12 Travel Writing Clichés to Avoid

Everyone has their personal peccadilloes about travel writing terms like ‘off the beaten path’ or ‘sun-drenched’, but individual qualms shouldn’t mean a blanket ban on these phrases. These may be overused clichés, but sometimes — to borrow another particularly well-worn cliché — they hit the nail on the head.

However, there are some words and formulaic travel phrases that are so overused, they are positively exhausted. Many of them are churned out so regularly in travel writing that they have lost all meaning, and no longer register with readers. And yet, thanks to writerly laziness, these hackneyed phrases keep cropping up again and again.

We’ve named and shamed 12 of the worst offenders below; our own dirty dozen of travel writing clichés.

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Not a quaff

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Athens Audio Guide For Cities Talking

We love writing about travel here at World Words, but our talents aren’t limited to print and web. We’ve also got a knack for composing great audio scripts and we’ve been doing just that for the lovely folks over at Cities Talking.

Cities Talking is a nifty little app that lets you explore cities for yourself, using GPS and a virtual guide. No need to traipse around after an umbrella-wielding leader; with Cities Talking, you can set your own pace and skip over any sights that don’t strike your fancy.

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Seven Top Tips to Improve Your Travel Writing

A quick Google search for ‘travel article’ turns up a rather intimidating 1.2 billion results. The competition is fierce, so you have to be clever to stand out from the crowd.

Luckily, we’re here to help, with seven top tips for improving your written travel content.

1. What’s your point?
Before you start writing a travel article, there’s a very important question you need to ask yourself: What exactly are you trying to say? Followed quickly by: Does your audience want to hear it? You need to have a point, or at the very least a premise, and it has to be one that will appeal to your readership.

Writing a travel article is not the same as writing a personal journal. Readers don’t need every last trivial detail. Chances are no-one really wants to hear about your search for a nail clipper in Florence. It’s best to convey a message tailored to your readers’ needs, so sift through the boring minutiae and pick out only what is relevant and interesting to your readers.

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