Draw on your personal experiences and make up whatever details you like to make your travel narrative interesting. You might narrate walking to the grocery store, or a dream you had of flying to Mars, or exploring a landmark while on vacation, or going home for spring break, or moving, or getting lost somewhere–whatever you like! But whether this journey is real or fictional, it should FEEL true, like it actually happened.

Begin with a title. You can fill in the blank: “Journey to …” Or you can come up with your own title.
Your narrative should have a beginning, middle, and end.
Use a first-person perspective. Create a specific persona (not necessarily who you are in real life) to narrate the journey.
Use concrete, specific details to create vivid mental images of the journey, the people and place(s), and your narrator’s subjective experiences.
Decide how you want to characterize this journey: as a quest for something? as a random, epic (mis)adventure? an escape? a return? a guide? something else?
Decide what style and tone are most appropriate for narrating this journey: humorous? serious? meditative? sensationalist? whimsical? intellectual? poetic? journalistic? sentimental? something else?
No word limit–write as much as you need in order to tell an interesting travel story.

At the end of your story, write a quick reflection (at least one full paragraph) that answers all of the questions below:

1. What kind of language did you use to construct your traveler’s persona—voice, thoughts, feelings, and actions? How did you intend this language to contribute to your larger message about the purpose or value of the journey?

2. What kind of details did you focus on to recount this particular journey? How did you choose to organize these details? How did you intend these details to contribute to your larger message about the purpose or value of the journey?

3. What tone (attitude) did you try to create in your story? How does this tone contribute to your overall message? How did you try to convey this tone to your audience (consider language, organization, and your selection/omission of specific details)?

4. Who do you imagine is your intended audience for this story? What rhetorical effects on the audience did you try to create—put another way, what kinds of specific emotions did you want your reader to experience, or what values did you want your reader to relate to? Why should your rhetorical strategies (everything you discussed in questions 1-3) be effective?