What is a travelogue?

A travelogue is a truthful account of an individual’s experiences traveling, usually told in

the past tense and in the first person.

The word travelogue supposedly comes from a combination of the two

words travel and monologue. In turn, the word monologue comes from the Greek
words monos (alone) and logos (speech, word). A travelogue is then, in its most basic
form, a spoken or written account of an individual’s experiences traveling, which usually
appears in the past tense, in the first person, and with some verisimilitude.
Because a travelogue aims to be a true account of an individual’s experiences traveling,
descriptions of what the traveler sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels in the external world
while traveling are essential components.
Of course, thoughts, feelings, and reflections are important parts of our experience of
travel. So, descriptions of a traveler’s inner world are not out-of-place in the travelogue.

Likewise, notes and observations on history, society, and culture are also common
features of travelogues, as we certainly learn about the world when we travel.

If you want to write a better travel stories, check out our tips to write better travelogues.
What are the types of travelogue?
A travelogue can exist in the form of a book, a blog, a diary or journal, an article or
essay, a podcast, a lecture, a narrated slide show, or in virtually every written or spoken
form of creation.

There are many examples of travelogues online in the form of “travel blogs.”

However, not all travel blogs are travelogues in the pure sense of the term because some
of their authors are less concerned with giving personal accounts of their own
experiences traveling than capturing internet search traffic by providing tips, advice, or
practical information about travel.

For example, they claim to present the “best things to do” in a particular destination
instead of “what I did” there. Though, some travel blogs do publish hybrid travelogues
that also provide tips and advice in order to market their travel services.

Travelogue books
Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad is a good example of a travelogue in book form.
While it was published as a book in the 19th century, it is perhaps best characterized as
a travelogue by today’s standards and not as a modern travel book. The frontispiece of
the first edition in 1869 explains why:

The Innocents
Abroad Frontispiece
In The Innocents Abroad, Twain gives us and “account of the steamship Quaker City’s
pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land; with descriptions of countries, nations,
incidents and adventures, as they appeared to the author.” It is a descriptive account of
his travels and thoughts, sometimes funny and often bigoted. He tells us what he saw and
what he felt while also offering historical and cultural remarks on the places he visited.
While it is well-written, I’m not sure the book has a story, a plot, a narrative arc, or a
storyline that holds everything together. These are features seldom found in travelogues,
R. K. Wilson reminds us in his 1973 study The Literary Travelogue.
A destination isn’t a story. Neither is simply going from one place to another.

Instead, The Innocents Abroad is an account of Twain’s holiday, written as if were a

letter to his mother half a world away. “Dear Mom,” we imagine the book starting.
Oh, wait:
 Th
e Innocents Abroad Dedication to “My Aged Mother”

Travelogues vs. travel books

As we have seen in the example above, a travelogue can exist in the form of a book. But
this does not mean that it is the same thing as a travel book as we understand it today.
Indeed, terms like travelogue and travel book often get conflated. “Even [E.M.] Forster is
uncertain what to call these things,” Paul Fussell wrote in his book Abroad. “In 1941 he
calls them travelogues, in 1949 travel books.” Like Forster, Fussell conflates the terms.
In the last 100 years or so, we have seen the travel book evolve from the travelogue and
mature into a more rarefied thing with its own set of stylistic and formal expectations.
Carl Thompson calls this the modern travel book, a concept he discusses in the early
chapters of his academic study Travel Writing.
While it can appear in book form and evoke a day-to-day account like a logbook, a ship’s
log, or a captain’s log, a travelogue does not necessarily have the formal dimensions and
stylistic conceits of the modern travel book.
A travelogue does not necessarily have the formal
dimensions and stylistic conceits of the modern travel
book.
This is not to say that travelogues are not insightful or uninteresting. Quite the opposite.
They are incredibly revealing and can expose a tremendous amount of information about
the world, the writer, and the reader.

But the modern travel book is a different beast. Among other important distinctions,
modern travel books and modern travelogues have stories, plots, and through-lines. A
mission, quest, or journey isn’t a story in and of itself.
Perhaps making a distinction between a travelogue and the modern travel book is an
elitist or academic move. But perhaps it is no more pompous to say this than it is to say
that a modern novel has a specific form and style different from its earlier iterations.
Is the travel book a “sub-species of memoir,” as Fussell notes? Is travel writing even a
genre? How do travelogues fit into the travel writing landscape?

Travel writing historians and scholars do not agree upon the definitions and boundaries of
travel writing. The one thing they agree on is that there is no consensus on the definition.
To that point, Thompson writes, “the boundaries of the travel writing genre are fuzzy,
and there is little point in policing them too rigidly.”