How to Write Immersive and Meaningful Stories About Place
This week we’ll explore travel writing as craft: a meeting point of place, voice and story. What makes for some of the best travel writing?
Travel writing in the tradition of Anthony Bourdain, Joan Didion’s writing on place or Pico Iyer’s meditations on travel, goes well beyond where they went — it asks what they noticed and how they chose to tell it.
In this issue I’m asking: What makes travel writing worth reading in a world awash with content?
We’ll look at the ingredients of great travel writing, examine a short excerpt from Bourdain, then pull out ideas you can apply in your own work.
The Ingredients of Great Travel Writing
Travel writing can all too easily become checklist: I went here, I did that, look at this view.
But the strongest travel journalism/essays transcend the itinerary. They become memory, nuance, surprise, reflection.
Here are five key elements:
Voice
What stands out in memorable travel writing is less the location than who is looking and how.
Voice is your personality on the page: the way you see, react, hesitate, question.
Anthony Bourdain was a chef-turned-writer and TV host who redefined travel journalism by exploring the world through food, culture, and candid human connection. Known for his raw honesty and curiosity, he used storytelling to reveal the complexities, and contradictions, of place.
Bourdain didn’t just show exotic food; he showed his hunger, his skepticism, his curiosity. His voice jumps off the page.
When your voice works, even an “ordinary” place becomes interesting. When it’s missing, even a famous landmark can feel flat.
When you start a travel‑essay, ask: Why me here? What viewpoint am I bringing? What stakes (emotional or personal) do I have?
Observation
There’s a trap in travel writing: sweeping clichés and “hidden‑gem” jargon. Instead, you want to show what you see and feel, let the reader draw conclusions. Use sensory detail (smell, texture, sound), but keep it grounded.
Move from the general to the specific – the woman making the flatbread at the market stall, the motorbike idling next to it. Don’t just talk about the ‘bustling market’. Look at how Bourdain makes this work below.
Write a scene of five lines; then remove one adjective per line. See if it still jumps off the page.
Curiosity
Great travel writing is humble. It admits confusion, surprise, the fact you don’t know. Bourdain often emphasised that his work was less about mastering a place and more about trying to understand it.
You don’t have to fully “get” a culture or destination — but you do have to engage. That engagement creates tension: “What am I missing? What assumptions do I bring?”
We bring ourselves to every destination we travel to – our ideas, perspective, notions and expectations – try to step outside of that when you write, be aware.
Include a moment when you were wrong, surprised, or humbled. It will resonate.
Show the Scene
Instead of summarising (“The night market was busy”), show the scene: sit in a roadside stall, note the clatter of dishes, the smell of fish sauce, the chef in the kitchen. Scenes invite the reader into a moment.
Bourdain put it clearly in a voice‑over on his show:
“This is the way so many of the great meals of my life have been enjoyed. Sitting in the street, eating something out of a bowl that I’m not exactly sure what it is. Scooters going by. So delicious. I feel like an animal. Where have you been all my life? Fellow travelers, this is what you want. This is what you need. This is the path to true happiness and wisdom.”
That isn’t a summary of travel. It’s being there – as is the way this scene is painted, full of humanity:
“One of the great joys of life is riding a scooter through Vietnam.
To be part of this mysterious, thrilling, beautiful choreography. Thousands upon thousands of people — families, friends, lovers — each an individual story glimpsed for a second or two in passing, sliding alongside, pouring like a torrent through the city. A flowing, gorgeous thing.
As you ride, you not only see but overhear a hundred intimate moments in miniature. You smell wonderful, unnamed things cooking, issuing from store fronts and food stalls. The sounds of beeping, laughing. Announcements from speakers, the putt-putt and roar of a million tiny engines.”
See how he brings you right into the scene, into what it feels like to be there, the sense of connection, energy, life.
Identify three full senses (smell, sound, taste) in your next scene and build around them.
The Myth of Neutrality
Travel writing is not inherently neutral. When you’re a visitor — to another culture, country, community — your gaze matters. What do you assume? Whom do you centre? How do you handle difference?
travel writing asks: Am I just tasting a place as I wish it to be? Or am I meeting it on its terms?
Ask yourself: Who is missing in this scene? What do I not see? What assumptions am I bringing?
Here is another short excerpt from Bourdain’s Vietnam episode voice‑over (transcript).
“Welcome to my place of dreams. My spirit house. The city of ghosts. Huê in central Vietnam is someplace I’ve never been before. But it’s still Vietnam, where all the things, the smells, the sounds, the details, I love so much.”
“So back in Vietnam, one of my favourite places on earth. And all of the things I need for happiness. Little plastic stool, check. Tiny little plastic table, check. Ooh. Something delicious in a bowl. Check.”
What’s working?
Voice & tone – “city of ghosts”, “my spirit house” feel poetic but anchored: central Vietnam, a place he claims “I’ve never been before”. There’s vulnerability. We don’t just read about Vietnam; we feel the moment, the curiosity, uncertainty and engagement. The specific little details. Writing full of emotion. It feels personal.
What you can emulate:
- Start with an image that surprised you.
- Let sensory detail lead.
- Allow yourself to not know.
- End with not the summary of what you “learned”, but the question you’re left with.
When you are writing:
- Write what you see, not what you expect.
- Let discomfort into the narrative — if you feel out of place, lean into it.
- Structure your piece around a question, not a conclusion.
- Think in terms of scenes.
- Your confusion is part of the story, welcome it in, don’t hide it.
For clips from Bourdin’s travels, and for a recommended reading list and visuals, visit Write Your Way Around the World on Substack.
Laura McVeigh is an internationally bestselling Northern Irish novelist and travel writer. Her work is widely translated. Her latest novel Lenny is set between Libya and Louisiana. She has authored books for Lonely Planet, DK Travel, bylines in the Irish Times, Irish Independent, featured by the BBC, Newsweek, New Internationalist & many more. A former CEO for a global writers’ organisation, working with writers from 145 countries, she is founder of Travel-Writing.Com and Green Travel Guides. Laura writes on storytelling, travel writing and mindful travel on Substack.