What Makes Great Travel Writing? - Travels with Bourdain
Write Your Way Around The World: How to write immersive and meaningful stories about place.
If you’re new here, every week I share tips, insights and actionable ideas on writing, travel writing and green travel through the lens of a novelist and travel writer (Lonely Planet, DK Travel, etc.) in three newsletters: Storycraft, Write Your Way Around the World and The Green Travel Guide. Welcome, and thanks for coming on the journey!
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.
Here’s a clip from the show:
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?
Great 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.
Suggested Reads
Anthony Bourdain wasn’t a traditional travel journalist in the magazine or newspaper sense, but he made a profound contribution to travel journalism through a mix of books, essays, and deeply narrative television writing. His work blurred the lines between memoir, cultural criticism, food writing, and travel reportage.
Here’s a breakdown of his major contributions to travel journalism in writing:
A Cook’s Tour (2001)
His first travel-focused book, written after Kitchen Confidential, based on his travels filming the Food Network series of the same name.
Structured as a series of essays recounting experiences in Vietnam, Russia, Morocco, Cambodia, and beyond. It’s full of voice, cultural observation, and tension.
“I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung River to the heart of darkness in Cambodia... I wanted to see the world - and I wanted the world to be just like the movies.”
The Nasty Bits (2006)
A collection of short essays, many previously published in magazines and newspapers (like The New York Times or GQ). It blends food and travel writing, with scenes set in Japan, Mexico, and England.
Often more philosophical, tackling the ethics of tourism, globalization, and cultural voyeurism.
Medium Raw (2010)
More reflective, but includes travel-themed chapters - especially on food as a lens for understanding identity and power.
Less about destinations, more about what travel had taught him over the years.
Article: Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Vietnam episode voice‑over transcript. Helps with writing a sense of place via scene. And if you’re not familiar with Bourdain’s writing, it’s a good introduction into how he wrote far beyond food when writing about place. He writes about history, about how war, conflict, challenges impact upon individual lives through storytelling.
Though visual, Bourdain’s scripts for No Reservations and Parts Unknown are considered landmark travel journalism—essays spoken over cinematic footage. These were written, edited, revised, and narratively driven.
His writing style:
Blended memoir, reportage, cultural critique, and historical context.
Focused on the politics of place, especially in episodes like:
Beirut (No Reservations) - filmed during the 2006 Lebanon War.
Congo (Parts Unknown) - where he confronts colonial legacies and travel’s ethical complications.
“There is no place in the world with a more unhappy history than the Congo... and no place more absurdly, tragically, spectacularly messed up - yet, as I hope you’ll see, no place more beautiful.”
(Parts Unknown, Season 1)
While Bourdain didn’t churn out traditional travel articles for glossy magazines, his books and especially his narrated storytelling on television represent some of the most thoughtful, literary, and ethically engaged travel journalism of the 21st century.
Joan Didion: The White Album (1979)
While not a traditional travel book, this essay collection captures California, America, and dislocation better than almost anyone. Didion’s writing about place is forensic - precise, haunting, disillusioned.
Why it’s relevant to travel/place writing:
Her essay on California (”Notes Toward a Dreampolitik”) show how politics and personal memory collide.
She’s less concerned with describing places than interrogating their meanings - often seeking to expose illusions we carry when we travel.
Pico Iyer: The Global Soul (2000)
Pico Iyer is perhaps the most philosophical of the three - a travel writer who rarely writes about tourism. The Global Soul is a profound meditation on globalization, rootlessness, and identity in transit.
Why it’s relevant:
It’s a book for the modern traveller - someone who doesn’t just visit places but lives between them.
He explores airports, border zones, hybrid cultures, and what it means to belong nowhere and everywhere.
A sharp contrast to Bourdain’s gritty immersion and Didion’s internal dislocation - Iyer intellectualises the condition of global drift.
“Home is not just the place where you happen to be born. It’s the place where you become yourself.”
Read also:
Video Night in Kathmandu (1988) — a classic collection of essays from Asia, observing the early effects of Western culture/globalisation.
What’s a piece of travel writing (or a scene from a travel show) that made you feel something you didn’t expect?
I put together a Guide to Travel Writing Clichés to Avoid - you can download a copy here.
Develop Your Travel Writing Skills
And if you want to build your travel writing knowledge, skills and understanding for your travel writing journey, then grab your copy of the Travel Writer’s Starter Kit + Pitch Pack here.
Travel Journal Club
For everyone travel journaling this week, here’s the weekly prompt to inspire you:
“What Do You Really See?”
Choose a place you’re in now—or one you’ve visited recently. Sit still for 10 minutes and write a scene without naming the place. Focus only on what you can see, hear, smell, or feel.
Then ask yourself:
What assumptions am I making about this place?
How does my mood shape what I notice?
What isn’t here that I expected?
✦ Challenge: Try to write the moment from the perspective of someone who lives there. What shifts?
Dig into voice, observation and self-awareness.
Also this week:
This week’s Storycraft took a diversion from the Mini-Series on Lessons from Great Writing to explore some of Italy’s most beautiful and historic libraries (along with some Italian reading recommendations).
The Green Travel Guide travelled to the Arctic Circle in search of the Midnight Sun; explored Scandinavian adventures, iconic train journeys, India in Autumn, Slow Food in Italy, Lebanon & Vietnam, Walking & Cycling Trip suggestions in Ireland, Spain and Austria, plus the Explorers’ Club.
In case you missed it:
Last week’s Write Your Way Around the World shared 25 Ways for Travelling Writers to Fund their Travels.
And on Notes I’ve been sharing photos from weekend hikes in the Balearics and tips on how to write with more intention and purpose
Things I loved on Substack This Week:
I really loved this wonderful piece from Kelly at Benthall Slow Travel about how you can build community as you travel, and make a difference and a positive impact in See Good, Do Good
Feasts and Fables gorgeous photos from Turkey of Ephesus caught my eye. Currently learning Turkish. It’s one of my favourite countries, and loved these atmospheric images. Çok güzel!
This piece from Ibtissam on how instagram is negatively affecting travel locations and how we can be more mindful as travellers is such a great and important piece. Recommend you give it a read.
And many, many more… Thank you so much to all who have read, commented, subbed, liked, shared and restacked. Greatly appreciated! ❤️
If you’re new to Write Your Way Around The World a good place to start is Think You’re Not a Travel Writer? Think Again and download your free masterclass on breaking into travel writing here.
What You’ll Learn Here — Every Tuesday
Every Tuesday in Write Your Way Around The World, I share:
Practical guidance on writing craft, pitching, editing, and freelancing
Encouragement for staying resilient and consistent as a writer
Real talk about money, mindset, rejection, and career-building
Inspiration from great travel writing and emerging trends
Resources to help you go further, faster
Future weeks will dig deep into how to make a living doing this, how to get published, how to find your niche/s or not (just write what you love), how to turn your travel notes into paid work. Let me know which topics you would like to know more about.
Happy writing!
Laura
Laura McVeigh
Author, Travel Writer, Storytelling Coach
lauramcveigh.com | lauramcveightravel.com | travel-writing.com | greentravelguides.world
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.
Love this post. So helpful. In Dhaka I’m surrounded by the most stimulating sights and sounds and reading this makes me want to journal immediately but I’m putting my kid to sleep so I’ll do it tomorrow :)
Laura, this was such an inspiring deep dive — thank you for this. I love how you framed "voice" as the heart of travel writing, not just the place. It reminded me why I started writing about slow travel in the first place — to capture how being there changes who we are, not just where we go.
And I have to say, I love Anthony Bourdain too. I know he’s polarizing — we actually saw him speak live once, and honestly, he wasn’t the greatest. But that’s partly why I loved it. He did things that made him uncomfortable, and there’s something deeply human about that.