Travel writing courses: The July Project

July was the first of our summer travel writing courses

In July we ran the first of series of summer travel writing courses! As a small team of three we set about making a magazine style guide to Berlin. We decided to write about five of the city’s boroughs so we would give ourselves good reason to explore some of the lesser known areas.

What did the travel writing course consist of?

The writing course consisted of three writing workshops per week. The first part of these classes was all about planning the guide – What will the theme be? Who is our target audience? Who will review which sites?

Once this was decided, and the few first draft reviews were written, the classes became more focused on the writing itself. What makes good travel writing? Which style do we want to write in so that the guide is consistent? How long should the reviews be?

As the reviews started to come in, we met with our graphic designer to start bringing the guide to life. The students had the final say on the layout of the magazine and completed the work themselves, but our designer was there to show them the software and give insight and guidance.

By the end the writing students chose two from the group to take on an editorial role, to go through the guide and spot anything that needs changing.

Upon completion of these tasks, the guide was then published – so those on our journalism course had a beautiful piece of writing for their portfolios.