Explorations: Travels Through Space and Time

Faraway Places: Travel Writing and Photography

By on • ( Leave a comment )

“I see this desire to escape to these landscapes, to do something real, because more than ever everyone is buried in their phones”

Corey Arnold, National Geographic photographer (2016)
Award-winning food and travel writer Lavinia Spalding encourages listeners to become travel writers, and speaks about how sharing travel stories can contribute to global understanding and change.

Travel writing is a genre that blends observation, reflection, and storytelling to capture the experience of moving through unfamiliar spaces. At its core, it asks two questions: Why do we travel? and How do we share those journeys? Historically, travel narratives ranged from pilgrimages and colonial accounts to personal diaries and letters, each shaped by the traveller’s purpose, whether seeking spiritual enlightenment, exploring the unknown, reconnecting with roots, or escaping the ordinary. Today, the genre has evolved into blogs, vlogs, and social media posts, often curated for global audiences and influenced by commercial interests.

The way travel is documented profoundly affects its meaning. A private diary emphasises introspection and authenticity, while a blog balances personal voice with audience engagement, sometimes prioritising aesthetics over honesty. Photography adds another layer, offering visual immediacy but also raising questions about framing, representation, and the ethics of depicting other people and places. In this section, we’ll explore how these mediums shape narrative, identity, and perception, and how the traveller’s purpose influences tone and content. We’ll consider whether travel writing is a quest for truth, a performance for others, or something in between.

Reading Challenge

This is a longer and more challenging piece of reading, but spending time on this piece, and discussing it with your teacher, will help you master this topic:

Areas of Exploration Guiding Conceptual Question

‘Cultural practices’ refers to traditional or customary practices of a particular ethnic, national or cultural group. They can be considered in the same way as symbolism in literary texts; physical manifestations of abstract beliefs and values. One reason we travel is to discover the beliefs and values of different people, as practiced in rites and traditions which have often been passed down from generation to generation. Before you work through the resource below, can you think of any practices that are special in your culture? These may include religious, medical, artistic, culinary, political, family or any other behaviour that reveals underlying beliefs and values:

Discussion Points

After you’ve got your head around the material in this section, pair up, pick a question, spend five minutes thinking and noting down your thoughts – then discuss your ideas with a friend and report back to the class:

  1. Why is travel writing important? How is it different from other kinds of journalism?
  2. In the twenty-first century, is travel writing still necessary? Given that technology can connect us with people and places all around the world, and we can watch videos, read blogs, and browse the social media of people who live in other places, what is the point of reading first person accounts of travel by outsiders to those places?
  3. Is there a difference between a traveller and a tourist? What makes a person one rather than the other? Is it preferable to be one over the other?

1. The Purposes of Travel and Documentation

“…because many wish to know without going there, and others wish to see, go and travel, I have begun this little book.”

Gilles le Bouvier (c. 1386–1455) in the foreword to Le Livre de la Description des Pays

Travel is never neutral: it is driven by intention, and those intentions shape how journeys are recorded and represented. In this section, we’ll explore seven key purposes of travel: self-discovery, curiosity about the ‘Other,’ spiritual or religious pilgrimage, searching for roots, seeking knowledge, experiencing awe, and escapism. Each purpose influences not only the traveller’s perspective but also the tone, style, and content of their documentation.

We will examine how different forms of recording (such as diaries, blogs, and photography) reflect these intentions (for instance, a private diary often reveals raw introspection, while a public blog may prioritise audience engagement, aesthetics, or even commercial appeal). Photography, meanwhile, offers immediacy but raises questions about framing and representation: what is highlighted, what is omitted, and why? By studying examples across these mediums, we’ll consider how purpose and audience help form narratives and cultural portrayals. Ultimately, we’ll ask the question – is travel writing a quest for authenticity, a performance for others, or a negotiation between the two?

Activity: Travel Writing Across Time

Explore how travel writing has evolved by comparing excerpts from sources across time: from 19th-century diaries and letters to a mid-20th century memoir to modern travel blogs. Download, read, and annotate five excerpts from travel writing across time. Uncover how historical and modern contexts shape the ways people write about and represent travel. Once you’ve studied the excerpts, prepare answers (in note form or in short paragraphs) to answer the following questions:

  1. What changes in tone do you notice between the extracts? How does the change in tone reveal about the writer’s priorities and values?
  2. Who is the intended audience for each text? How do you know? Look for clues in language and level of detail.
  3. What is the primary purpose of each piece (e.g. personal reflection, cultural observation, entertainment, or guidance?) How does purpose shape content and style?
  4. What do these excerpts suggest about how attitudes toward travel have changed over time?

2. Exoticism and Orientalism

“The Orient was almost a European invention, becoming a distant land of romance, danger, and criminal experiences…”

Asian America Through the Lens: History, Representations, and Identity by Xing Jun
From Aladdin to Bodak Yellow, the media is obsessed with portraying Arabs and Muslims as exotic and mysterious. This short video explainer explains why this imagery is so pervasive, and will introduce you to seminal writer and thinker Edward Said (author of Orientalism).

Exoticism and Orientalism are two interrelated concepts that explore how foreign cultures can be represented through a lens of fascination and distortion. Exoticism refers to the portrayal of distant places and peoples as strange, alluring, and fundamentally different from the familiar. This tendency emphasises sensory richness or overload, mystery and allure, creating an imagined world that satisfies Western viewers’ curiosity and desire for novelty. Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism takes this further, arguing that Western depictions of the East are not neutral but shaped by power. Said highlights a persistent binary: the West is constructed as rational, modern, and superior, while the East is framed as irrational, ‘stuck in the past’, and exotic. These portrayals served colonial agendas by justifying domination and control. Importantly, Said asks: “Who controls representation?” When one culture persistently defines another, it often relies on the same old stereotypes (harems, snake charmers, riding camels through endless deserts) making flat fantasies out of the complexity of other cultures – and other people’s lives.

Although colonial empires have faded, the allure of the ‘exotic’ persists in modern travel writing and photography. Instagram posts of hidden paradises and curated travel blogs often echo older patterns, commodifying cultural differences for aesthetic appeal. This section invites us to question how language and imagery shape perceptions and whether today’s narratives challenge or perpetuate these traditions. Find a curated selection of exotic images in the presentation embedded below to learn how to recognise exoticism and Orientalism in its past and present forms:

Activity: Comparing Literary Visions of ‘Elsewhere‘

In this activity, you’ll move beyond exoticism in paintings and photography to examine how language and literature can shape representation of faraway places too. Below are two excerpts from works of literature: Dracula by Bram Stoker and Epiphany Under the Sun by Paul Theroux. In both pieces, a Western narrator travels East, encountering the ‘other’. Yet one author uses vivid, romanticised imagery to make the East feel remote and uncanny, while the other offers a more balanced depiction of life faraway from home. Compare and contrast the two approaches by annotating these samples, looking for what details are emphasised by each writer, and what choices they make in presenting the elsewhere. Practice your compare-and-contrast writing by answering the question: How does Stoker’s exoticism differ from Theroux’s realism?

Learner Portfolio

Watch Livinia Spalding’s Tedtalk (above) and, if you have not done so already, visit Travel Tales to browse some of the stories from her collection. Near the end of this talk Lavinia issues a challenge: to write your own literary travel story, inspired by a place you’ve been or a person you’ve met on a journey you have taken. Take her up on this challenge by writing a piece of literary non-fiction about a place you have been or a journey you have taken in your life. Make the purpose of your writing clear: is it to find the self; discover the ‘other’; become informed; search for your roots; take a religious or spiritual journey, experience ‘awe’ – or some combination of purposes?

Body of Work: Alison Wright’s Portrait Photography

Alison Wright: Portraits of the Human Spirit is a National Geographic documentary that delves into Alison Wright’s wanderlust and evaluates the achievement of her photography.

Alison Wright was an acclaimed documentary photographer and visual storyteller whose work spans more than three decades and over 150 countries. Known for her deeply human approach, Wright’s photography focuses on people and cultures often overlooked by mainstream media. Her images have been featured in major exhibitions such as Grit and Grace: Women at Work at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, which showcased portraits of women from Africa, Asia, and Latin America striving to create better futures in challenging environments. Another notable collection, Human Tribe, celebrates the diversity and shared humanity of people around the globe, emphasizing that despite cultural differences, our fundamental desires and struggles are universal.

Alison Wright’s photography resists exoticism by foregrounding her individual subjects in an everyday context rather than finding a spectacular or aesthetic angle. Unlike images that romanticize other cultures as mysterious or timeless, Wright frames her subjects as people first, not symbols. Her portraits often include details of daily life (homes, objects, family members) that situate individuals within their lived realities. This approach counters the selective representation typical of exoticized imagery. Wright’s use of eye-level perspective and natural light reinforces intimacy and equality, inviting viewers into a shared experience rather than positioning them as distant observers. Her captions frequently name the subject and describe their occupation or personal story, shifting the focus from aesthetic consumption to interpersonal understanding. In doing so, Wright transforms representation of cultural difference from a commodity into a conversation, challenging the power imbalance inherent in traditional depictions of the ‘foreign’ or ‘other’. Sadly Alison died in 2024, but her work lives on for us to explore and appreciate.

Here is a small selection of her photography from Human Tribe to use in class, or you can explore Alison’s wider body of work here at her online gallery and website. Beyond issues of exoticism, photography can be a powerful tool for preserving minority cultures in the face of globalisation, helping to balance historical injustice by educating those who have lost touch with the past or with alternative ways of living. Texts of all kinds – written, spoken, visual – can help protect cultural heritage that might otherwise be lost. Alison Wright’s work can be seen in the wider context of cultural preservation, an important project in our increasingly homogenised and globalised world.

Towards Assessment: Individual Oral

“Supported by an extract from one non-literary text and one from a literary work, students will offer a prepared response of 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions by the teacher, to the following prompt: Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of two of the texts that you have studied. (40 marks)“

Alison Wright’s photography would make a good text to consider using in your Individual Oral. Here are two suggestions as to how you might use this Body of Work to create a Global Issue. You can use one of these ideas, or develop your own. You should always be mindful of your own ideas and class discussions and follow the direction of your own thoughts, discussions and programme of study when devising your assessment tasks:

  • Field of Inquiry: Culture, Identity and Community
  • Global Issue: Anti-colonial depictions of other people
  • Rationale:

An important purpose of travel writing is for us to encounter other people and make connections with people who may be very different to ourselves. In a world of suspicion and insularity, it is through building bridges between cultures and learning to understand different ways of life that we can settle our differences peaceably. In this context, Alison Wright’s photography invites us to ‘meet’ individuals from cultures that are very different to the urbanised or westernised cultures a lot of us may be more familiar with on an equal footing. So too does Ismail Kadare craft an encounter with the ‘other’ in his novel Broken April. When Bessian and Diana travel to Albania’s northern plateau, they are eager to catch a sight of the violent people who live in this isolated corner of the world. But, while Bessian tends to romanticise and fetishise the men of the high plateau, Diana sees them as people first.

Towards Assessment: Higher Level Essay

Students submit an essay on one non-literary text or a collection of non-literary texts by one same author, or a literary text or work studied during the course. The essay must be 1,200-1,500 words in length. (20 marks).††

If you are an HL student who enjoyed this section of work, and find the topic of travel writing interesting, you might consider this Body of Work to write your Higher Level Essay. You could extend your research beyond Human Tribe to include some of her other published collections. Angles of investigation might include: to what extent you think she is successful in her aim of bridging the gap between different cultures; whether her photography constitutes a modern form of travel writing; to what extent her photography reveals and represents cultural practices; whether you feel the photographs form or impose an identity onto people from an outsider’s perspective. Here are one or two examples of lines of inquiry suitable for this text – but remember to follow your own interests and the direction of your own class discussion to generate your own line of inquiry. It is not appropriate for students to submit responses to an essay question that has been assigned:

  • How does Alison Wright use composition and colour to imply a close connection between people and the natural world in her Human Tribe photography collection?
  • How does Alison Wright use portraiture techniques to resist the exoticism of other people in her photographic collection Human Tribe?

Paper 1 Text Type Focus: travel writing

At the end of your course you will be asked to analyze unseen texts (1 at Standard Level and 2 at Higher Level) in an examination. You will be given a guiding question that will focus your attention on formal or stylistic elements of the text(s), and help you decode the text(s)’ purpose(s). Travel writing is an extremely fluid genre and you could be presented with a text that contains a variety of tropes (such as maps, photographs, itineraries, reported or direct speech, humour, metaphors… the list goes on) and may even share similarities with literary texts. Use these practice texts to familiarise yourself with the different features of Travel Writing and add them to your Learner Portfolio; you will want to revise text types thoroughly before your Paper 1 exam. You can find more information – including text type features and sample Paper 1 analysis – by visiting 20/20. Read through one or two of the exemplars, then choose a new paper and have a go at writing your own Paper 1 analysis response:

Key features of travel writing
  • Viewpoint: travel writing often documents the personal experiences of someone exploring a new place or country so is often first person.
  • Perspective: an outsider’s perspective is common when reading travel writing, particularly if the destination is new, exotic or remote. Alternatively, the piece might be written from an insider’s perspective and is inviting you to visit or share an experience in a different part of the world.
  • Structure: look out for chronological timelines, past – present structures or a linear journey of discovery. Guidebooks will have clear headings and subheadings and will probably include box-outs and the like.
  • Information: travel writing often seeks to be informative and can present you with facts and figures, names and dates, historical or architectural or geographical information and more.
  • Description: if the writer is trying to make the destination tantalising, or to help transport the reader, you might find examples of visual imagery, vivid description, even figurative comparisons, helping you visualise a far-off place.
  • Visuals: photographs, maps, or floor plans of famous locations are all visual features that you might encounter in travel writing, particularly guidebooks.

Further Reading

Categories:Explorations: Travels Through Space and Time

Leave a comment