Imagine that you’re sitting at a sidewalk cafe in a foreign city. You put your book down. You take a moment to savor the unfamiliar flavors, to smell the unfamiliar aromas, to listen to heated conversations in an unknown language, to watch plainclothes police drag a screaming woman into a panel van. And you think to yourself, somebody ought to write a book about this place. If nothing else, I hope this article shows you that travel writing isn’t just for wives of hedge-fund managers desperate to prove their life isn’t worthless.

So what is travel writing? Travel writing is a loosely-defined genre that includes travelogues, guidebooks, memoirs, travel journalism, snapchats from Phuket, Yelp reviews of Vegas brothels, and letters to the consulate to get you out of Moroccan prison. For the sake of brevity, we won’t focus on those last few.

The first question you might be asking is, Do I actually have to travel to these places to write about them? Of course not. Travel can be expensive, dangerous, and mind-numbingly boring. Hell, I’ve written travel books about Damascus, Port-Au-Prince and Jackson, Mississippi and God knows I’d never be caught dead in any of those places. But if you don’t travel to the place you’re going to write about, you’ll need to put in extra work on Wikipedia, Google street view and watching movies filmed in that location to make sure you get things right.

For the rest of this article, however, we’ll assume you tricked your boss with a fake family death to get enough time off to actually travel to these places.

Step One: Write From a Unique Point of View

Remember, you are writing as a traveler and an outsider to the community you’re visiting. Now, it’s possible far-flung regions like India and China have had talented native writers who’ve written about their homeland, but that’s not what you’re going for. Take your reader into account and think about what value they hope to get from your writing. Do you hope to help them navigate this strange land when they visit? Do you want to share some off-the-beaten path sights away from the large tourist traps? Do you want to tell them where they can purchase a child bride, so they make sure to stay away from that spot?

However, it’s also important to be aware of your biases. It’s best to write in the first-person. Travel writing should have the intimacy of a diary and this way the reader is aware of your subjectivity. So, for example, your readers will understand that your local hosts might not be so open-minded to slaughtering street dogs for meat as you are. 

Step Two: Be Honest

Whether it’s a local dish you found to be disappointing or an old high school you’re certain is being used as a death camp, it’s important to be honest about your experiences as a traveler. Your reader will want those moments of authenticity. Not all trips are sunny beaches, picturesque vistas and nubile masseuses who allow roaming free of charge. Make sure to share those dead ends, scams and overrated traps as well.

In my most successful travelogue about my time in Bahrain, I wrote about a misunderstanding at the local pharmacy. While I asked for Advil, I was instead taken into a backroom and asked to deliver endangered osprey eggs to a government official in Hong Kong. While my publication of the incident means I’ll be executed if I ever return to Bahrain, it did make for a great story. This brings me to my next point.

Step Three: Interact with locals

Your reader, like you, want to absorb as much local flavor as possible and that’s not possible without at least trying to engage with the locals. Even if you don’t speak the language, pay attention to their body language. When I was in France, I couldn’t count how many people would stick their middle finger up to me as I passed them on the street. A local guide said it was their way of complementing my attire.

If you can get a translator or know someone who speaks English, soak up as many stories as you can. In Pakistan I met Hashim, a young man with a great passion for computer engineering. Many things about Hashim struck me as unique: his eagerness to share his life’s details, the way he’d hold my hand in public, or run his finger through my hair, his comfort sleeping next to me, completely in the nude, no modesty about hiding his erection. And though he was forcibly removed from my hotel and I never saw him again, I like to think he lives on in my writing.

Step Four: Stay up-to-date

If there’s one constant in world history, it’s that there are no constants. Borders, kings, queens, and laws regarding drug trafficking change constantly. Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic which became Czechia which is now just Kia.

You never know when a war might breakout during one of your trips. This is just an unfortunate reality you’ll have to accept. When I was in Yemen in 2014, nobody could’ve predicted this prosperous, stable nation with prompt, efficient room service was moments away from civil war.

But you don’t want to publish something outdated or look out-of-touch. Don’t do what I did and release a whole book about the wonderful bathhouses of Afghanistan in October 2001. So you have two choices: get a publisher who keeps a close eye on the news, or write about places that never change.