Travel writing has been closely linked with the exploration of the world since its very beginning. So, it can certainly be assumed that ever since the human being could write and travel, there has been the necessity of reporting the experience.
"The Voyage of the Beagle”, written by Charles Darwin during his famous five-year trip and published in 1839, is a good example but definitely not the oldest. During the Age of Exploration, the travels undertaken by the Europeans to the New World always had a person whose task was to write about the new findings. When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote a 27 page letter that is considered the first “official” travel text about the country. Perhaps, Marco Polo was history’s most famous travel writer. In his travels he wrote of journeys in Asia between 1271 and 1295, where he was a guest at the court of Kublai Khan.
The first travel texts were very descriptive and that would be enough. As nowadays there is nothing or little left to be discovered around the world, a successful piece of travel writing must have much more than a description of the place. First of all, an original angle has to be discovered, as nobody has time to waste with old novelties and travel clichés.
While exploring the chosen angle, it is not a bad idea to bear in mind the principles of documentary and photojournalism - unless you have been commissioned by a tourism board and need to perform a PR task.
"The Voyage of the Beagle”, written by Charles Darwin during his famous five-year trip and published in 1839, is a good example but definitely not the oldest. During the Age of Exploration, the travels undertaken by the Europeans to the New World always had a person whose task was to write about the new findings. When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote a 27 page letter that is considered the first “official” travel text about the country. Perhaps, Marco Polo was history’s most famous travel writer. In his travels he wrote of journeys in Asia between 1271 and 1295, where he was a guest at the court of Kublai Khan.
The first travel texts were very descriptive and that would be enough. As nowadays there is nothing or little left to be discovered around the world, a successful piece of travel writing must have much more than a description of the place. First of all, an original angle has to be discovered, as nobody has time to waste with old novelties and travel clichés.
While exploring the chosen angle, it is not a bad idea to bear in mind the principles of documentary and photojournalism - unless you have been commissioned by a tourism board and need to perform a PR task.
Illustration:en.wikipedia.org (page from the book "The Travels of Marco Polo" originally published during Polo's lifetime)
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