Travel & Writing

It’s that time again! This Saturday, I will be leaving on a jet plane and heading on a month-long backpacking trip to South Africa and Spain. Not to worry, friends, while I am not the greatest at following a blogging schedule (read: I suck pretty hard), I am planning on uploading a few photo journal posts throughout my trip. Minimal effort for me, good travel photos for you!

But now: the point. Traveling so soon has me in a travel mood. Consequently, being in a travel mood puts me in a writing mood. Why, you ask? Shouldn’t I be YouTube spiraling and watching every video I can find on my backpacking destinations?

Yes, I should, but instead, I feel so inspired. For me, traveling has a huge impact on my writing and is definitely the pick-me-up I need when I feel uninspired. In fact, there are huge benefits for writers who travel, even if it’s only for a couple days away.

African Sun, here I come!

Traveling Calms You

While this may not be the case for everyone, traveling can be calming. For me, it’s waiting in an airport and people watching. It’s sitting on a beach with a book and having absolutely no plan for the day. It’s waking up on any random day and asking a travel companion “what are we doing today?” knowing that we could do anything we like or nothing at all.

Travel has a way of relaxing people, even on the busiest of city streets. And guess what? Being relaxed is a great way to write. Ideas form easier, the words come smoother, and writing seems less like a chore and more like a spa massage.

Besides, have you ever tried writing while stressed out? Yeah, I’ve gone on DELETE-EVERYTHING rampages too…

So beach. Much calming.

Traveling Exposes You to New People & Different Cultures

My absolute favorite part of traveling is the new people I meet and the interesting cultures I experience. Living in Canada, sometimes it’s easy to forget that people all around the world live in a completely different way than I do. Beliefs, traditions, and existences vastly different from our own occur EVERYWHERE, and it’s a pity not to experience them.

But why is this beneficial for our writing? Two reasons. Number One: characters are the soul of our writing, and what better way to create interesting characters than to meet interesting people? Number Two: a huge aspect of the fiction industry is the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, and while it may be hard to travel to the moon or Westeros for inspiration for your next novel, a quick flight to a foreign country could inspire the location of your next piece.

Oh, what’s that? The scene of your next novel?

Traveling Enhances Your Prose

Speaking of locations, traveling allows you to better describe the setting of your story. Novel set in a windswept, mountain town? Time to see the Rockies or the Alps. Medieval, seafaring city on the ocean? Round trip to Croatia. What about the desert? Egypt it is.

I find it way easier to more accurately describe the setting of my novel if I’ve actually been to a place that has a similar landscape. Besides, that’s why I take so many photos. When I get home and I’m working on setting in my prose, I can look at the photos and remember not just how a place looked, but also how a place smelled and felt.

A great setting for a novel… Or just a good place to write it!

Traveling Puts Life (and Writing) in Perspective

One of the best feelings traveling gives is the feeling of being small and insignificant.

Sounds depressing, right? Well, hear me out.

In our everyday lives, it’s really easy to get wrapped up on everyday things: wake, eat, drive to work, do work, eat lunch, do work, come home, make dinner, watch Netflix, drink wine, sleep… The cycle goes on and on. Worse: we toil over the news, toil over social media, toil over whatever drama Sassy Sally or Donald Downer is conjuring up.

But when you travel, that cycle gets interrupted. You experience new and exciting things. Best of all, traveling helps you put your whole life into perspective: you realize that there are billions of other people on this Earth, and their lives can be extremely different than yours. Further, these people exist without being influenced by your life (or Sassy Sally’s drama) whatsoever. To me, that’s really humbling, and when I’m in a writing rut, it comforts me to think that somewhere out there, there are people facing life in all its forms, and suddenly, my life doesn’t seem so overwhelming, and I can get back to what I find important.

Oh, how small we really are.

Story Ideas Can Strike at Any Time!

This one is self-explanatory. With travel opening up the world to you, it also opens your mind to new story ideas. These can come while people watching at the airport, overhearing a discussion at a restaurant in Bangkok, or in the bush in Mozambique, waiting for a lioness to show her face.

In a world of 8 billion people, there are at least 8 billion stories, and by traveling, you give yourself the opportunity to one you may not have heard before.

So, get out there, writer! Experience something new! Where are your favorite places to travel for writing inspiration?