Bethel University Europe Term Travel Blog

Europe Term Travel Blogs

Travel writing is a multifaceted exercise with equal benefits to the writer and the reader. As you explore a place, people, customs, event, you begin to identify with the socio-cultural and historical conditions that constitute it. And through your expression you are changed. We too are changed as we engage the story you weave about place, politics, people and perspective. T.S. Eliot once said, “The journey not the arrival matters.” That is precisely what we hope you will capture amidst the details of your posts – the journey to place. Bring these places alive for us with the background details you discover and the connections that are missed by the casual observer. What we take away from our travels is often proportional to what we bring to them, as Samuel Johnson noted in 1791, “In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”

These travel entries are designed to help us all see more than we miss over the course of our semester abroad.

Travel writing tips

Travel in itself is an enjoyable past-time, adventurously exhilarating if you enjoy being culturally, gastronomically, geographically, and in all other ways off balance. But to ratchet up the fun-level, consider crafting a tale from your adventures. Spinning a factual, fanciful, romantic, adrenaline-pumping, please-tell-me-more yarn about the places you’ve been and people you’ve encountered can be twice the fun – because you get to relive the experience for the benefit of others. I invite you to wake up, get out of your chair, grab your note pad (or iPad), and begin seeing your travel with literary eyes. You’ll never look at a trip the same way again!

As master travel writer Bill Bryson said, “You don’t necessarily have to go far to achieve something memorable. You just have to be able to see things in a different way.”