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Notes & Pics from the Road

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Do you like taking pictures?
Do you like to travel?
Does writing fuel a fire deep within your soul?

If so, you should explore travel writing & photography! 

I'd like to create a series of workshops that address the ways people can enhance their pieces of travel writing & travel photography for larger audiences. In the past decade there’s been a huge surge in personalized publishing regarding travel narratives and digital storytelling—on Amazon alone there’s hundreds of self-made travel stories popping up. There’s tons of websites that contain packages where people can self-publish hardback, glossy-filled photography books for their coffee tables. Sharing and retelling travel stories via written narrative and photography is a surging method of networking and self-improvement in terms of communicating effectively and enhancing multicultural, communal narratives.


Communication is becoming ever more reliant on digital mediums to expand the craft of conversation, and travel writing is no exception to this fact. The reason I want to focus on travel writing and travel photography is because there is a dire need to re navigate the definition of travel for readers. When someone says travel, more often than not people imagine hopping in a plane and going to some faraway land to experience an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

That's boring.

Travel can and does occur in many different forms, as does a personalized narrative. Travel writing and photography work hand-in-hand to scaffold the ideas, content, characters, and fascination behind a story to make it relatively enjoyable and unique. 



This collection of photos is from a Blue Angels air show in Waco last year. Yes, taking photos of these birds in 30 degree weather was excruciating, but the memories I have of walking around and snapping pictures of each of the planes as they did their tricks as well as talking to different pilots are precious and, in my opinion, fit the normalized definition of travel that people think about when the word comes to mind. 

Then, you get travel snippets like this:

It was June, and the pavement scorched the soles of my feet. The wind did nothing to stop the Southeast Texas humidity from seeping into my skin and settling on my bones. Sweat was pouring down the back of my neck and made my shirt stick to my chest. 

But I had a sprinkle-covered, bright blue donut, so I was happy. 

The quest I went through to receive this donut was, admittedly, not so sweet. 



If we go with the assumption that travel means getting from one place to another, then there has to be a good story behind why in the hell I'd go hunting down a donut at the beginning of a smoldering Texas summer. 

I'd like to use the workshops as a framework to making a stepping point for participants to accumulate a better understanding of who they are as writers, photographers, and storytellers, as well as finding a specific niche that they want to work in in terms of travel photography and travel writing. I'm thinking that the workshops would last a week, Monday-Friday for 3 hours each class.

As a group, we would evaluate what we define as travel and situate ourselves within the digital storytelling market--some questions we would address would be:

  • "Do I approach traveling as a chore? Hobby? Or something else entirely?"
  • "What does it mean to travel?"
  • "How have I established my voice as a traveler?"
  • "What ideas do I want to share with others and why do those ideas matter?"


I think digital storytelling would be a great starting point because there are so many types of digital storytelling that writers can access today; WordPress, Instagram, and Facebook are just a few examples of places where travel writers can effectively spread their ideas to vast audiences.

Here's a mock schedule that I think would work well with the workshops and how each class would be organized:

Notes & Pics from the Road: A Travel Writing & Travel Photography Workshop

DAY 1: "Opening the Door" Narrative Nonfiction, The blend of Personal Writing and Personal Photography



Introduce the Course, Establish Key Terms, Networking, Look at examples of different kinds of travel writing & travel photography, establish the participants goals, needs, and expectations of the course as well as my own goals, needs, and expectations as moderator/instructor.

DAY 2: "Charting the Waters" Mapping Out your Story



Find out the types of stories the participants want to share, and work together to dissect the purpose, ideas, and functions of those stories in public versus private spaces. Use in-class group activities to visually structure story ideas/explore the similarities and differences between travel writing & travel photography. 

DAY 3: "Pen to Paper; Finger to Shutter" Crafting Narrative with Writing & Photography



Map out the components of a narrative, familiarize with key characteristics, functions, and parts of a narrative and photo, in-class writing and photography workshop, find benefits of public narrative-ship, and establish where they might want to send their pieces of travel writing and/or travel photography.

DAY 4: "Wading through the Grass" Develop Your Brand



This class session is all about honing in on the 5 W's of the participants' stories, as well as giving each person ample time to craft, explore, edit, and revise their work.  

DAY 5: Unveiling the Masterpiece


By the end of the course, I'd encourage the workshop participants to submit a piece of their travel writing and/or travel photography to a online, public venue. 

Overall, I would hope that the participants benefit as much as possible from this selection of workshops. Hopefully I'll be able to implement in them one day! 

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