Writing While Traveling

Published December 3, 2024

By AJ Metzger

The Journey There and Back

Writing while traveling is not the same as travel writing, although the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Writing while traveling is just that, I spend 2-4 months a year traveling for work while trying to complete a novel and maintain my day-to-day existence. What I find is that my grand plan to bang out a chapter on a domestic flight and 3-4 on international flights doesn’t usually go that way. Sitting cramped in a middle seat, or window seat, crowds the body and the mind and I can’t focus. Then there are bathroom breaks and naps that drain away my time.  The next thing I know we are landing, and I still have a blank page.  

Google Maps is my best friend when traveling. You can scout locations before you leave, there are pics from other users in case yours don’t turn out well and you can take notes in Maps for later. 

• Create a list of places you want to go before you leave. Save it with the name of the city.
• Take all the pics you want but then open the location in your list and use the note feature with speech-to-text to record what your senses pick up. Sounds, smells, are the streets uneven, narrow, are people having a good time and loud or is it quiet and serious?   
• You can share this list with friends when they travel somewhere and you’ll be a hero cause you’ve mapped out cool spots for them .

What happens when writer’s block takes off when you do or worse you get a great idea as you steer onto the highway?  

• I try to spend that time editing or organizing thoughts
• Adding to an existing outline to develop a few chapters in more detail makes my plotter heart happy
• One Note or Notes on your phone with speech-to-text can have a whole story right there if you’re hit with an idea while driving. 

Where that went wrong is when I found out that what I wrote at home was saved to the cloud and there was no internet on my domestic flight.

• I also discovered that my 17” laptop, while great at libraries and my living room was not optimal on an airplane tray table or crowded bar at a coffee shop
• My next laptop purchase was a cheap 13” laptop that had enough memory for saving docs to desktop and would access cloud-saving features when I wanted  
• I have to make sure that I save to cloud when I get home and can work on my big laptop which is much faster and nicer.
• Remember to move documents and files to desktop or local file before leaving house or hotel
• Use a VPN and a strong password on the laptop. 

While driving I have been hit by full story ideas, much like John Scalzi with Kaiju Preservation Society.  

• I use the speech-to-text feature on my phone, the benefit is you can occupy many hours of the drive across Kansas being self-entertained
• The real fun begins when you try to filter through the left turns your story takes when going through the text later
• Transcribe that as soon as you can so the left turns makes more sense

There are perks to writing while traveling. People watching at the airport is great for character creation or a laugh.  

• An overheard conversation could be the plot to the next bestseller.
•  If you are unable to get into the fancy airport lounges maybe you can write off the drinks as a business expense and quote Earnest Hemingway.  
• I love writing on my way somewhere and I try harder to write more on the way home, however that’s when I’m usually way to tired and I settle for creating villains. 
• I found out by accident that when I am tired and cranky I generate great villains and creative ways to assassinate them.  

Writing while traveling proves its own challenges, including what is most effective use of tools, time, location, and what could be some of the perks to writing while traveling.

Writing Ideas When You Arrive 

Writing when I reach my destination is another beast.  Finding time and mental clarity are the biggest enemies along with the local attractions. The locations feel different and that inspires creativity and a bit of confusion.  A theme park in the US and a theme park in Japan may look the same but being immersed in a foreign language affects people differently.  I get very distracted and have tried various ways to capture everything I am sensing.  

 Personally, coffee shops, early mornings, and parks are my best opportunities. 

• Parks in foreign nations are different and while you can find a great spot to write you can also people-watch if you need inspiration for a situation
• Coffee shops are the like parks but they also offer treats and caffeine that can help generate the energy to get a few more pages done
• My true favorite though is early mornings,  if I can write for an hour in the morning with my coffee, spending that time with my protagonist, I feel a sense of accomplishment, and if the rest of the day ends in the toilet, oh well

Foreign places seem to increase my creativity and there is a lot of great inspiration to be taken from old museums, restaurants, and grocery stores where nothing is printed in English and Google maps is suddenly my favorite app.  

• My friends and I had a great time comparing items in Japanese grocery stores to American grocery stores and I got a sense of how alien it would feel to go to another land or back in time to something so different.
• I take a lot of pictures of places that I want to include in my story but when I go back to the picture, I can’t remember what was in my head. Google Map notes feature!
• Sometimes I write it out sometimes I use speech to text on my phone.  
• There are a lot of ways to capture inspiration, notebook, sketchbook, phone, it’s up to what you feel comfortable with. 

It’s a lot of fun but it can be tiring so “drink lots of water and take time to sit and think” as my old boss would say.

AJ Metzger has been writing all her life and in the last few years published multiple academic papers for law enforcement. She is branching out into fiction writing using some of the more comical and unique situations from real life as inspiration. She currently lives in Colorado Springs where she grew up hunting, fishing, and off-roading with her dad. When she isn’t writing she can be found riding or hiking with her dog or buried in a book.