Since I wrote the first edition of this book, I have written several other books, including a historical fiction trilogy titled “The Andersons.” In my trilogy, I had the main characters travel around the world. The descriptions of their travel included real-life descriptions, photos, menus, and other supporting documents to help bring the story to life. All of this research served to have the added benefit of making me more informed about various travel destinations.

Travel significantly impacts literature by serving as a source of inspiration, shaping narratives, and influencing the development of literary genres, including travel writing and fictional travel narratives.

Here’s a more detailed look at how travel affects literature:

Inspiration and Setting:Travel experiences can inspire authors to create stories, poems, and other forms of literature, using the places they’ve visited as settings or sources of inspiration.
Travel Writing as a Genre:Travel writing itself is a distinct genre that has influenced literature, with authors like Henry James and Guy de Maupassant drawing inspiration from their travelogues for their short stories.
Fictional Travel Narratives:Travel narratives, both factual and fictional, can explore themes of exploration, cultural encounters, and personal growth, as seen in works like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.
Influence on Exploration and Science:Travel writing has played a role in shaping exploration, science, and commerce, and has influenced the history of ideas and literature.
Humanizing Distant Places:Travel writing can help readers understand and connect with distant places and cultures, as well as share the struggles and experiences of travelers.
Interdisciplinary Connections:Travel literature can intersect with other fields, such as philosophy, essay writing, and cultural studies, as seen in works like V.S. Naipaul’s “India: A Wounded Civilization”.
Travel as a Symbol:Travel can be used as a symbol of progress, expansion, freedom, and movement, as seen in works like Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid.

Travel writing as a genre has arguably been around for centuries, but it didn’t emerge as a distinct field of academic study until the 1980s.

Travel, specifically the touristic kind, has been colored bloody, ignorant, and invasive by imperialism. Even in more “developed,” anglicized parts of the world, it continues to threaten lifestyles, traditions, ecology, access to resources, and general peace of mind. Travel writing, historically, has followed suit in expressing everything from performative adoration and exoticization to sheer racism and erasure. But at its best it can offer a sobering portrait of human folly, bias, humiliation, and desire for connection—those endlessly conflicted feelings that come with the experience.

Travel writing differs from ethnography because it’s not scientific nor does it purport to capture the “authenticity” of a place and its inhabitants. It’s not quite reportage or tourism guidebook either, since it’s not always enthusiastic or observant or beholden to fact. This literary subgenre has arguably been around since the dawn of written material but didn’t emerge as a distinct sector of scholarship and pedagogy until roughly the 1980s. Remaining contested as a classifiable writing mode, it straddles the boundaries of personal essay, memoir, journalism, cultural criticism, food writing, nature writing, and more dominant umbrellas like fiction and poetry. All that said and done, it would be remiss to claim that this reading list is comprehensive or authoritative; even for a writing scholar and critic who regularly teaches travel writing at the college level, the subgenre and its accompanying breadth of scholarship eludes definitive contours. Simply put, it has its tendrils in too many places.

Instead, here’s a list of some exciting work that this corner of research has to offer, from analyzing primary sources, to theorizing the treatment of non-human entities in one’s worldview, to guided tourism and “ruin porn,” to confrontational screeds and immersion manuals.

Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988).

Controversial to this day, Kincaid’s book-length essay operates both as a vibrant piece of travel writing and a penetrating manifesto against tourism. Complex, abrasive, yet breezy, propelled along by its regional specificity and narrative ambitions, but deceptively didactic—it’s a rare case of a text being a primary example of travel writing as much as a secondary source for analyzing it.

Adopting second-person perspective as a weapon of irony, she sets the tone by addressing us directly, in most sentences implicating the reader as a privileged tourist who constructs Antigua in their own glorified view while simultaneously undercutting it with the civic strife and harsh economic realities faced by locals. The following passage, a couple of paragraphs in, offers a perfect example:

You disembark from your plane. You go through customs. Since you are a tourist, a North American or European—to be frank, white—and not an Antiguan black returning to Antigua from Europe or North America with cardboard boxes of much needed cheap clothes and food for relatives, you move through customs swiftly, you move through customs with ease. Your bags are not searched. You emerge from customs into the hot, clean air: immediately you feel cleansed, immediately you feel blessed (which is to say special); you feel free.

Dervla Murphy, “Foot Notes: Reflections on Travel Writing,” The Wilson Quarterly 16, no. 3 (1992): 122–129.

This survey of travel writing is interesting to reevaluate in light of so many recent sources that conflate tourism with traveling. Murphy, in one notable section, laments,

Tourism is intrinsically incompatible with travelling. The traveller’s rewards are natural beauty—and silence, space, solitude—and also, no less importantly, spontaneous human-to-human contact with the locals, free of exploitation by either side. The traveller merges temporarily with a region and its people, as tourists cannot do.

Is it really a conflation, though? It’s a bit of a generalization to claim that traveling as an activity affords no exploitative intent—what’s more, writing literarily about that activity denotes an added layer of subjectivity. Implicit exploitation, othering, or sensationalism is not a stretch, even if the travel writer in question thinks they have noble motivations. Further, it becomes less believable in the present day to separate tourism (something Murphy considers destructive) from traveling (which she deems “rewarding” and “hard-won”), especially when climate change is exacerbated by the mere fact of too many people seeking out a destination, as with Hawaiʻi.

Nevertheless, these contradictions make a great case for this text’s inclusion; for one, it raises questions as to how the distinction between tourism and travel has narrowed, or otherwise changed, over time. How has that line been tested, crossed, or examined in travel writing through the decades? A particularly luminous observation by Murphy, which hasn’t been compromised with time, posts that “[a]ll writers are egocentric, but good travel writers spontaneously become less so during their journeys.”

Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (Routledge, 1992).

Pratt’s defining text expands the vocabulary of travel writing, introducing key terms like transculturation, contact zones, and anti-conquest. Her main concern is with the interactive (sometimes dynamic, more often exploitative) encounters between “dominant metropolitan culture” and those who reside in its periphery. Imperial Eyes conceptualizes the subgenre quite a bit, but it grounds itself in concrete examples throughout. Pratt “rounds out” her initial thoughts in the second edition of the book (2007) in a new chapter, “Modernity, mobility, globality,” the first of part which is concerned with

esthetics and colonialism in twentieth-century modernisms, focusing on some writers of the 1920s–40s in Spanish America and Brazil. The second part reflects on mobility in the present phase of neoliberal globalization…with new patterns of mobility, such as reverse diasporas from ex-colonies to the metropole, and new recyclings of the archives of travel.

The writings surveyed here by Pratt offer an ever-in-flux chronology of how marginalized cultures have been “invisibilized,” reappraised, empowered, and subjugated again, over and over, by travel writers through the years—from pre-colonial to the contemporary. Yet again, tourism and travel blur together as a result of rigorous, critical study.

Paul Zumthor, “The Medieval Travel Narrative,” trans. Catherine Peebles New Literary History 25, no. 4 (1994): 809–824.

What if we think back to the Medieval period’s travel literature and find just as complicated a dichotomy as Murphy’s? Zumthor maps the various characteristics, regional impressions, and authorial dictions of narratives produced at the time, including those by

America’s first discoverers … [who] had a tendency to allegorize sights in order to extract a meaning from them—violently, in the same way they would soon demand the extraction of gold. From the abundance of the real, they selected elements suitable to a given moralization; the rest mattered little.

The act of traveling, or “discovery” in the cases of these early explorers, becomes one of subjugation both physically and aesthetically. By merely observing their new surroundings, these cultural outsiders impose a romanticized lens upon a new world. But, as is typical for any study into travel writing, these darker findings give way to more generative ones when the authors mark this early period as the origin of travel and literature merging into a single entity. The distinction between “travel narrative and novel” was no longer sharp by the seventeenth century, when “the former was increasingly invested with a theme.”

Philip Krummrich, “Dreaming, Going, Writing: A Three-Part Course on Travel Writing,” CEA Critic 64, no. 1 (2001): 21–24.

An honors seminar curriculum of sorts, this piece is an essential artifact for understanding the pedagogy of travel writing. The course goals grapple with elements of this subgenre that begin to emerge in the aforementioned sources: voice, style, “cultural bias,” narrative, the promising interdisciplinarity of travel writing, and its ability to enlighten us on the crosshairs and overlap between fields of study.

The greatest point of pedagogical interest here is how, in addition to research, history, style emulation, and memory and observation exercises, this course aims to culminate in a field trip to Ireland. Students would be prompted to connect the theory and tradition of travel writing with its praxis in an immediate, all-consuming sense.

Binyavanga Wainain, “How to Write About Africa,” Granta 92 (2005).

Taking a hint from Kincaid, Wainain’s “how-to” piece satirizes widely stereotyped portraits of continent as expressed through Western popular culture, like “a night club called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerillas and expats hang out.” If you’re a travel writer of this breed, Wainain writes, “Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).” This searing manual deconstructs the subgenre and the process that goes into contributing to it, bringing the study thereof into a whole new era of experimentation and boundary dissolution.

Robin Hemley, “Travel Writing,” in A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel (University of Georgia Press, 2012).

A laid-back yet critical handbook, Hemley’s field guide offers concrete evidence and practical advice for those who wish to try their hand at immersive travel writing, arguing that at its most interactive, the writing engages us “precisely because [the writer] admits his subjectivity.” Hemley gives the cold shoulder to travel writing done in an encyclopedic or listicle fashion, opting instead to plunge headfirst into the ethically murky waters of “infiltrating” a place and its culture.

It’s an autodidactic source, not necessarily geared towards classroom pedagogy or scholarship, but rather a primer for the prospectively curious and emerging writers alike. Distinct features of this text include writing prompts with generative scenarios for travel (even in regard to historical and paranormal mysteries with regional specificity), anecdotes of how the author has handled travel writing while on assignment, industry knowledge like writing “on spec” and blogging, and “reenactments” of daunting voyages.

Vanessa Watts, “Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!),” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 2, no. 1 (2013): 20–34.

Watts outlines a philosophical argument for considering Indigenous theory in a more tangible and less mythologized manner. Using her own identity as an Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee woman, for example, she asserts that

our cosmological frameworks are not an abstraction but rather a literal and animate extension of Sky Woman’s and First Woman’s thoughts; it is impossible to separate theory from praxis…. So it is not that Indigenous peoples do not theorize, but that these complex theories are not distinct from place.

For Watts, a productive way to challenge “non-Indigenous thinkers to re-imagine their world” is to consider Euro-Christian strategies where the human is centered and nature pushed to the periphery, which reflects the “measure of colonial interaction with land…[which] has historically been one of violence and bordered individuations where land is to be accessed, not learned from or a part of.”

Approaching this source with a travel-writing mentality, it might serve a theoretical function for eschewing the traditions of, say, Victorian travel narratives and other texts replete with exoticization, otherization, and so on. Watts’s text flips them on their head, identifying how one can approach (or write of) any foreign encounter with a respect for the inanimate and non-human—and thus the ability for Indigenous communities to think this way—that defies the “epistemological-ontological divide” and renders “our communication and obligations with other beings of creation” uninterruptable. Solid footing for revisiting travel documents of yore and bringing new ones into being, not to mention thinking this way while actually traveling.

Charles Forsdick, “Dark Tourism,” Keywords for Travel Writing Studies: A Critical Glossary (Anthem Press, 2019).

This chapter breaks new ground in its surveying dark tourism and how it factors into travel writing. While it’s “arguable that travel writing described dark tourist practices long before the phenomenon was identified with this term,” dark tourism is still relatively fresh as far as literary exploration goes. From the immediate aftermath of the battle of Waterloo as an attraction, to travelers visiting psychiatric institutions in the nineteenth century, to “Auschwitz selfies” and sites of genocide, Forsdick considers the contradictory possibilities of travel writing on dark tourism in recent years. Is it doomed to the same insensitivity that its subject is criticized for, or can it foster empathy, be a creative intervention, and “encourage readers to make sense of atrocity?”

Phillip P. Marzluff, “Contemporary Travel Writing about Mongolia: Imaginative Geographies and Cosmopolitan Visions,” in Travel Writing in Mongolia and Northern China, 1860-2020 (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), pp. 139–160.

This source, perhaps the most specific of this list, pushes further against the idea of tourism and travel being distinct, particularly when the traveler perpetuates a stale, white-savior trope through their writing. Taking Mongolia as a case study, Marzluff amasses pointed critiques of travelogues set in the Asian country, which may, among other injustices, situate the traveler as a “hero” or “explorer,” impose an ahistorical identity onto the people and places they recount, or display a “‘cosmopolitan privilege’…to travel freely yet desire that non-Europeans remain unchanged by globalism and time.”

The impact of transatlantic travel on literature

Last Updated on August 20, 2024

Transatlantic travel profoundly shaped 18th and 19th-century literature. Writers crossing the ocean encountered new cultures, ideas, and perspectives, broadening their worldviews and inspiring fresh literary themes.

These voyages sparked a literary revolution. From self-discovery journeys to critiques of society, transatlantic experiences fueled diverse genres and movements, fostering a rich exchange of ideas between the Old and New Worlds.

Transatlantic voyages in literature

Transatlantic voyages played a significant role in shaping the literary landscape of the 18th and 19th centuries
These voyages facilitated the exchange of ideas, cultures, and literary traditions between Europe and the Americas
The experiences and observations of writers during these voyages greatly influenced their works and contributed to the development of new literary genres and themes

Influence of travel on writers

Broadening of cultural perspectives

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Exposure to diverse cultures and ways of life during transatlantic voyages expanded writers’ understanding of the world
Interactions with people from different backgrounds challenged preconceived notions and stereotypes
Writers gained a more nuanced and empathetic view of cultural differences, which reflected in their works
For example, Mark Twain’s travels to Europe and the Middle East influenced his satirical writing and social commentary

Exposure to new ideas and philosophies

Transatlantic voyages provided writers with access to a wide range of intellectual and philosophical movements
Writers encountered Enlightenment ideas, Romanticism, and other influential schools of thought during their travels
Exposure to these ideas shaped writers’ worldviews and inspired them to explore new literary themes and styles
For instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s travels to Europe exposed him to Transcendentalism, which became a central theme in his works

Interaction with diverse peoples

Transatlantic voyages allowed writers to engage with people from various social classes, ethnicities, and nationalities
These interactions provided writers with a deeper understanding of the human experience and the complexities of social dynamics
Writers drew inspiration from the stories, struggles, and aspirations of the people they encountered during their travels
For example, Frederick Douglass’ travels to Europe allowed him to interact with abolitionists and gain international support for the anti-slavery movement

Travel as a literary theme

Journeys of self-discovery

Travel often served as a catalyst for personal growth and self-discovery in literature
Characters embarked on transatlantic voyages to find themselves, confront their fears, and overcome personal challenges
The physical journey mirrored the characters’ internal journeys of self-realization and transformation
For example, in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” the protagonist’s voyage becomes a metaphor for his spiritual and psychological quest

Exploration of the unknown

Transatlantic voyages symbolized the human desire to explore the unknown and push the boundaries of knowledge
Literature often portrayed travel as a means of venturing into uncharted territories, both geographically and metaphorically
Characters confronted the mysteries and wonders of the world, seeking to unravel the secrets of nature and the human condition
For instance, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” the protagonist’s voyage to the South Pole represents a journey into the unknown depths of the human psyche

Escaping societal constraints

Transatlantic travel provided characters with an opportunity to escape the limitations and expectations of their societies
Voyages allowed characters to break free from social norms, gender roles, and cultural constraints
Travel represented a means of liberation and the pursuit of personal freedom and autonomy
For example, in Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” the character of Jo March travels to Europe to pursue her literary ambitions and assert her independence

Modes of transatlantic transportation

Sailing ships in literature

Sailing ships were the primary mode of transatlantic transportation in the 18th and early 19th centuries
Literature often romanticized the experience of sailing, depicting it as a symbol of adventure, courage, and the human spirit
Sailing ships served as a microcosm of society, with characters from diverse backgrounds confined in close quarters
The challenges and perils of sea travel, such as storms, shipwrecks, and piracy, became recurring themes in literature
For example, in James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Pilot,” the sailing ship becomes a central character, shaping the destinies of those on board

Emergence of steamships

The introduction of steamships in the 19th century revolutionized transatlantic travel, making it faster and more reliable
Steamships transformed the perception of travel in literature, representing progress, modernity, and the shrinking of distances
The increased speed and comfort of steamship travel allowed for more frequent and accessible transatlantic journeys
Steamships became symbols of the changing times, reflecting the rapid industrialization and technological advancements of the era
For instance, in Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad,” the steamship serves as a vehicle for the author’s humorous and satirical observations of European society

Representations of the Old World vs the New World

Idealization of European culture

Many American writers in the 18th and 19th centuries idealized European culture, viewing it as a source of refinement, sophistication, and intellectual enlightenment
Europe, particularly England, France, and Italy, was often portrayed as a land of history, art, and cultural heritage
American characters in literature often sought to emulate European manners, fashions, and social graces
The idealization of European culture reflected the cultural inferiority complex experienced by some Americans during this period
For example, in Henry James’ “The Portrait of a Lady,” the protagonist, Isabel Archer, is drawn to the allure of European society and its perceived superiority

Critique of American society

Transatlantic travel also provided writers with an opportunity to critique and contrast American society with European culture
Writers often used their experiences abroad to highlight the shortcomings, contradictions, and hypocrisies of American society
The New World was sometimes portrayed as a land of materialism, greed, and moral decay, in contrast to the perceived refinement of Europe
Writers used their transatlantic perspectives to shed light on issues such as slavery, social inequality, and the erosion of traditional values in America
For instance, in Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad,” the author satirizes the ignorance and provincialism of American tourists in Europe

Reconciling cultural identities

Transatlantic travel also forced writers to grapple with questions of cultural identity and belonging
American writers who spent extended periods in Europe often found themselves caught between two worlds, struggling to reconcile their American roots with their European experiences
Literature explored the themes of expatriation, cultural assimilation, and the search for a sense of home and self
Writers used their transatlantic experiences to interrogate the complexities of national identity and the fluidity of cultural boundaries
For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Marble Faun,” the American characters in Italy struggle to find their place in a foreign land and come to terms with their own cultural identities

Impact on literary movements

Rise of travel literature genre

Transatlantic voyages gave rise to the genre of travel literature, which became increasingly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries
Travel narratives, journals, and letters provided readers with vivid accounts of foreign lands, cultures, and experiences
Travel literature served as a means of vicarious exploration, allowing readers to experience the world through the eyes of the writer
The genre also played a role in shaping public perceptions and stereotypes of different cultures and peoples
For example, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands” offered readers a glimpse into her travels in Europe and her observations of social and political issues

Influence on Romanticism

Transatlantic travel had a significant impact on the Romantic movement in literature
The Romantic emphasis on individualism, emotion, and the sublime found expression in the experiences of writers abroad
Travel provided Romantic writers with new landscapes, cultures, and experiences to draw inspiration from
The sense of wonder, exoticism, and the encounter with the unfamiliar became central themes in Romantic literature
For instance, Lord Byron’s travels in Europe and the Mediterranean influenced his poetry and contributed to his reputation as a Romantic hero

Contributions to Realism

Transatlantic travel also played a role in the development of Realism in literature
Writers who traveled abroad often brought back a more grounded and authentic perspective on the world
Travel exposed writers to the harsh realities of life, including poverty, social inequality, and the struggles of ordinary people
The experiences and observations of writers during their travels informed their realistic portrayals of society and human nature
For example, Henry James’ novels often depicted the realities of American expatriate life in Europe, with a keen eye for social nuances and psychological depth

Notable transatlantic literary figures

Benjamin Franklin’s travels

Benjamin Franklin, a key figure in American literature and politics, extensively traveled between the colonies and Europe
Franklin’s travels to England and France played a crucial role in his intellectual and political development
He used his time abroad to forge important diplomatic relationships, exchange ideas with Enlightenment thinkers, and promote American interests
Franklin’s travel experiences influenced his writing, including his autobiography and his satirical works
For instance, Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth” drew on his observations of society and human behavior during his travels

Washington Irving’s European experiences

Washington Irving, one of the first American writers to gain international recognition, spent many years living and traveling in Europe
Irving’s travels in England, Spain, and other European countries deeply influenced his literary works
He drew inspiration from European folklore, history, and culture, incorporating these elements into his stories and essays
Irving’s travel experiences also shaped his perspective on American culture and identity, as he grappled with the tensions between the Old World and the New
For example, Irving’s “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.” included stories inspired by his travels, such as “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

Henry James’ expatriate life

Henry James, a prominent American novelist, spent much of his adult life as an expatriate in Europe
James’ experiences living in England, France, and Italy had a profound impact on his literary works
He used his expatriate perspective to explore themes of cultural identity, social class, and the clash between American and European values
James’ novels often featured American characters navigating the complexities of European society and grappling with questions of belonging and self-discovery
For instance, James’ novel “The Ambassadors” follows an American protagonist who embarks on a journey of self-realization in Europe

Transatlantic literary exchange

European reception of American writers

The transatlantic literary exchange involved not only American writers traveling to Europe but also the European reception of American literature
Many American writers, such as Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, gained popularity and critical acclaim in Europe
European readers and critics were fascinated by the unique perspectives and voices of American writers, who offered fresh insights into the New World
The European reception of American literature helped to establish the legitimacy and importance of American writing on the world stage
For example, Edgar Allan Poe’s works were highly influential in Europe, particularly in France, where they were translated and admired by writers such as Charles Baudelaire

American interest in European literature

The transatlantic literary exchange also involved American writers and readers’ keen interest in European literature
American writers were heavily influenced by European literary traditions, including the works of Shakespeare, Milton, and the Romantic poets
American readers eagerly consumed European novels, poetry, and essays, which were widely available through transatlantic trade and translation
The influence of European literature on American writing helped to shape the development of American literary styles and genres
For instance, the works of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens had a significant impact on American writers such as James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain

Cross-cultural collaborations and influences

Transatlantic travel facilitated cross-cultural collaborations and influences between American and European writers
Writers on both sides of the Atlantic corresponded, exchanged ideas, and sometimes worked together on literary projects
American writers living in Europe often interacted with European literary circles, forging friendships and professional connections
These collaborations and influences helped to foster a sense of international literary community and shared artistic purpose
For example, Henry James collaborated with British writer Edith Wharton on several occasions, and they maintained a close friendship and literary dialogue throughout their lives

Resources

daily.jstor.org, “All Travelers are Infiltrators: An Introduction to the Study of Travel Writing.” By Tyler Thier; library.fiveable.me, 11.5 The impact of transatlantic travel on literature.”