what makes a good trip report?
 

i've been home from my 5 week stay in france for 2 weeks now and finally sat down to write out a trip report. i started it very descriptively but realized with over a month long trip it would take pages!
so i thought it best to ask what makes a report good in peoples opinion?

I like facts and figures. Tell me if you loved or hated your hotel. Did you find a good little restaurant somewhere. I don’t want to know how many onions were in that tasty little dish. Although, I have to admit Inditravel won me over by eating fois gras. What made you say wow!!!!

Did you have any problems? Hope nothing bad happened, but I can’t help but wonder how did you deal with whatever may have come your way.

I am sure that I have forgotten a lot of other things, but I just really appreciate the fact that you took the time to tell me how you felt about your trip.

Simone1's suggestions are good; also, it helps if you can break up your report into one- or two-day segments, and post them all in the same thread.

Lee Ann

Also for the sake of everyones' eyes - please break it into paragraphs!

I agree about prices and paragraphs. Also, a little humor goes a long way. It makes me feel as if I know you, and want to share your travel experience.

I want to know what you liked and disliked; where you had good food and how expensive it was; and salt it with humour, please.

Different people respond to different types of trip reports. Some people appreciate them short and to the point; others like to read the long narrative about the day-to-day discoveries. I like them both, but the thing I really like to see is a person's impressions of their experiences. Did your trip make you think about something? see something in a new way?

Hi K,

Your report should have a good opening line, something like "It was a dark and stormy night....".

It should have a great closing line, eg, "I walked back to the hotel in the rain".

It should have a great title, "Tale of Two Cities".

There should be romance, drama, mystery, adventure, suffering, ecstasy.

You should include vivid, accurate descriptions of the environment, character sketches of interesting people, comments on the culture (not all scathing criticisms of hypocrisy and immorality).

You should tell us about great restaurants, bars and hotels.

If there is a war, you should describe it, but not in gruesome detail.

Finally, we should all feel as if we had been at a moveable feast.

((I))

PS, please limit your essay to two, double-spaced typewritten pages, no. 11 font.

I enjoy hearing about all the wonderful things, but very much appreciate hearing about the mistakes, or lessons learned. I find it extremely valuable to hear about what not to do.

Also, I love little details about hotels....it helps me so much with my daydreams!

Evocative title.

Break it into sections by replying to your own thread.

Keep it all in ONE thread.

Use paragraphs generously.

Provide descriptions, prices, phone numbers, addresses if available.

Provide extra backgound info if you visit something less travelled to (we all that Versailles was Louis XIV's residence and that the Louvre has the Mona Lisa).

A lot of readers are quite interested in food. If you ate something worth telling about, don't assume no one wants to hear about it (I do).

Well, unless you have a wonderful gift for writing (which, occasionaly does appear on here) I'd stick to the details of things people are most likely to do a search for in the future. Trip reports disappear off the radar pretty fast (especially considering the amount of work they take!) but if it can be recalled by someone searching on a restaurant or a hotel then it has a longer, more useful life. So, personally, I skip all the normal sightseeing stuff (went we to the Louvre on Thursday, Versailles on Friday, blah blah) and tell travelers what they might need to know for their trips. All problems or things frequently asked about on here should be addressed (like, how did you get from the airport to your hotel, etc).

Oh, and a link with photos is always fun!

By the way - to readers of trip reports - it's always nice if you do read the report to say "thanks." They take a lot of time to write and are a huge asset on this board. It's always satfisfying to hear if anybody is reading them!

keb0503:

prue gives good advice.

To me an interesting trip report has:

-brevity, no long, rambling paragraphs.
-your impressions, opinions on flights, hotels, restaurants
-originality, e.g. that the Eiffel Tower is tall; that the Musee D'Orsay has beautiful paintings; etc. are banal comments.

One typed page should do it.

(Five weeks in France must have been great.)

I split my report into categories--hotel, restaurants, sightseeing--rather than do a day by day report, and people seemed to appreciate that. But as someone above mentioned, some people appreciate the narrative approach.

Humor.

(Ira, are you a retired English professor from UGA?)

No, kswl, I am a retired engineering professor from UMd.

((I))

I look for good writing and humour in a trip report over detailed facts and figures. I like reports which give a sense of place, rather than just the details of where one stayed and what one ate (although these can often be interesting too).

One of the best in recent months was PatrickLondon's account of a short visit to Paris: http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34635039.

St.Cirq's reports from the Dordogne are also particularly good.

One of the best in years was the recentseries of reports by SharonG and her Tennessee Trio of Terror in Rome and Paris. They rival the reports of the long-departed (from this board)elvira.

Not everyone can write reports like these, but they are a joy to find among the more routine reports on the board. They should be an inspiration to others who post travel reports.

Ira

Hilarious! And I am a former writing instructor. If only my students had taken all that great advice: I might still be teaching (instead of writing) today!

Loved it!
Debbie

In a trip report I like a clear title, such as (for example) Berlin and Munich, not A tale of two cities, links to web sites that the traveller found useful, lines of poetry that the traveller found true, and both short reports and rambling reports, but if reports ramble I like the heading to include the word Long.

These reports are a Fodors speciality, and are rare in the similar Lonely Planet online forum.

Ben Haines, London
[email protected]

I think different people like different things, of course.

I personally like details about restaurants and hotels for future reference, then maybe something specific about sightseeing. I don't really care about reading that someone had a great meal at a corner cafe for 20 euro if that's all they say (no name, location, etc).

I think that sometimes people write way too much about real trivia, and stuff that doesn't even have to do about the travel at the destination -- like almost a page just about getting to the airport, waiting for the flight, the drink on the plane, the movies, etc.

I like opinions, too, though, otherwise they are just like a factbook.

If I had to nominate ones for the top trip report of the year, I think Indytravel's are my personal favorites (to France). He's got everything -- humor, details, opinions, good food descriptions, and he does lots of interesting things (and writes very well). I liked SharonG's also and many others (Ger's are great, too), and think it is very good for anyone to take the time to write all that up.

Definitely keep them in one thread, though.

I always appreciate getting the inside info. on the hotels where travelers stay. What did you like or dislike, the neighborhood it's in, and would you recommend it for the price?

Beyond that, other tips like "the shortest line for the Louvre is usually underground by the tube" and "carry cash in Amsterdam because they don't accept credit cards for purchases less than 25EU"-- that sort of detail to enrich others' experiences.

Finally, the funny anecdotes of a traveler's visit always adds life to the report. I don't need to read the hour-by-hour report of where we went-- I appreciate the personal details and advice.

Thanks all! I hope I followed your advice. I can get too detail oriented sometimes. Especially reliving a great trip. I have read some reports that I loved and others I could barely look at. I just want to return all the help I got here.

I have to take one of my comments back. I did say that I didn’t want to hear about the onions in that little tasty dish. I finally found SharonG’s trip reports (I searched for them for several months). She went on and on about food. She could have written ten more pages and I think I would have been asking for more. I have not finished Part I, and I can’t stop laughing. Yes, humor is very important.

What I like best is specific tips that I might be able to use. Names of hotels and their websites. Train and bus information. Like that.

I never write and rarely read trip reports, since my feeling is everyone is looking for something so different from their travels. What I like to do best (sit around drinking wine in cafes) is most likely not of interest to anyone else -LOL.

I am an active poster here but mostly I reply to questions when I can help with the name of a hotel I liked alot, or logistics of transportation in a certain city or area, a special insider tip about local festivals or markets.

keb, another way to return the favor (in addition to a trip report) is to continue to read and post on Fodors even when you're not planning a trip.

I am admittedly a trip report freak. I love them all but am partial to those written about Germany, Austria and Switzerland - the places that I most enjoy visiting. Some may be a little long and at times boring with a bit too much detail but I can usually extract some tips and recommendations to assist me with my own trip planning. It's almost always a pleasure to ride along with the writer and enjoy a trip through someone else's excitement. I know trip reports might not be as enjoyable to some as they are to me but I also know there are other travelers out there who appreciate someone taking the time to share their adventures.

I especially enjoy photos, links, hotel and restaurant reviews, day trip recommendations, etc. I take a few notes as I am traveling (as I'm sure many of you do) to keep my thoughts in order as I put a report together later. And the older I get the more I forget so I really have to take notes. :-)

For those of you who might be vacationing in Germany, Austria or Switzerland this year and are considering writing a trip report - in addition to posting it to Fodors - I offer my webpages as a means of publishing your journal along with your pictures. Anyone interested need only to drop me a note ([email protected]). I think it's a great way to share your trip with friends, relatives and other travelers. All they have to do is click on a link to your pages... Ben http://www.bensbauernhof.com/tripreports.html

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it yet, but it would be nice if trip reports are not posted until they are completed. I think this is why they are sometimes segmented into different threads...which makes it impossible to follow.

Also, we should wait until they have finished posting their reports before commenting/asking questions. This interrupts the flow of the report and makes it difficult to follow as well.

I definitely agree with posting the report into paragraphs and giving as many details as possible without boring the reader. It helps to get all of your thoughts together regarding your report soon after your trip. I save my receipts too to help me remember what I've purchased and when.

Having written several reports, my feeling is that having comments and questions after each part is helpful to the writer and reader. (Of course, all parts should be posted on the original thread.)

Reading a solid 5 page report sometimes makes my eyes glaze and my mind wander. ((R))

I appreciate specific recommendations, and in my New Zealand report I used a numbers rating system to try to help others in their planning. ((F))

I really appreciate the comments and questions when I am writing a report. They encourage me to keep going. If I don't know anyone is enjoying reading the report, it is hard to justify continuing.

Posting as you go is also a way to extend the shelf life of the thread. I have posted reports all at once, and by the next day they are gone. The ones that attract the most interest are the ones that continue over several days.