Traveling Like a Writer
I try to leave the country once a year or so, and I'm currently in the process of getting in my trip for 2026. I started this post on the plane, continued it on the Tren Maya, and finished it in warm and beautiful Valladolid, Mexico, far from the snow-covered and frozen city of Pittsburgh. As excited as I am to warm up a bit, that's not the primary reason I travel. A lot of my best story ideas have come from visiting new places and experiencing life in a different part of the world. It's also a solid way to break up my routine, which I know I could technically do in Pittsburgh, too, but I'm very bad at veering away from my usual habits when I'm going about my day-to-day life. Jumping on a plane and heading to Mexico or Guatemala—or even just riding the train to Buffalo or Baltimore—is a foolproof way to ease myself out of any ruts I've gotten into.
I will say, the way that I approach these trips isn't quite the way I think most would go into a vacation. For one thing, I usually don't completely take off work—I tend to drop down to more of a part-time workload, but continuing to work lets me take the kind of longer trips that allow me really sink into a new place. Especially when there's train travel involved, like on this trip, I view those periods as little mini writing retreats, because that environment is one where I find it very easy to get ideas flowing: you're stuck in one place without much to distract you, but there's also something new to see every time you look out the window in need of inspiration.
But I also think I approach travel with a different mindset than the average non-writer would, and that's something you can do regardless of your employment situation or how long you're traveling. When you look at things the right way, you can find stories and inspiration that you can use to fuel your creativity for long after you're back on familiar turf. This post is both advice for other writers and a reminder to myself as I get ready to see some new places on how to make the most of my time while I wander.
So how do you travel like a writer? For me, it comes down to 5 main things.
Get off the well-traveled trails
This doesn't mean you have to skip the big attractions. In each town I’m visiting, I'll probably take the expected wander into the central plaza and stare at the Spanish cathedral, like one does in an old Latin American city. But while I’m on that walk, I'm also going to have my eyes open for strange things that snag them, side-streets that look intriguing, or off-the-wall museums that most folks might walk by.
There are two types of places I always seek out when I'm in a new city: cemeteries and public parks. They're not the kinds of attractions that most would add to their itinerary, but they reveal so much about the place you're visiting and are usually among my favorite finds. I also get around on foot when I can, giving me a chance to take in the streets that would blur by from a vehicle. This often leads to discovering street art, statues, and other neat finds that I never would have known were there otherwise. I've even stumbled across festivals or hidden museums a time or two when exploring whatever city I'm in.
The value of these unexpected finds is two-fold. One, that sense of discovery makes it stick in your brain more because it has emotion attached to it, and for me at least that is exactly the germ I need to turn it into inspiration. It also means you have things to write about that not everyone who visits that city will have seen. That's especially good if you want to write nonfiction like travel writing, but also gives you unique details you can use in fiction and poetry that will make it sound uniquely you, not like something regurgitated off of every travel blog.
Learn the history
I'm what I'll call a half-spontaneous traveler. I'll plan out the big strokes of the trip like transportation and where I'm staying well in advance. When it comes to the things I see, though, I'll usually have a list of places I want to visit, but I don't go so far as to write out an itinerary. I like to leave myself room for discovery and not go into a place with too many preconceived ideas about it.
Which might all sound like the opposite of what I'm suggesting in the heading here, but what's glorious about traveling in the 21st century is that the vast majority of us constantly carry a device that can access a significant percentage of accumulated human knowledge. You don't necessarily need to research in advance to get insight into the history of a place, and for me looking it up on the spot, while I'm at the site, often helps me connect that history to what I'm seeing and makes it stick more firmly in my memory.
The advice I gave above also applies here. Informational signs and plaques are like catnip for me. Any time I see one I’m drawn to it, even when I'm walking around Pittsburgh. You can learn a lot from historical markers, or the signs and explanations posted in museums. If you see a random plaque on the side of an unassuming building, don’t breeze by it—give it a read to see if the building you were about to ignore actually has a fascinating history that will end up being the germ of your next story.
There are a lot of reasons I give this recommendation. For one, it puts what you're seeing in context so you can more fully understand it, and at the same time gain a deeper understanding of the place that you're visiting, which will help you to make it come across as real to the reader. You might also find some stories hiding in that history, or learn about famous figures, historical events, or other things that you want to look into further and use for something you're writing. When you're conducting research—whether before, during, or after your trip—let yourself fall down rabbit holes and go off on tangents, following your interests wherever they lead you. The whole point of traveling is to discover new things, and those new things don't only have to be the ones you physically encounter.
Carry a notebook
I usually don't journal. I've done it at points in the past, but I tend to drop the habit pretty quickly. That said, whenever I'm traveling, I always make a point of journaling every day. I even type up these journals into a digital file after I get back so that there's no risk of them being lost if the physical copy gets misplaced. I usually do this within a month of getting home, and even with that little time in between the trip and when I'm going back over them, I still inevitably come across a few things I'd already forgotten about.
That's the main reason I always keep a journal when I'm traveling. There's such an influx of new knowledge and sensory input that my brain just doesn't have space to process all of it before I feed more in, and inevitably some of that info is going to get lost. Keeping a notebook handy and consistently recording what I see, cool things I learn, and other details about the experience I might forget helps me to capture and freeze the ideas so that they're still there when I'm ready to make use of them.
I suppose the physical notebook isn't a requirement anymore—it's the way I prefer to do things, but you could also use an app on your phone or something similar. The key is to use something that you can have with you while you're actively out exploring, not just after you get back to your hotel room. That lets you capture things as you see and feel them, which is the best way to retain those tangible, distinctive details that will really make the moment come to life if you decide to make use of it in a creative work.
Engage your full senses and attention
When I was in college I had the privilege of studying in Florence for six weeks, and was able to take an in-depth art history class during the session. One point that the instructor would always make as she was leading us around the various museums and landmarks is to not only focus at eye level. She was always directing our eyes up at a frescoed ceiling or down at an interesting paving stone, and her lesson stuck with me well after that trip. Staying too focused on one view of things could mean you miss details that you would've found even cooler.
This same advice goes in a broader sense, too. I try to remind myself when I'm traveling to just stop every once in a while and take everything in—to listen to the sounds, smell the air, feel the energy of the place I'm inhabiting. It's easy when you're traveling to feel like you need to constantly be moving to see everything you want to see, but you don't want to fall into the trap of trying to see so much that you don't end up really seeing any of it.
Make smart use of your camera
This is another place where my habits are I think a bit different than the typical vacationer's. I often don't take many pictures of the big landmarks. If I want to remember what El Castillo in Chichen Itza looks like, I can find plenty of pictures of it taken by much better photographers than I am. But the internet won't help me remember the funny graffiti somebody scrawled on one of the signs, or that one other tourist wearing the crazy hat—those are the kinds of details I'm most likely to get out the camera for. Again, this isn't saying you can't also take Instagram-worthy pictures of the big sites, but that's another great thing about the modern era of the phone camera. It's not like you have a limited number of shots. You can do both.
I will add onto this that you don't just have to use your camera to capture sights. If you come across a particularly interesting sign and want to make sure you remember all the details, snap a photo of it. These days, lots of museums and historical sites will use QR codes on the signs to lead you to places where you can learn more info, which can be a shortcut to following that “learn the history” tip I gave above. You can also use the other recording features to get snippets of music or street noise, or capture video to capture the energy of a crowd or the stillness of an empty park.
Of course, you don't want to go overboard. Even the best phone has a finite amount of storage and you don't want to be so intent on documenting everything that you forget to actually experience it. But when you come across one of those things that you want to make sure you remember, take full advantage of the tools at your disposal to give yourself memory triggers you can activate once you get home.
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