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Thomas Swick on Travel Writing: Arrival and First Impressions

South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick recently contributed a chapter about how to write compelling travel stories to the book “Travel Writing” (Leromi Publishing). The chapter is packed with great tips, and we’ll be publishing passages from it in the coming days.
Arrival and first impressions: Travel writers, when thought of at all, are seen as charmed figures, always moving, never stymied in front of an immigration officer (or computer screen). Travel writers, if we reflect at all, see ourselves as aimless, inconsequential, and nevertheless under-appreciated beings.

Once in the place, we are at sea. Business people have their meetings, aid workers their clinics, tourists their monuments. Even reporters have a specific story to cover: a crash, a kidnapping, a coup d’etat. Travel writers have no itineraries or obligations—mummies bore us, nobody’s expecting us (if we haven’t gotten our contacts)—and we have no leads, since we don’t know what our story is. We have to look for it, and, frequently, it is whatever happens to us.

So we mosey, wander, poke around. Walking is the first thing you should do when you arrive in a new place—not planning to see anything but hoping to see everything. It is in those initial hours that everything appears in sharp focus; after a few days, the world will return to its customary blur. So you walk and take in the facades, the doorways, the shop windows, the mannequins, the cars, the streetlamps. All the things that make this place different from home.

Walking is tiring, so after a while you take a rest (there’s a sidewalk café right over there). Sitting, too, is important: it takes you out of the passing parade, so you can observe its individual features better. What are the people wearing? How do they walk? (Slowly? Sleekly? Slouchily?) Do they greet by kissing or shaking hands? How many kisses?

Since you’re no longer navigating, you can concentrate more on all your senses. You’ve ordered a little snack, a local specialty, soaked in butter, that would be even more delicious if the smoke from your neighbor’s cigarette weren’t floating in a direct line to your nostrils while the strange wail of an ambulance sounds in the distance.

You pull out your notebook and describe, perhaps even sketch, the scene; you will never see it as clearly again. Be sure to jot down the name of the café and the street that it’s on—names can be as evocative as descriptions, part of the detail that will give your story not only authenticity but life.

Previously:
* Thomas Swick on Travel Writing: Where to Go
* Thomas Swick on Travel Writing: Pre-Trip Preparation

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