Getting to Know Genoa, Italy: A City Destination Travel Guide for Expedia

Our team at World Words regularly write and edit travel guides for the leading online travel company Expedia. In fact, we create more Expedia travel guides than we can possibly list here (for example, just since the start of April, we’ve produced city and regional guides on the Netherlands, the USA, India, England, Japan and the Bahamas).

We might not be able to show them all, but we have picked out one of our recently-published destination guides. This month, our guide to Genoa, the capital of Liguria in northwestern Italy, was published on Expedia’s website. And to give you a taste of what you can expect in this stunning seaside city, we’ve included the overview below.

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Why You Should Avoid Writing About a Travel Destination Only from Memory

Great travel experiences create vivid memories. Ask any traveller about a particular trip, and they will recall many strong sensory memories, from the incredible sight of a migrating herd of elephants to the gentle sound of waves lapping at shore; the overpowering smell of a bustling spice market to the sweet taste of a freshly-picked mango.

However, memory is not as reliable as it first appears. Press the same traveller on the exact number of elephants, or the route they took through the spice market, and you may find they struggle to give you an answer. The fact is, no matter how vivid your travel memories seem, there’s always key information missing from your recollection.

As travel writers, we do as much as we possibly can to record everything we see and do during our trips – in fact, making notes on your travels is a very valuable habit for travel writers – but it is not possible to record absolutely everything. So how do you ensure the travel article, guide or web copy you write when you arrive home is 100% correct, providing accurate and valuable information for your readers? Here are four ways to always get it right…

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Fabien Cousteau: Into the Deep

The legendary French explorer Jacques Cousteau inspired and educated generations about the wonders of our planet’s oceans. His career was prolific. During his lifetime, the trailblazing mariner helped develop pioneering scuba diving equipment, created more than 100 television documentaries and dozens of educational ocean-focused books, as well as the Cousteau Society environmental foundation – all of which have left a long-lasting impression. His shoes are difficult to fill, but as we discovered this month, his grandson Fabien Cousteau is not only honouring his grandfather’s legacy, but it also making his very own mark in the world of ocean exploration.

Like his famous grandfather, Fabien is a man of many talents: an ocean explorer, a documentary filmmaker, an environmental activist and a philanthropist. We interviewed Fabien for Private Air New York Magazine, catching the intrepid mariner as he resurfaced following more than a month spent living below the surface in an undersea laboratory for the Mission 31 science expedition. During our chat with the dynamic aquanaut, we spoke about the motivations behind his explorations, as well as his upcoming projects and initiatives (among them a documentary about his 31-day underwater mission and Florida’s soon-to-be-opened Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre).

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Want to find out more? Read on for the entire travel article, published in the current issue of Private Air New York.

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Just What Makes Great Travel Writing Work? Analysing Writers’ Techniques

Before one can be a great travel writer, one must learn to be a great travel reader. To read voraciously and linger over the words; relish, absorb and reflect on what it is that makes great travel writing work. Found a travel article that you love? Analyse its effect – a strong feeling, a vivid image – and then pinpoint how the writer achieved it.

By examining the techniques employed in the best travel prose, aspiring travel writers can acquire new skills and help attune their own ear to the rhythms and melodies of good writing. To illustrate the many benefits of studying others’ work, we have deconstructed a selection of praiseworthy travel writing passages. Scroll down to read on.

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