A travelogue is a record of the events, sights and personal feelings which a traveller experiences as they go from place to place. The format of these travelogues can be at its simplest a diary with events listed day by day but more usually they are combined into a more coherent narrative much more like a story. The style of individual travelogues varies as much as the reasons for travelling do. They can be just a simple description of what was seen, an investigation into the reason behind these new sights or even an investigation into the authors' own beliefs and motivations for travel (e.g Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy).

Some of the most important travelogues, and many of those that are considered as literature, are ones that recount exploration or conquests. These offer new, strange and sometimes sensationalised accounts of completely alien cultures and civilizations which often become the standard texts on a region for many years afterwards or else brings the region to the notice of a new generation of travellers. The Travels of Marco Polo, the travels of Ibn Battuta, The history of Alexander the Great by Callisthenes and the explorations of Richard Burton are just a few of this type of book.

In later years, when travel to well known and frequently visited areas, became more akin to tourism the style of the works changed accordingly. A good example of this is the Grand Tour European nobles would take of Europe to see the art and architecture of old civilizations. One tourism pioneer was Robert Louis Stevenson

Other notable travelogues

• Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
• Charles Dickens, American Notes, Pictures of Italy
• Jack Kerouac, On The Road
• Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

Websites where you can create your own travelogue

latitude zero (http://www.latitudezero.org/journal/index.html)

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