Travel and the Writer

I love to travel.  To see the world, and everything that it holds.  My brother is someone who’s content to stay in his section of the world, and not wonder what else might be out there, but not me.  My insatiable curiosity has me wanting to know exactly how hot it feels in Egypt, not just read about it.  Someone telling me about the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has no real meaning to me, other than being a cool concept.  But, actually standing in that dome and hearing something loud and clear that had only been whispered from across the chasm, WOW . . . that was an experience.

I dreamed of visiting Paris my whole life.  I sat glued to the TV whenever a Pepe le Pew cartoon came on.  I knew I’d be taking French in high school, not Spanish.  However, none of that, nor the movies I watched that took place in France, could’ve prepared me for the actual experience of strolling along the Seine.  Or the enormity of La Tour Eiffel.  Even more amazing was noticing that, aside from The Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, no building in the older section of Paris was much taller than six stories.  It’s been a while since I’ve been back, so my memory may be fuzzy, but I seem to recall most of the buildings being the same height – especially along the Champs Elysees.  Those are all things that could make my writing seem even more real if I were to use them in a story.

Traveling can help broaden you, because of the different people and cultures you encounter. Your experiences could be inserted into a story or character.  Maybe a foreigner could be erroneously accused of murder, just because he happened to be visiting at the very time that the crime took place.  If you’ve been to, say, Scotland, you might describe the different lilt or cadence in his/her speech.  Or maybe your foreigner is from a small village in France, and was drawn to this town because it reminded him/her so much of home.  If you’ve been to that small village, you can bring your readers there too, by describing the streets, or the distance between houses.

I think it’s great that people can write about  settings based in cities where they don’t live.  Or even the people who can create whole new worlds, like Tolkein or CS Lewis.  But I find that my best stuff actually comes from experience.  Maybe it’s because my imagination isn’t as vivid as others, but, for me, there’s a tangible quality that gets inserted into the writing.  If I were writing about someone driving from London to Wales via Salisbury, I would be able to describe the breathtaking moment of cresting a hill along the A303 to see the huge pillars of Stonehenge looming up ahead, nearly two miles away.  That’s something that I personally wouldn’t have been able to pull out of my imagination.  I had to see it for myself.

If you got to visit the Washington Monument when they allowed visitors inside, you would be able to describe in detail the exhaustion that takes over you around step number 453, knowing that you had at least another 400 steps to climb to the top.  How cool would it be to incorporate the feeling of riding a camel?  The smell, the texture of their skin, the bumpiness as they trot along . . . heck, even the soreness in your body after your first ever ride.  These are all things that can be done well by just using your imagination, but I feel there’s an added oomph when you’ve experienced it for yourself.

Many people take photos on vacation so they can look back at them with fond memories.  Writers can take that one step further and write down the memories.  The smells, sounds, textures of wherever you’ve been, can help bring your settings and characters much more alive.

What vacation experiences have seeped their way into your writing?