5 Ways To Unlock Travel Writer’s Block

Pity the poor travel blogger, newly arrived at yet another fantastic place – and unable to string two words together about it. It happens to everyone at some point, and it’s called burnout. You. Just. Can’t. Think. Of. Anything. To Say. Or even worse, you write 500 words and they’re spam - lifeless, hackneyed and hollow. You’ve turned into a travel-blogging bot. How can you become a human being again?

Here are 5 ways to get a new sense of perspective and unlock the words within you once more.

1. Shut Up And Listen

It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much.

- Yogi Berra.

To get people to open up, it often makes sense to keep out of the limelight. Some travel writers – for example, Colin Thubron – rely on the anonymity of a fabricated identity. Others break the ice with other people by racking up the charm, or letting slip some details of their own remarkable story…but at some point, if they’re going to learn anything new, they have to back out of the conversation and let someone fill the gap they’ve left.

But that’s hard. It’s easy to get swept up in the thrill of banter and the constant challenge of saying something that doesn’t make you sound an idiot (I confess, I find this bit rather tough). If you’re a skilled orator, you dominate a conversation – and end up learning nothing new about anyone and anything, because it’s all about you.

And the same applies for the internal conversation you have between yourself and everything you encounter.

Stuck for something to write about? It could be that you’re too vocal in your own thoughts – wondering where your hostel is, where you’re going to get a replacement for your increasingly dodgy laptop power cable, if you look good in this hat. The constant theme here is you. You’re drowning everything else out. So try shutting up for a while. Back away from your most self-interested thoughts and reach out for the novelty of Everything Else.

2. Be Whimsical

In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell expounds on the universal human ability to thin-slice – to gulp down an enormous amount of data and construct a line of reasoning that can be acted upon, all in less than a heartbeat. What’s startling is that this split-second decision-making process appears to be somewhat reliable. It’s something the experts know to trust (or at least not entirely discount). Yet we’re taught from an early age that “acting on a whim” is foolish, unprofessional, childish. Only idiots act without being in full possession of the facts, surely?

Tell that to Formula 1 Grand Prix drivers, or firemen, or anyone who has to parse a lot of information and act on it quickly…like travel bloggers. Yes, really. Their job is to capture the essence of a place and its people by harvesting lots and lots of moments. Hastily scribbled notes, snapped photos, hours of video – later boiled down into a piece of travel content, but in its raw state, a blizzard of information. They don’t have the time to deliberate at length, they just have to pick a subject and get on with it, point click scribble.

And after a while, that trains their gut to recognise the good stuff. They become expert thin-slicers.

Stuck for something to write about? Go with whatever first comes into your thoughts, and stick with it until either you’re sure it’s nonsense, or you feel that warm glow of having found something excitingly new to think about. Trust your ability (and don’t over-analyse). You’re cleverer than you think.

3. Stop

Who doesn’t love timelapse photography? I dare you to watch TSO Photography’s The Mountain and not want to sit on a hillside for the rest of your life, feeling the world turn under you. It’s a thrill you can feel anywhere – but it takes time. The time to see the light waxing & waning, the seemingly random ebb and flow of people and traffic and weather sorting themselves out into patterns and rhythms. The flow of change itself – which is invisible if you don’t make the effort to stick around.

Stuck for something to write about? Open your schedule wider, give yourself a day somewhere instead of an hour, and just sit and watch and absorb. (And remember, no pangs of guilt: you’re not slacking, you’re working).

4. Kid Yourself

It’s fun being a kid. Not only can you pretty much get away with anything (if only that worked for us adults), but you also have a fresh, unsullied perspective on the world. Everything is fascinating. This stone I just found on the beach is quite literally the best thing ever! (Later you’ll discover that there are other stones and other beaches. That will be a hard day).

Kids have boundless enthusiasm for the world because their preconceptions hover around the zero mark. As a writer, that’s a really useful way to see the world, because it forces you to investigate. Imagine you didn’t know what a church was, and you walked past one. How are you going to uncover the truth about what goes on inside? By going inside, of course, and using your eyes and ears and possibly asking some complete strangers some really dumb-sounding questions. But that whole investigative process will enlighten you to all sorts of interesting things you’d never have discovered by looking from the outside and saying “hey, nice church”.

Stuck for something to write about? Pretend you’re seeing the world with fresh, kid-like eyes, and piece knowledge together from scratch. You’ll find lots of useful detail along the way – and if you’re lucky, you might overturn a few of your own preconceptions…

5. Cultivate Your HALP!

If you want to be approached by interesting people, with all their fascinating stories & ideas and invaluable snapshots of local colour that you’d never appreciate except through their eyes and in their own words, a really great way to do it is to look in need of help.

Here’s how. You stand there with a map, turning this way and that and looking stressed. You gibber slightly. You look at people in that subtly desperate, whites-around-the-eyes way that says “Houston, we have a problem”. You walk this way – turn around, looking unsure – and walk back. You fall to your knees and scream “Why me, Ma? WHY?” (Okay maybe not the last one. Keep it dignified).

Carefully orchestrated cries for help are a great way to attract things to write about.

(Oh, and crazy people too. Sorry).

So, have you ever burned out your travel writing brain? And how did you overcome it?

Images: e-magic, AndYaDontStop, John O’Nolan, kennymatic, helgabj and loop_oh.