Writing Abroad: A Guide for Travelers

by Peter Chilson, Joanne B. Mulcahy

“Tell me all about your trip!” It’s a request that follows travelers as they head out into the world, and one of the first things they hear when they return. When we leave our homes to explore the wider world, we feel compelled to capture the experiences and bring the story home. But for those who don’t think of themselves as writers, putting experiences into words can be more stressful than inspirational.
Writing Abroad is meant for travelers of all backgrounds and writing a student embarking on overseas study; a retiree realizing a dream of seeing China; a Peace Corps worker in Kenya. All can benefit from documenting their adventures, whether on paper or online. Through practical advice and adaptable exercises, this guide will help travelers hone their observational skills, conduct research and interviews, choose an appropriate literary form, and incorporate photos and videos into their writing.
Writing about travel is more than just safeguarding memories—it can transform experiences and tease out new realizations. With Writing Abroad , travelers will be able to deepen their understanding of other cultures and write about that new awareness in clear and vivid prose.

Genres: Travel, Writing, Reference

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2017

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book to read if you want to write meaningfully and professionally about your travels. It has many excellent exercises encouraging in-depth fieldwork, interviews of locals, research, reading about current events in newspapers, and much more. I hope I can take some of these exercises and improve on my own travel writing, digging deeper and being more observant, and keeping in-depth travel journals.

[Kimberly Tierney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely meant more for someone with the desire and intention of writing a book about a certain place or culture. I am not that much of a writer, but I still got some helpful tips from the book.

[Allan]

I usually don't write reviews of books I haven't, at least in part, read. In this case, I just want to create a bit of a placeholder for myself because I truly intend to flesh out this review, just as soon as I have read the book, and done some traveling, and quite possibly written about my travels. Until then, I will simply observe that I really like the concept of what the book appears to be about (traveling, writing, some combination thereof), and I find the cover illustration of the book to be pleasing and inviting. I have both traveled and written before, mind you, but the writing was about something else and I didn't take any notes about the places I traveled, and I've forgotten pretty much everything about my trips as far as the curious and colorful details that are the mark of good travel writing. All I can think of is those sheep in Ireland (I think) that had been spray painted with a gaudy combination of colors, presumably to distinguish them from the sheep belonging to someone else with a different color combination. Anyway, the effect was a little jarring, making the sheep seem especially unnatural in that setting. Not that I find sheep to look natural in any setting other than, perhaps, a large pen, but at least it's clear that you can't brand sheep!