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.
Pre-trip preparation: As soon as you’ve decided where to go, you start your research. You read the guidebooks, just like a tourist. But you also read history books and novels set in the place. (If it’s a foreign country, read both those by English-language authors—you will not be at this long before you run into Graham Greene—and those in translation.) Travel books are, of course, also important, but stick with the older ones; anything written within the last few years will be too close for your own visit, and you don’t want another person’s impressions coloring your own.

If it’s a trip in the United States, get a hold of a local Sunday paper before you go. Online publications will be no help, because you will not be interested in the news—news is the same everywhere. You want the arts section (what are people there seeing?), the book section (what are they reading?), and the advertisements (what are they buying?). A New Mexico paper will carry lists of New Age meetings; a South Florida paper will include names and establishments specializing in liposuction and breast enlargement—each tells you something specific about the place.

If you’ve chosen a country whose people don’t speak English, learn some of the language. A few basic words help immeasurably in everyday transactions, and, as you’ll find if you go deeper into your study, both vocabulary and grammar reveal a lot about the culture.

It is also important to pore over maps; they give you a sense of the layout, a feel for your subject before you’ve seen it. Films can be as transporting and illuminating as literature—especially foreign ones—and CDs can fill your home with the music that will soon be your daily soundtrack. The idea is to immerse yourself as completely as possible in the place before you leave home.

There are some travel writers who tell everyone they meet where they’re headed next—for two reasons (three if they’re braggarts). One, it’s interesting to hear other people’s perceptions. (For those taking the unsung route, a “Huh? Why you going there?” is the sweetest sound imaginable.)

Two, you’d be surprised how often someone says he has a cousin or an old sparring partner in your new favorite place. And, like that, you have your first contact. Get names, numbers, and e-mail addresses. The more contacts you collect the better (and the more you travel the wider your web of contacts becomes). Some will not pan out: the address has changed; the phone’s been disconnected; they’re on vacation; they can only see you for an hour, and they’re as dull, it turns out, as your Sunday travel section. But others will be eloquent experts, tour guides manqué, kindred spirits. The travel writer’s best friend is, often, a friend of a friend.

--Thomas Swick is the author of A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania with a Maverick Traveler and Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland. Earlier this year, he was a guest blogger on World Hum, and he has been featured in a World Hum interview.

Previously:
* Thomas Swick on Travel Writing: Where to Go