Travelogue

Travel writing is a genre that is becoming increasingly popular. It seems that each week a new
travel book gets published and every day more writers are interested in writing one.

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. 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.

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.

Early examples of travel literature include the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (generally
considered a 1st century CE work; authorship is debated), Pausanias' Description of Greece in
the 2nd century CE, Safarnama (Book of Travels) by Nasir Khusraw (1003-1077), the Journey
Through Wales (1191) and Description of Wales (1194) by Gerald of Wales,The travel genre
was a fairly common genre in medieval Arabic literature.[

One of the earliest known records of taking pleasure in travel, of travelling for the sake of travel
and writing about it, is Petrarch's (1304–1374) ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336. He states that
he went to the mountaintop for the pleasure of seeing the top of the famous height. His
companions who stayed at the bottom he called frigida incuriositas ("a cold lack of curiosity").
He then wrote about his climb, making allegorical comparisons between climbing the mountain
and his own moral progress in life.

Travel books come in styles ranging from the documentary, to the literary, as well as the
journalistic, and from memoir to the humorous to the serious. They are often associated
with tourism and include guide books.[20] Travel writing may be found on web sites, in
periodicals, on blogs and in books. It has been produced by a variety of writers, including
travelers, military officers, missionaries, explorers, scientists, pilgrims, social and physical
scientists, educators, and migrants.
Travel literature often intersects with philosophy or essay writing, as in V. S. Naipaul's India: A
Wounded Civilization (1976), whose trip became the occasion for extended observations on a
nation and people. This is similarly the case in Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon (1941),[21] focused on her journey through Yugoslavia, and in Robin Esrock's series of
books about his discoveries in Canada, Australia and around the globe.[22] Fictional travel
narratives may also show this tendency, as in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn (1884) or Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974).
A travelogue is a film, book written up from a travel diary, or illustrated talk describing the
experiences of and places visited by traveller.[44] American writer Paul Theroux has published
many works of travel literature, the first success being The Great Railway Bazaar.

In the 21st century, travel literature became a genre of social media in the form of travel blogs,
with travel bloggers using outlets like
personal blogs, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to convey information about their
adventures, and provide advice for navigating particular countries, or for traveling generally.
[57]
Travel blogs were among the first instances of blogging, which began in the mid-1990s.
Notable travel bloggers include Matthew Kepnes, Johnny Ward[58] and Drew Binsky.

The systematic study of travel literature emerged as a field of scholarly inquiry in the mid-1990s,
with its own conferences, organizations, journals, monographs, anthologies, and encyclopedias.
Important, pre-1995 monographs are: Abroad (1980) by Paul Fussell, an exploration of British
interwar travel writing as escapism; Gone Primitive: Modern Intellects, Savage Minds (1990) by
Marianna Torgovnick, an inquiry into the primitivist presentations of foreign cultures; Haunted
Journeys: Desire and Transgression in European Travel Writing (1991) by Dennis Porter, a
close look at the psychological correlatives of travel; Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of
Women's Travel Writing by Sara Mills, an inquiry into the intersection of gender
and colonialism during the 19th century; Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and
Transculturation (1992), Mary Louise Pratt's influential study of Victorian travel writing's
dissemination of a colonial mind-set; and Belated Travelers (1994), an analysis of colonial
anxiety by Ali Behdad.