Essays about Travel (back to contents)

To hear some admissions officers tell it, they get at least one million essays about travel every year. Approximately 800,000 are about a trip to Europe that taught the writer “how complex the world is” or “how all people have the same hopes and dreams.” About 100,000 describe an emotional trip to Jerusalem. The remaining 100,000 detail journeys to Africa, Asia, or South America.

And every year, of those one million travel essays, maybe three are interesting. Face it—how many times do you think one admissions officer can stand to read about a two-week vacation in Paris?

It’s not that your trips are inherently boring, and it’s not that the lessons you learn from travel are automatically trite. Rather, most essays about travel are dull because they lack the detail necessary to bring the reader on the trip with you. Just saying you went to France and saw lots of old stuff is neither exciting nor insightful. But describing your relationship with your 91-year-old grandmother who lives in the French countryside and doesn’t speak English is exciting. Interesting and telling detail is the key to a good travel essay—indeed, to all good essays.

This is precisely why travel is such a difficult subject to choose for your application essay. The emotions we feel when we travel are so deep that it takes an exceptional writer to express them without falling into cliché. Not one of the writers in this section said, “I learned so-and-so on my trip to Dublin.” Instead, each student brings you through a memorable experience and lets you actually “see” the scenes and feel the emotions for yourself.

John Sigalos, the first essayist, could have written, “When I lived in France, I met a dear old woman, and I learned that friendship and love are the same in every language.” Fortunately, he didn’t. His essay is so effective because he describes one small incident instead of his whole trip. He shows us the crucifix in his friend’s room, the wrinkles in her cheek as she kisses him goodbye. Detail, detail, detail! His imagery is so powerful that we can almost feel the tears sting his eyes as he leaves.

The second writer does another superb job with imagery. She shows the reader the Chinese people through her eyes, and we share her frustration over the language barrier. Although this is a successful college essay, it’s also an example of what can happen when there’s too much focus on the lessons to be learned. The picture of China is thrown off-track by her need to preach, and the lessons she preaches are numerous. Better to focus with clarity on the country, and let the reader come away aware of one specific lesson learned from the experience.

The third essay never preaches, yet the insight is there. Carly Kiel’s sharp imagery and detailed description put us in that African village with her. She makes a subtle reference to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness without being arrogant or flashy. The essay builds nicely to the one moment at the end where she implies the memory of Africa that will probably stay with her longer than any other, and she does this entirely without sentimentality. (CLICK HERE FOR CARLY KIEL’S ESSAY.)

Catherine Sustana makes a trip within America sound sensational and inspiring. You don’t need a trip to France or China or Africa to make the travel theme work for you. This writer’s impressions of the American West are superb; we are left wanting to hear the stories she refers to in her closing paragraphs. If you feel you’ve never been anywhere exciting, think again. The truth is, everywhere is exciting if you know how to appreciate it and if you have a passion for it.

(back to contents)