How to write travel notes. Genre travel notes: what I see, I write! Travel notes as a genre

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It would seem that it could be easier to write to a newspaper about your trip to another city, to another country. So many emotions, impressions, events - sit down and write! But precisely because there are a lot of events and impressions and I want to describe all of them in detail, the text “spreads” to an incredible size, overgrown with boring details and numerous details.

As a result, at first the novice journalist describes in detail the flight on the plane, then how many minutes their group waited for the guide, then tells how they were settled in the hotel ... and when it comes to the most important thing - the purpose of the trip, there is simply no strength left to tell about it . And then, at the end of the material, a dry list of sights that the journalist saw and visited follows. Familiar?

Decide right away what is important to you. If you are going to describe a hotel service in different countries and your travel notes are dedicated to this, then you can describe how you checked into a hotel.

But if you are going to talk about architectural sights in your text, then a story about a hotel will be appropriate only if it is an architectural monument or some kind of absurdity of modern urban planning.

Very good "revive" travel notes household sketches "from nature"- small reportage moments that convey the rhythm of the places you visit, the features of life and behavior of people.

So, travel notes - a description of certain events, meetings with different people that the author encounters during his journey, combined common theme. Moreover, the author does not describe everything that he saw on his way, he selective: architectural monuments, features of local tourism, features of local cuisine, local traditions, etc.

There are many topics, and the choice depends on the interests and personal preferences of the author. One way or another, but a journalist writing in the genre of a travel essay has to select the most interesting, the most important. What is considered the most interesting and important depends on the author's intention.

Everything that is not included in the author's intention, does not fall into the topic - remains in the journalist's notebook (computer) and waits in the wings: for sure, someday you will be able to use this information. In five or ten years. And maybe even in a different genre. Too long to wait? For their practice, each professional journalist accumulates a large amount of such material, which for the time being remains unclaimed, but at a certain moment, as it accumulates, “shoots”, like the very Chekhov gun, allows the journalist to take on serious topics that require analysis of a large number of facts and serious generalizations.

But back to travel notes. The very fact that a journalist moves in time and space makes this genre dynamic, easy to read, breaks the text into small parts, each with its own subtitle, which is especially important for a teenage audience who does not like to read large chunks of text. Reporting moments (descriptions, details, emotions and impressions of the author), creating the effect of presence, allow the reader to become an emotional partner in the journey.

Tatyana Kovgan

Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk. Photo from the Internet, forgive me its author!

I stood with a group of tourists on a green hillock and looked at the high snow-white cathedral, it seems, St. Sophia. It was in Polotsk, I am 13-14 years old and this is my first independent trip without parents. I remember that I was holding a small notebook in my hands, where I tried to write down the names of sights. I didn’t have other gadgets then, in the late 80s. And the desire to somehow document the trip has already arisen.

It was later, years later, that I learned that there is such a genre of travel writing in travel journalism, when a traveler writes down his observations, the most catchy moments of the trip and his impressions of it. Especially impressions that fade over time, like old printed photographs. Of course, in our digital age, it's easier to take pictures than . But it is still important to note some details in the notebook as well.

These are the titles settlements, cities, names of people with whom they met and talked. By the way, it is important to fix as accurately as possible. Do not be too lazy to write down what the weather was like and what nuances it brought to the trip. The names of streets, cathedrals and monuments, and most importantly - the state of mind that they caused, because even cities have, and not just history.

I confess that I have never been at sea, in foreign countries and in the mountains (except that I saw the Ural Mountains from the window of a train and a car). While I travel most often in Russia. Too bad I didn't always take notes. But even now I can remember some details. In the village of Mikhailovskoye, I was surprised by tall powerful pines (or spruce?) And shady alleys with bridges, and in the Svyatogorsk Monastery, where the wounded Pushkin was brought, narrow dark corridors, and the poet's death mask, similar to the theater.

Minsk is remembered for its neat station square and bright, sparsely populated metro. In the mysterious town of Nesvizh, for the first time, I saw a medieval castle with guards, a courtyard, parks, earthen ramparts and deep ditches. In Yekaterinburg, visited the place of death royal family at a time when, instead of the Church on the Blood, there was a cross with a photograph of the royal family. And nearby you could see the hills from the blown up Ipatiev house ...

Now I live in Kazan, and once I lived in Zelenodolsk and. I visited Bolgar, Urzhum, Malmyzh, Nolinsk ... Even in the smallest provincial towns there are so many interesting and unique things that you will not see anywhere else. In Nolinsk, for example, the ensemble of St. Nicholas Cathedral impresses with its grandeur and ... abandonment. The tall white walls of the cathedral are destroyed by time, and possibly by people, although it is an architectural monument. I saw it and remember...

And once we went to the Urals, to the city of Serov by car. My grandmother and grandfather, my mother's parents lived there. From Kirov region the path is not close, we traveled for a day. But it was an unforgettable road trip! Through the sea-like Votkinsk reservoir, the cozy city of Tchaikovsky in flower beds, the foggy bridge near Kachkanar ... But a lot was forgotten, because I didn’t write it down interesting names and the impression they made.

I had a camera with me (a soap dish with film), so we took some pictures, for example, the border sign between Europe and Asia, which is marked in this place by a white elegant pillar. On it one can see completely inelegant, but eternal inscriptions: Vasya was here ... We were there too! Here, we show off on the photo, old, still printed, and slightly blurry.

By the way, there are a great many such pillars throughout the Ural Mountains (and this is more than 3000 kilometers) and all of them different kind. Each has its own history. Unfortunately, I forgot (because I didn't write it down!) where in the Ural Mountains there is a pillar near which we were photographed. But maybe one of the readers will recognize this place?

And from the notes you can create a travel essay that will please the author and benefit other people. They may never visit there, but thanks to the author's travel notes, they learn a lot of interesting things.

How to make travel notes bright and memorable, like the trip itself. And so that the reader can imagine and feel the same as you?

Like me, I will talk about some of the subtleties.

So, the characteristic features of travel notes:

• location indication ( and possibly time);

For example: In any city, even the smallest one like, there is a park. Or a city square, a garden where all the residents go for a walk.

• landscape sketches ( description of the area, architecture);

In the city park of our small town (there are probably thousands all over Russia) there is a large circle - an asphalt path, about one and a half kilometers long. She, like a ring, surrounds the park. And there are many small, practically forest paths crossing the park up and down.

• portrait sketches ( description of animals and people, their behavior, clothes, manners);

Here is a mature, strict man with a “boxer” on a leash, just as mature and strict. Here are two ladies of venerable age, their faces are slightly tense, apparently talking about problems ...

• comments and feelings of the author ( author's "I", the personality of the author).

I often visit our park. I walk the dog. And now and younger son. The alleys of the park give me peace…

In general, for travel notes are very important details (unusual facts, unusual buildings, places, unusual people, animals). It is the details that help to recreate the effect of presence.

And here you can’t do without such a reception of a letter as description. I remind you that this is an enumeration of the characteristic features and properties of objects ( color, volume, width, length, etc.).

For example : The stage is surrounded by a two-meter metal fence and resembles a paddock (well, for cows, for example). Young people call this place so.

And of course, you can use it in travel notes. narration, which recreates the picture of events as a whole, namely: from point A I went to point B and along the way this story happened to me ...

According to the form of material organization a travelogue can be:

• chronological ( sequence of events in time);
• essayist or free ( is based on associative links, figurative generalizations, reasoning of the author).

You can fully practice at the sights of your own city or village, to which you have long been accustomed and do not notice their beauty. I propose to look at your hometown through the eyes of a tourist and rediscover it!

Today, in the post examples, I used fragments of my travel notes. By clicking on the link, you can read the post in full!

You will need

• camera or video camera;
• notebook and pencil;
• laptop or tablet;
• Dictaphone.

Instruction

When planning your next trip, try to prepare in advance for the fact that you will keep a travel diary. To get started, seek the help of professionals. Surely, at least once you watched the programs “Around the World”, “Unlucky Notes” or turned on the “Travel-TV” channel. Find any of the stories from these cycles in the program guide or on the Internet. See them from the point of view of a traveler and a journalist. Pay attention to what the emphasis of the plot is. Sketch in a notepad or any digital device convenient for you rough plan keeping travel notes.

First, mark the date, time and place where you start your travel notes. By the way, you can start keeping your travel notes right after you left the house and went to the airport or train station. Secondly, start each morning with new photos and notes to them, without fail fixing their date. Accompany your comments with photos. There can be quite a lot of them, later you will have to carefully select the most interesting ones for travel notes.

Be sure to take pictures of every interesting object. It can be a local market with an abundance of seafood or tropical fruits, festive processions and just scenes from life, permeated with the color inherent in this place. If you do not have the opportunity to immediately write down comments on the footage in a notepad, use the voice recorder, which is probably in your mobile phone. This will help in the future to recreate your impressions of what you saw and describe them in travel notes.

Don't forget very important point: capture each vivid impression of what you see not only in a photo or video, but also in your comments to it. The sooner you describe your feelings, the more interesting and brighter your travel notes will turn out. Do not overload your notes with detailed historical information obtained from a guide or on the Internet, those who want to know the details will do it themselves. Also, do not put mean and faceless captions such as “local market”, “mountain view”, etc. under the photographs. Try to make the description interesting for the readers of your notes.

Your journey is over. It's time to arrange all the material for notes in chronological order. Collect all sources for notes together: record texts from a voice recorder, add notes from other sources, download photos. In any program convenient for you that works with texts and images, write your notes by inserting photographs and captions to them. You can also give each photo an original title, include your imagination and sense of humor. Be sure to re-read the notes and let your loved ones read. Liked? Feel free to post your travel notes on your page, blog or any site where tourists share their travel experiences.

Summer is vacation time. No not like this. Summer is travel time. Finally, you can see what is there, beyond the horizon. Minimum clothes, maximum impressions. And I so want it to never end.

Summer will end. Memories will remain that will warm you on long winter evenings, give a topic for talking with friends. And here's what I thought. Looking at photographs is one thing. Human memory is not perfect. That mood, those people, good and bad, met along the way will be forgotten very quickly. Something needs to be done about it. Do not spill memories of a unique summer, save it for yourself, for children, for loved ones. The only way out is to write travel notes.

How to do it? It's one thing to say "I'll write." It's another thing to force yourself to sit down and write. When you are going to write, so many thoughts. You sit down - the universal emptiness envelops the consciousness, subconsciousness and other parts of the brain. We will act according to the plan.

First plan: technical side.[ more]
1. Write down everything that happened at the same time every day. For example, at 21.00. Failed, then in the morning at 9.00. This will become a habit and it will become easier to seat yourself at the table.
2. Prepare accessories and workplace so that the search for all this does not interrupt the creative process.
3. It's good to have a laptop. If not, you need a notebook. Yes, thicker. The place where you record should also be organized. You can add plan items.
4. Let's not forget the camera!

Second plan: direct travel notes. We are following this plan here. We start with the designation of the date, time, place. Then we proceed to the description of the place in which we are, fellow travelers, events.

Describing the place is probably the easiest. What I see is what I write. At the same time, let's not forget the most important thing: to evaluate what we see, to describe our mood while admiring the area and the statements of others, if any.

It's a little more difficult with people. After all, a person has not only an external, but also an internal. With the outside, everything is clear: name, approximate, by eye, age, marital status(if possible) what he does, appearance, demeanor, gestures, smile, features. The inner can be expressed by your conversations with him. Here it is possible not to reproduce what was said with accuracy to every word, but simply in a few words, reflecting the views of the interlocutor, to convey the essence of the conversation. Again, let's not forget the main thing: to evaluate a person, you can listen to what others have to say about him, but we will not stoop to a discussion behind his back.

Describing the events of our journey, we will use works of art, or rather their plot structure. How do writers write? According to plan. And in this regard, there are only 4 points.
1. Tie. We answer the question: how did the event start?
2. Development of action. You directly describe what actions took place, who did what, said, thought.
3. Climax. This is the most intense moment of action, when everything is on the verge of life and death, for and against, good and evil.
4. Decoupling. How did the event end? What lesson did you take away from it? How has it changed your life and those around you?

Traveling, we can become not only the heroes of some incident, but also its observers, witnesses. It's also good to write down. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

Don't forget that people love to read, first of all, memoirs famous people(and now simple), and secondly, notes of travelers. Who knows, maybe you will write notes about your trip not only for yourself? Wake up your talents!