Flightster

Writing a great trip report

• by Shannon Albert
• on September 29th, 2010
• 3 Comments

I’m not an expert on how to write but I’m a total fan girl of trip reports – writing and reading them. I love nothing more than having a cup of coffee and reading a great trip report. All trip reports aren’t created equal. Here’s what I think makes a great one.

1. Pictures, pictures and yeah, more pictures

I come across many text-only trip reports which just doesn’t do it for me. Pictures are an important part of telling a story. Peppering lots of them throughout a trip report helps it to come alive.

• When taking pictures on your trip, think about the story you want to tell later. Was there something funny about something you saw while walking in your hotel? Take a picture of it!
• Capture candid moments, not just poses. Candid pictures capture the emotions much better than anything where you’ve purposely staged a photo.
• When taking standard touristy pictures, include yourself or somebody you’re with in the picture. A picture of the Eiffel Tower alone looks like a postcard but when you have somebody in the picture with the Eiffel Tower, it makes it more personal.

2. Take notes

Whenever we’re all involved in something right now, we always think we’ll remember it forever. You won’t. Write it down. I always thought I’d remember things about my children’s lives growing up because…how could I forget? Well, let me tell you… I have.

I like to end each day by sitting down and writing my notes from the day (each time I mention writing something down lately, people ask me if I really mean with a pencil and paper. Use your phone if you’d like. I do both.). These notes will be a great reference later when you write your report. Be sure to include any element that you know you’ll want to include, not just the basics of what you did that day. How about the food you ordered, something interesting you observed or something funny you overheard?

3. Write your report immediately

I have a friend who writes her report on her blog during a trip. I can’t do that because I don’t like to use a computer while on a trip but writing it as soon as possible is key. The longer you wait, the less detail and emotion you’ll be able to capture. Take plenty of time to write. I spent 8 hours writing a trip report from a trip last summer. There were 1000 pictures to comb through and it took time to figure out which ones to use, how to tell the stories of each day, etc. It’s worth it. Once it’s done, you’ll have it to read over and over. The detail and time you spend will increase the quality of the report.

4. Where to write your report

There are a few ways to write your trip report. Since you’re reading this blog, the most obvious suggestion is to blog your report. In fact, my personal blog was started because my Thailand trip report was too long to send by email many years ago so that became my very first post. There’s WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr but did you know there are also travel-specific blog sites? Sites like TravelPod, MyTripJournal and Travel Blog allow you to create your own site where you can have your own space for your travel reports and become part of the community of fellow travelers.

Destination-specific forums or message boards are a great place to write a trip report if you’ve been a part of the community prior to your trip and would like to let your fellow forum members know how your trip worked.

Want something more permanent? Digital scrapbooking allows you to design layouts and then you can order the pages to be bound using a site like Shutterfly.com. Many digital scrapbookers spend hours designing and laying out each page but Shutterfly has an option to create something much simpler that doesn’t require much time.

What about you? What do you think are the elements of a great trip report?

Shannon Albert

Shannon loves to share awesome, fun and hopefully useful info that she's collected and to connect with other travel freaks. She loves the planning part of travel as much as the traveling itself. Shannon's background includes working as a web developer and as a digital producer for an advertising agency. She lives in Texas with her husband, 2 kids and dog. New York City is her favorite city. Her blog is shannonalbert.com.