Travel can inspire some of our greatest ideas for writing. By spending time somewhere new, our minds can begin to shift, and we can gain an entirely new perspective on our lives. Observing how others live while on a journey somewhere new is an ideal way to understand oneself better, and can provide poignant subject matter for travel memoir writing.

The experience of reading your travel essay should be vivid and personal, inviting your readers to imagine the events of your journey through their own eyes. Paying attention to your potential readers and using proven writing techniques can accomplish all of this.

Here are five tips for how to write a travel essay as amazing as your trip:

1. Focus on the change you went through

Whether big or small, travel changes us. By the end of a journey we are no longer the same as we were in the beginning. This is the ‘story’ of your essay. Plot the change from who you were to who you become. This will become the beginning, middle and end of your essay. Your readers will feel most satisfied with an ending that describes a change in attitude and / or perspective. Usually this change is simply a widening of perspective, a small realization toward forgiveness and away from pettiness, for example.

2. Include characters and dialogue

Even if you took a solo journey, more than likely you travelled to a place where you interacted with at least a few locals. Describe them, and try to capture the particulars of how they communicated with you, including pertinent dialogue when possible. Perhaps these characters led you toward a realization that led to a change by the end of your journey. Use these characters to help you tell your story.

3. Use your ‘voice’ to set the mood

The grammatical decisions you make will have an impact on the mood you set for your piece. If your piece is humorous and light, use punchy, short sentences. If your essay is reflective and thoughtful, create longer sentences, adding descriptive clauses. Read a few other travel essays to get a sense of how sentence-length, word choice and other grammatical decisions can enhance the mood of your essay.

4. Describe the place through your eyes

Avoid generic, postcard descriptions, but what struck you as novel, important or surprising. Create a vivid picture of the details that are significant to your story of change. Rather than providing a sweeping panorama, get close. Reveal what matters to you, and how the particular elements of that place made you feel.

5. Switch between summary and scene

Zoom in and focus on a scene when you want to describe important action, such as the moment when things began to change. Then show time’s passage through a summary of your hours, days and / or weeks. Moving between scene and summary will give your readers a variety of distances from the action taking place and will create a satisfying sense of gaining the ‘whole picture’ of your journey and its importance.