The travel essay is one of the oldest genre varieties of the traditional essay in the history of journalism. In the scientific field of modern research, a modernized theoretical interpretation of the name of this direction is proposed. It sounds like travel journalism. Although this concept should be understood more broadly. Some researchers consider the travel essay as one of its genre-forming forms, along with travel notes, reporting, review, recommendations.
Taking into account the peculiarities of figurative presentation of facts, incidents, impressions, feelings, the travel essay belongs to the group of artistic and journalistic genres.
Its dominant components are:
- independent issues;
- original design;
- dramatic construction of the material.
Following these laws, the travel essay describes the significant and vivid moments of life on the road, during the journey. Documentary information is bordered by an artistic whip syllable, thereby captivating and intriguing the reader, listener or viewer.
In other words, a travel essay is an essay on the topic of real life, using figures of speech, comprehension and generalization of real events, dressed in artistic images.
For journalistic material representing such a genre as a travel essay, the documentary-plot beginning is considered integral. The work is built according to compositional laws, based on the dramatic line of the event, the description of human destinies, the traditions of another people.
Personifying general information, the essay has a figurative narrative system.
The author’s position as a journalist or writer can be clearly traced through emotions from meetings. These are new impressions - attitude to people, problems, phenomena. In journalism, the travel essay is an example when the rational beginning of documentary and chronicle coexists and intertwines with artistic fantasy images, but without crossing the line of fictitious and non-existent. Influencing the audience, the informant makes great efforts, achieving expressiveness, originality, intrigue.
In the literature among the masters, the words of traveling prose consider:
- C. Dickens ("Our French Resort", "Pictures of Italy"),
- J. Boswell ("Diary of a Journey to the Hebrides"),
- A. Pushkin ("Journey to Arzrum"),
- N. Novikova (“An excerpt from a trip to I *** T ***”),
- A. Radishchev ("Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow"),
- A. Bestuzheva (“A Trip to Revel”),
- A. Chekhov (“Sakhalin Island”).
Many exciting stories were created by publicists and journalists who found regular media coverage, entertaining and informing the audience.
The substantive basis of such materials comes down to describing or broadcasting on television the sights, customs of a foreign country, its state structure, and interesting details of everyday life. Very often at the same time there is a comparison of one's own and another's.
The essence of what is stated in any travel essay is not just to record what was seen, but to express in all the beauty of the word of art your own author's opinion and vivid impressions of the trip.