal travel essay is just plain good writing in disguise: something that possesses a strong voice while showing insight, growth, and backstory.

Just don’t make it a diary entry. In an interview with The Atlantic , travel writer Paul Theroux said: “The main shortcut is to leave out boring things. People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble. They write about waiting. They write three pages about how long it took them to get a visa. I’m not interested in the boring parts. Everyone has tummy trouble. Everyone waits in line. I don’t want to hear about it.”

Here’s a jumping-off point for personal travel essays:

  • Taking the Great American Roadtrip (Smithsonian)

Have a burning opinion to share? Sometimes publications end up giving op-eds to staff, but there are always open calls for opinion pieces.

Travel op-eds are much rarer than political opinion pieces, but there’s a pattern to the ones that make the cut: good persuasive writing. If you can come at a topic from a unique angle (and argue your case clearly) then you may be able to publish your opinion.

If you’re in the mood for travel op-ed articles, see:

  • The West Coast Is The Best Coast For Food In America (Food & Wine)
  • Why Climate Change Is Actually Relevant To Travel (Conde Nast)

Travel Blogging

Types of Travel Writing - Malaysia

When typing “travel blog” into Google returns 295 million results, we can guess it’s a fairly competitive market.

Here’s the plus side: bloggers get to write what they want and go where they please. When it comes to blog posts, there are no editors, no gatekeepers. Only you and the “PUBLISH” button.

We won’t go revisit the types of travel writing we covered earlier (such as the roundup format). Instead, we’ll explore some of the other formats bloggers use to tell their travel stories. Since the rules of travel blogging are next to non-existent, our tally below is by no means definitive. And, again, our best advice is to note what your favorite bloggers do on their blogs.

Already running a successful travel blog? You might consider turning it into a full-length book !

How-to articles are already fairly popular in magazines, but they’re positively omnipresent in the travel blogging world. Blogs provide a direct communication platform, allowing trust to build up quicker with the readers. As a result, for the search query, “How to travel Europe on a budget,” six out of the top ten results are posts from trusted independent blogs.

A How-To article is the most standard form of advice column a travel blogger can produce. It’s intrinsically useful, promising that it’ll teach something by article’s end. A blogger’s challenge is delivering fully on that promise.

How to read more How-To articles? We got you covered:

  • How To Start A Travel Blog (Nomadic Matt)
  • How To Travel Solo To A Party Destination (Adventurous Kate)
  • How to Visit Penang’s Kek Lok Si Temple (Migrationology)

Itineraries

Itineraries reveal the schedule that the writer took at a given destination, city-by-city or sight-by-sight. They’re meant for the traveler who’s embarking on a similar trip and needs a template. Typically, you’ll find that an itinerary post is an easy place for you to slip in recommendations, anything from the accommodation you used or the restaurants you tried.

You can use itinerary posts to reinforce your blog’s brand. For instance, an itinerary posted on a blog focused around budget travel will probably maximize cost-saving chances.

For more itineraries, see:

  • My Trip To Japan (A Complete Japan Itinerary)
  • Backpacking Vietnam on a budget: 2-3 Weeks Itinerary + Tips

Longform posts

Longform travel blogging tells a travel story through extended narrative content, as it takes a week’s worth of adventure and shapes it into a story. Longform blog posts about travel often end up being creative nonfiction : a way to present nonfiction — factually accurate prose about real people and events — in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner.

Photography can add another dimension to the form, as Emmanuel Nataf (our co-founder!) shows on his travel blog . And Reedsy's very own Arielle provides a glimpse into why she prefers longform travel writing on her blog, Steps, a Travel Journal :

My favourite kinds of stories are the ones that give you a real sense of place. That’s why I enjoy longform travel blogging: I get to describe the character of a place through the experiences I encountered there.

If you want to dip your toe into the sea of longform posts, you can also read:

  • The Cow Head Taco Philosopher King of Oaxaca (Legal Nomads)
  • The Best Worst Museum In The World

Types of Travel Writing - Hot Air

When it comes to writing a book, you can take all the challenges about travel writing from above and magnify it times 2,000. If you’re asking readers to commit to you for more than 100 pages, you’d best make sure that your book is worth their while.

As far as examples go, travel writing’s boomed in the mainstream book market recently. But there’s much more to it than Eat, Pray, Love and its descendants.

Travelogues

In travelogues, authors record their adventures in a way that illustrates or sheds insight upon the place itself. Travelogues possess a storied past, from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters in 1763 to Mark Twain’s 1867 The Innocents Abroad , which paved the way for the sort of comic travelogues that Bill Bryson’s perfected today.

Up for some travelogues? Check out:

  • Notes From A Small Island , by Bill Bryson
  • In Patagonia , by Bruce Chatwin
  • Travels with Charley In Search of America , by John Steinbeck

Travel memoirs

Nowadays, travel memoirs are practically synonymous with Elizabeth Gilbert’s wildly popular Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling Wild , both of which were recently adapted into Hollywood blockbusters.

That said, be aware that you’ll need a pretty exceptional personal story for your memoir to compete in today’s market . If you’re still set on writing or self-publishing a travel memoir, it’s tricky to balance personal backstory and travel for 400 pages, so think about taking on a professional for a second pair of eyes.

Did you know? You can find Nicki Richesin , a top Bloomsbury editor who’s edited for Cheryl Strayed, on our marketplace.

In addition to Eat, Pray, Love and Wild , you can read:

  • Under the Tuscan Sun , by Frances Mayes
  • Coasting , by Jonathan Raban
  • Wind, Sand, and Stars , by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As Oscar Wilde said, “I never travel without my diary. One should always keep something sensational to read in the train.” But these days, people are replacing diaries with travel guides — the ubiquitous Lonely Planet becoming one of the more common sights on transit.

Travel writing in guidebooks is straightforward, informative, and fact-filled. In addition, a certain amount of responsibility comes with the job. Lonely Planet alone is read by millions of travelers worldwide.

General Tips and Guidelines

Types of Travel Writing - Chile

As we mentioned before, the trick to producing great travel writing is ultimately simply writing well . To that extent, you should make sure to follow all the guidelines of good writing — not least, spell-checking your article before submitting or publishing it anywhere. You don’t want an editor or reader to see it while it stilll reads lik edis.

Also, keep in mind the tone, style, and vibe of the publication and platform (and by extension, your audience). A story about a moon-rock could go into a kid's magazine or it could go into Scientific America .

Finally, some category-specific tips:

  • If you’re freelance writing, always check submission guidelines. Publications may accept only pitches or they may welcome articles “on spec” (pre-written articles). Some sources only take travel articles that were written within 6 months of the trip.
  • If you’re blogging, brand your website (same advice if you’re an author who’s building a homepage ).
  • If you’re writing a book, get a professional editor! An unedited book is an unwieldy thing, and professional eyes provide direction, continuity, and assonance. ( Layout designers can be important if you’re publishing a travel photography book, in the meanwhile.)

Travel writing isn't a cinch. In fact, it's a long and often hard grind. But by figuring out what type of travel writing you want to try your hand at, you're taking the crucial first step.

7 responses

Amanda Turner says:

20/03/2018 – 16:20

Thank you, this was very helpful. Here's one of mine: http://vagabondingwithkids.com/every-mothers-guide-to-piranha-fishing-in-the-amazon/

Travalerie says:

24/05/2018 – 18:42

I landed on this page Googling for one thing and coming up with another. Haha! But what I found instead was helpful as I'm devouring as much as I can on travel writing. A few months ago, I started a new travel business, revamped my website including a new blog, and am in the process of writing, writing, writing. I took 2 trips this year so far and wrote what seemed like a mini-novella. Burning out in the process. I know I can do better. But I had no idea what I was writing could be re-worked to fit a certain category of travel writing -- which is what I found helpful in this post above. Thanks https://www.travalerie.com/blog

Surya Thakur says:

04/03/2019 – 12:39

Very good information. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon). I’ve saved as a favorite for later! KuLLuHuLLs

David Bishop says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

Thanks for this good article. I'm in my third year on the road and recently started my senior solo adventure travel website. I think my site has some pretty good stuff, of course. Take a look and tell me what you think. www.davidhunterbishop.com

Iris C. Permuy says:

23/05/2019 – 18:03

Thank you very much for all of these useful pieces of advice. I will make sure to implement them all on my travel blog, which is a combination of travel and gastronomy and uses the memoir and itinerary types, apart from recipes. Come check it out if you feel like it! I am more than open, eager for some professional feedback :)

Serissa says:

26/10/2019 – 14:53

This post is the perfect diving board for aspiring travel writers. I plan to link to this page from my travel blog if that is alright! ?? The link on my website will appear as "[title of this post] by Reedsy Blog". I assume this is alright, but if not, please email me directly to let me know! Thanks so much!

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

29/10/2019 – 10:11

We'd be absolutely delighted if you shared this article on your blog :)

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WHAT IS TRAVEL WRITING? "It's not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar."                                                                            HENRY DAVID THOREAU Before we discuss what travel writing is, perhaps we should say what it isn�t. Travel writing isn�t writing about your family�s vacation. It isn�t writing about what you liked or didn�t like about your last trip. And it definitely isn�t about writing about destinations so that you can travel for free. Travel writing is writing about places, persons, and things in other places--also writing about how to travel, when to travel, and advice on traveling�all with the reader in mind. It�s about relaying your travel experiences to others so that they may emulate them or at the very least not make the same mistakes you did. And it�s writing about things in your own back yard that are exotic to everyone else---a local farmer's market, historic site, restaurant, museum. To be a good travel writer, you need to be ON all the time, not just when you want to. When you�re on vacation, you do what you want when you want. You�re mind focuses on the place you�re visiting only when it wants to. But to interpret a destination for your readers, you have to look for new angles on the same old things while at the same time sharing your pleasure with your readers. But before we go further into travel writing, we need to take a look at the readers that will devour what you say about a place. There are three parts to the communication process�the sender (the writer), the receiver (the reader), and the message. When you were in school, you subconsciously learned that the writer was the most important part of the process because in academic writing, that�s the case. But in general writing, including travel writing, the reader is the most important part of the process. If a writer doesn�t think about the reader before writing, the reader most likely won�t be interested or might possibly not understand what the writer is saying. How did travel writing begin? Travel has a long history. People have always traveled--from ancient caravansaries to modern resorts. But travel writing began, more or less, during Elizabethan times. Shakepeare got much of the background material for his plays, such as the "Merchant of Venice" and "Romeo and Juliet" from Elizabethan travel guides to Italy. Why is it needed? Travel writing celebrates the differences in manners and customs around the world. It helps the reader to understand other people and places. And it helps readers plan their own trips and avoid costly mistakes while traveling. But, most of all, it lets readers travel to far-off destinations that they may never see.

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Travel Writing by Alasdair Pettinger LAST REVIEWED: 31 July 2019 LAST MODIFIED: 31 July 2019 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846719-0119

A minimal definition of travel writing might be any account of a journey or description of a place that is based on firsthand experience. As such, it may be found in many different kinds of text: diaries, letters, postcards, newspaper and magazine articles, blogs, essays, official reports, promotional brochures, and ethnographies, as well as travel books. Travel writing is often distinguished from guidebooks on the one hand and imaginative fiction, drama, and poetry on the other, but the term may sometimes include them, especially when discussing writings from before the 19th century, when such distinctions would have carried less weight with authors and readers. While it has long served as a vital source material by historians and biographers, travel writing rarely, even in those cultural histories documenting the “images” of or “attitudes” toward “other” races or nationalities that proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s, attracted the kind of close critical attention commonly given to literary fiction until the 1980s, coinciding with several related developments. First, there was an increasingly politicized self-questioning within literary studies and anthropology, combined with an interdisciplinary theoretical sophistication. Second, beyond the academy, there was a surge in popularity of literary travel writing, associated with authors such as Bruce Chatwin, Jonathan Raban, Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, and others, promoted especially in the English-speaking world by Granta magazine. Within two decades, travel-writing studies could claim to be an academic discipline in its own right, with dedicated journals, textbooks, research centers, and conferences. If most of the influential early studies were dominated by anglophone critics studying anglophone texts, the field has since broadened significantly. Nevertheless, many studies of travel writing, without announcing it in their titles, continue to be largely concerned with English-speaking authors, often British. The reasons for restricting their scope in this way are rarely explicitly addressed; it is as if this is a default position for the scholars concerned rather than because “British and Irish travel writing” is a coherent object of study as such. As in many other fields, “British” is often used when “English” would be more accurate, and “English” sometimes silently includes texts that might be better described as Scottish, Welsh, or Irish.

The growth of travel-writing studies as an academic discipline has generated a number of general introductions to the subject aimed at students, typically offering a combination of historical overviews and discussions of key topics such as genre, techniques of representation, narrative organization, the relationship with the reader, and the treatment of race, nation, and gender. Blanton 1997 , Gannier 2001 , and Thompson 2011 provide the most-approachable introductions, while Hulme and Youngs 2002 , Youngs 2013 , Thompson 2015 , and Das and Youngs 2019 survey the field in more depth and reflect its shifting preoccupations. Most of these works acknowledge the difficulty in defining “travel writing.” Borm 2004 makes a case for a broad definition that includes fictional as well as nonfictional writing, but the decision made in Youngs 2013 to restrict it to “predominantly factual, first-person prose accounts that have been undertaken by the author-narrator” (p. 3) is more typical.

Blanton, Casey. Travel Writing: The Self and the World . Studies in Literary Themes and Genres 15. New York: Twayne, 1997.

Short historical overview, focusing on “the modern travel book,” with close readings of texts by James Boswell, Mary Kingsley, Graham Greene, Peter Matthiessen, V. S. Naipaul, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, and Roland Barthes. Includes useful list of recommended titles and a survey of critical scholarship.

Borm, Jan. “Defining Travel: On the Travel Book, Travel Writing and Terminology.” In Perspectives on Travel Writing . Edited by Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs, 13–26. Studies in European Cultural Transition 19. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.

Argues for a broad definition of “travel writing” (or “travel literature”) to include “texts both predominantly fictional and non-fictional whose main theme is travel” (p. 13), while restricting the terms “travel book” or “travelogue” to predominantly nonfictional narratives.

Das, Nandini, and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge History of Travel Writing . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

The thirty-six essays here collectively showcase the latest scholarship on the genre, exhibiting historical depth and a truly global reach, extending well beyond North American and Western European authors. Includes sections that examine writings about different kinds of places, analyze a wide range of literary forms, and profile a selection of critical approaches.

Gannier, Odile. La littérature de voyage . Thèmes & Études. Paris: Ellipses, 2001.

Short introduction, drawing on mainly francophone examples but tackling general issues such as the definition of travel writing, the relationship between author and reader, representation, language, and tourism.

Hulme, Peter, and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing . Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Fifteen essays by leading scholars in the field, arranged in three sections dealing with particular historical periods, key geographical regions, and general topics (gender, ethnography, and theory). Includes useful chronology and extensive guide to further reading.

Thompson, Carl. Travel Writing . New Critical Idiom. New York: Routledge, 2011.

DOI: 10.4324/9780203816240

A concise introduction that offers a broad historical overview and discussions of major topics such as the definition of the genre, authority and veracity, representation of the self and the other, and gender. Close readings of a small group of texts by representative authors from William Dampier to Bill Bryson.

Thompson, Carl, ed. The Routledge Companion to Travel Writing . Routledge Literature Companions. London: Routledge, 2015.

Forty-two essays that approach the subject from a wide range of historical, geographical, theoretical, thematic, and stylistic perspectives. Especially important for its coverage of themes (ethics, corporeality) and subgenres (guidebooks, blogs, dark tourism) that are relatively new areas of interest to travel-writing scholars.

Youngs, Tim. The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing . Cambridge Introductions to Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

An impressive condensation of a wide range of scholarship, illustrated by insightful readings of representative primary texts from the Middle Ages to the early 21st century. Reflects more-recent trends with its attention to travel writers of non-European descent and closes by identifying some emerging developments that are likely to be important in the coming decades.

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World literatures: travel writing, course description.

This semester, we will read writing about travel and place from Columbus’s Diario through the present. Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the …

This semester, we will read writing about travel and place from Columbus’s Diario through the present. Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the pressures of a real world only marginally under their control. Whether the traveler is a curious tourist, the leader of a national expedition, or a starving, half-naked survivor, the encounter with place shapes what travel writing can be. Accordingly, we will pay attention not only to narrative texts but to maps, objects, archives, and facts of various kinds.

Our materials are organized around three regions: North America, Africa and the Atlantic world, the Arctic and Antarctic. The historical scope of these readings will allow us to know something not only about the experiences and writing strategies of individual travelers, but about the progressive integration of these regions into global economic, political, and knowledge systems. Whether we are looking at the production of an Inuit film for global audiences, or the mapping of a route across the North American continent by water, these materials do more than simply record or narrate experiences and territories: they also participate in shaping the world and what it means to us.

Authors will include Olaudah Equiano, Caryl Philips, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Joseph Conrad, Jamaica Kincaid, William Least Heat Moon, Louise Erdrich, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.

Expeditions will include those of Lewis and Clark (North America), Henry Morton Stanley (Africa), Ernest Shackleton and Robert F. Scott (Antarctica).

A photo of the Earth as seen from space.

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The Power of Travel Writing: Why It Matters

Travel is a powerful thing — it can open our eyes to new cultures, give us a much-needed break from the everyday grind, and even inspire us to take on new adventures. But travel can also be expensive, unpredictable, and intimidating, especially for those who prefer to explore the world from the comfort of their own home. It is for this reason that travel writing has become increasingly important.

Travel writing offers a way for readers to experience the world from their armchair, learning about distant lands, their cultures, and the people who inhabit them. By reading about someone else’s travels, readers can gain insight into the places they may never have been to and can even be inspired to visit them one day.

Cheap flights with cashback

Travel writing is also important in its ability to challenge readers to think differently and broaden their horizons. It can be used to show readers how other people live, what they believe, and how they go about their daily lives. For instance, a travel writer might discuss the issues facing the people of a certain country, such as poverty, political strife, or human rights abuses. By reading such stories, readers can gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and the issues that affect it.

Travel writing can also be used to share stories of discovery and self-exploration. Often, travel writers will document their own experiences as they explore a new country or culture, giving readers an intimate look into their own thoughts and feelings as they navigate the unfamiliar. By reading such stories, readers can gain an appreciation for the different ways of life found around the world and can even be inspired to embark on their own journey of self-discovery.

Finally, travel writing can be a powerful form of escapism. By reading about a distant land or culture, readers can take a mental break from their own lives and be transported to a different place and time. This can be especially helpful for those who are looking for a way to relax and unwind, or to gain some much-needed perspective.

In conclusion, travel writing is an important tool for readers to learn about and explore the world, challenge their preconceptions, and gain insight into other cultures. It can also be a way to escape the everyday and be transported to a different place and time. For these reasons, travel writing is an invaluable resource for those who wish to experience the world without ever leaving home.

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travel writing noun

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What does the noun travel writing mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun travel writing . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

How common is the noun travel writing ?

Where does the noun travel writing come from.

Earliest known use

The earliest known use of the noun travel writing is in the late 1700s.

OED's earliest evidence for travel writing is from 1776, in London Review of English & Foreign Literature .

travel writing is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: travel n. , writing n.

Nearby entries

  • travel sick, adj. 1833–
  • travel sickness, n. 1894–
  • travel-size, adj. 1918–
  • travel-sized, adj. 1942–
  • travel system, n. 1993–
  • travel time, n. 1851–
  • travel-to-work area, n. 1955–
  • travel trailer, n. 1936–
  • travelway, n. 1815–
  • travel writer, n. 1711–
  • travel writing, n. 1776–
  • travers, n. 1842–
  • traversa, n. 1595–
  • traversable, adj. a1500–
  • traversal, n. 1841–
  • traversant, adj. a1500
  • traversary, adj. 1839–93
  • traverse, n. a1393–
  • traverse, adj. a1450–
  • traverse, v. a1325–
  • traverse, adv. & prep. c1425–

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Meaning & use

Entry history for travel writing, n..

Originally published as part of the entry for travel, n.

travel writing, n. was first published in 2018.

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travel writing meaning and definition

  • Airline Travel

What Does 'Raw-Dogging' a Flight Mean? All About the Viral Travel Trend

Plane passengers are boasting about going without any form of entertainment in the air

For most travelers, a long flight means browsing the on-demand movie offerings, binge-watching Netflix on their phone, or just listening to a podcast.

Not so for “raw-doggers.”

A new TikTok trend sees plane passengers boasting about enduring an entire flight without any form of entertainment or distraction: no phone, no tv, no books, no music. Some even forgo the free snacks.

“Just raw-dogged a 7-hour flight (new personal best),” a U.K.-based DJ named Wudini announced in a video posted June 4 that now has more than 13 million views. “No headphones, no movie, no water, nothing.”

Numerous other TikTokers have been documenting their activity-free flights for the past several months. “My beige flag is that I raw dog flights,” wrote Veronica Skaia in January. “No headphones. No movies. I just stare into the abyss for hours and watch the little gps plane.”

Australian musician Torren Foot also got in on the trend, writing on Tuesday, June 25, “Just raw dogged it, 15hr flight to Melbourne, no music, no movies, just flight map (I counted to 1 million twice).” 

A TikTok user named Michelle took to the social media platform to comment on how few of her fellow passengers seemed to be watching anything other than the flight map during a five-hour trip from New York to San Francisco. 

“I have never seen so many people raw-dogging a flight in my life,” she wrote. “Literally just staring straight ahead the entire time?”

Another TikToker who goes by West shared in May that he’d “successfully completed” a seven-hour flight viewing only the flight maps.

“Anyone else bareback flights?” he wondered in the accompanying caption, seemingly introducing some new borrowed jargon for the movement.

“I've got DMs on Instagram like, ‘Bro, you need to teach us how to bareback flights,’” West told GQ .

“I got sick of watching the same movies,” he added, comparing the quiet flying style to meditation. “Visually, you are kind of impaired. You only get to look at the seat in front of you, to your right or left if you're at the window. All you hear is that drumming sound of the engine. It's just white noise.”

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The trend prompted some social media users to reminisce about a memorable TV character who was an early adopter of raw-dogging flights: David Puddy, Elaine Benes’ on-and-off beau on Seinfeld. 

In the season 9 episode “The Butter Shave,” Puddy (Patrick Warburton) irritated Elaine ( Julia Louis-Dreyfus ) by refusing her offer of something to read while flying home from a European vacation, opting instead to simply stare straight ahead.

“Respectfully, you are not ‘rawdogging’ if you watch the flight map,” read one post on X (formerly Twitter). “Puddy was staring at the back of the seat in front of him. man up.”

SME definition

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99% of all businesses in the EU. The definition of an SME is important for access to finance and EU support programmes targeted specifically at these enterprises.

What is an SME?

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are defined in the EU recommendation 2003/361 .

The main factors determining whether an enterprise is an SME are

  • staff headcount
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These ceilings apply to the figures for individual firms only. A firm that is part of a larger group may need to include staff headcount/turnover/balance sheet data from that group too.

Further details include

  • The revised user guide to the SME definition (2020) (2 MB, available in all EU languages)
  • Declaring your enterprise to be an SME (the form is available in all languages as an annex in the revised user guide)
  • The SME self-assessment tool which you can use to determine whether your organisation qualifies as a small and medium-sized enterprise

What help can SMEs get?

There are 2 broad types of potential benefit for an enterprise if it meets the criteria

  • eligibility for support under many EU business-support programmes targeted specifically at SMEs: research funding, competitiveness and innovation funding and similar national support programmes that could otherwise be banned as unfair government support ('state aid' – see block exemption regulation )
  • fewer requirements or reduced fees for EU administrative compliance

Monitoring of the implementation of the SME definition

The Commission monitors the implementation of the SME definition and reviews it in irregular intervals. Pursuant to the latest evaluation, the Commission concluded that there is no need for a revision.

On 25 October 2021, we informed stakeholders by holding a webinar with presentations on the SME evaluation's results and next steps.

Supporting documents

  • Study to map, measure and portray the EU mid-cap landscape (2022)
  • Staff working document on the evaluation of the SME definition  (2021)
  • Executive summary on the evaluation of the SME definition  (2021)
  • Q&A on the evaluation of the SME definition  (2021)
  • Final report on evaluation of the SME definition  (2018) (10 MB)
  • Final report on evaluation of the SME definition (2012)  (1.8 MB)
  • Executive summary on evaluation of the SME definition (2012)  (345 kB)
  • Implementing the SME definition (2009)  (50 kB)
  • Implementing the SME definition (2006)  (40 kB)

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COMMENTS

  1. Introduction (Chapter 1)

    What is travel writing? Travel writing, one may argue, is the most socially important of all literary genres. It records our temporal and spatial progress. It throws light on how we define ourselves and on how we identify others. Its construction of our sense of 'me' and 'you', 'us' and 'them', operates on individual and ...

  2. What You Should Know About Travel Writing

    Thomas Swick. "The best writers in the field [of travel writing] bring to it an indefatigable curiosity, a fierce intelligence that enables them to interpret, and a generous heart that allows them to connect. Without resorting to invention, they make ample use of their imaginations. . . . "The travel book itself has a similar grab bag quality.

  3. What is Travel Writing?

    Travel writing is a genre of writing that captures the essence of a place and its culture, through the eyes of the writer. It's a blend of journalism, storytelling, and personal reflection that provides readers with an immersive experience of the destination. Whether it's a guidebook, an essay, or a memoir, travel writing offers a unique ...

  4. Travel Writing Definition, Development & Examples

    Travel writing is a specific nonfiction genre where the writer describes a location and its people, customs, and culture. It is an old genre that goes back thousands of years to ancient Greece and ...

  5. What is Travel Writing?

    Besides, travel writing is a form of creative nonfiction in which the narrator's encounters with foreign places serve as the dominant subject. It is also called travel literature or tourism writing. Travel writing has a way of transporting the reader to new places. When done well, it can inspire others to explore, experience new things, and ...

  6. PDF Chapter 1 Introduction: Defining the terms

    all narratives'19 - leads Hulme to argue that an exclusive definition of literature and of travel writing is required. For texts to count as travel writing, Hulme believes, their authors must have travelled to the places they describe. There is, he insists, an ethical dimension to their claims to have made the journeys they recount.

  7. A Writer's Guide to Great Travel Writing

    Tips for travel writing. Open with a compelling and snappy anecdote or description to hook the reader's interest from the beginning. Give the reader a strong sense of where you are through vivid language. Ground the reader in time, in climate, and in the season. Introduce yourself to help the reader identify with you and explain the reason ...

  8. The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing

    Critics have long struggled to find a suitable category for travelogues. From its ancient origins to the present day, the travel narrative has borrowed elements from various genres - from epic poetry to literary reportage - in order to evoke distant cultures and exotic locales, and sometimes those closer to hand.

  9. What is travel writing, anyway?

    The definition of travel writing. Travel writing, by definition, is writing that describes places the author has visited and the experiences they had while travelling. While more traditional travel writing follows a narrative of one person's travels, modern travel writing has started to blur into a blog-style format, with a focus on advice ...

  10. 12 Types of Travel Writing Every Writer Should Know

    Round-ups. You'll recognize a round-up article when you see one, as it'll go, "40 best beaches in West Europe," or, perhaps, "20 of the greatest walks in the world!". It's a classic tool in any magazine or newspaper writer's toolbox, taking a bunch of destinations and grouping them all under one common thread.

  11. What is Travel Writing?

    Travel writing celebrates the differences in manners and customs around the world. It helps the reader to understand other people and places. And it helps readers plan their own trips and avoid costly mistakes while traveling. But, most of all, it lets readers travel to far-off destinations that they may never see.

  12. PDF Travel Writing 101

    editors explores how great travel writing leads to life-enriching experiences. • Why (and How) Travel Writing Moves Us - Don George, author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing explains why this genre has such an appeal. Writing assignment The best way to learn about travel writing is to read as much travel content as you can.

  13. Travel Writing

    Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004. Argues for a broad definition of "travel writing" (or "travel literature") to include "texts both predominantly fictional and non-fictional whose main theme is travel" (p. 13), while restricting the terms "travel book" or "travelogue" to predominantly nonfictional narratives. Das, Nandini, and ...

  14. Travel Writing

    TRAVEL WRITINGTravel writing is a difficult genre to classify as it shares in so many other genres. Histories, personal narratives, accounts of exploration, and tales of epic quests: travel writing derives from and adds to each of these forms. Travel writing has always been as much about the exploration of the writer's self as it has been about the places or peoples visited.

  15. Travel Writing Guide: 4 Tips for Travel Writing

    Teaches the Art of the Short Story. Teaches Storytelling and Humor. Teaches Writing for Television. Teaches Screenwriting. Teaches Fiction and Storytelling. Teaches Storytelling and Writing. Teaches Creating Outside the Lines. Teaches Writing for Social Change. Teaches Fiction, Memory, and Imagination.

  16. Non-fiction text types

    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 ...

  17. 15

    Summary. Introduction. 'Travel literature' is the significantly generic descriptor that has succeeded the Modern Language Association Bibliography's pre-1980s 'travel, treatment of'. But as a tool it cannot complete a search for relevant critical and theoretical materials. Very early in the contemporary resurgence of interest in travel writing ...

  18. World Literatures: Travel Writing

    Travel writing has some special features that will shape both the content and the work for this subject: reflecting the point of view, narrative choices, and style of individuals, it also responds to the pressures of a real world only marginally under their control. Whether the traveler is a curious tourist, the leader of a national expedition ...

  19. The Power of Travel Writing: Why It Matters

    In conclusion, travel writing is an important tool for readers to learn about and explore the world, challenge their preconceptions, and gain insight into other cultures. It can also be a way to escape the everyday and be transported to a different place and time. For these reasons, travel writing is an invaluable resource for those who wish to ...

  20. travel writing, n. meanings, etymology and more

    See 'Meaning & use' for definition, usage, and quotation evidence. See meaning & use. ... OED's earliest evidence for travel writing is from 1776, in London Review of English & Foreign Literature. travel writing is formed within English, by compounding. Etymons: travel n., writing n.

  21. Chapter 11

    Summary. What the travel book needs is not an elegiac history but the ground rules of an intelligent criticism. Crisis. Up to now, this volume has provided an historical overview of travel writing, offered a focus on enduring themes, and discussed travel writers' views and comments on their craft. The present chapter concentrates on what has ...

  22. What Does 'Raw-Dogging' a Flight Mean? All About the Viral Travel Trend

    "I got sick of watching the same movies," he added, comparing the quiet flying style to meditation. "Visually, you are kind of impaired. You only get to look at the seat in front of you, to ...

  23. Inflight 'raw dogging': The bizarre new travel trend that's creating a

    A growing contingent of young men on the internet claims to be eschewing all forms of entertainment while flying.

  24. SME definition

    The definition of an SME is important for access to finance and EU support programmes targeted specifically at these enterprises. What is an SME? Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are defined in the EU recommendation 2003/361. The main factors determining whether an enterprise is an SME are.