Banish Travelese

William Zinsser's On Writing Well is a classic guide to clear, honest nonfiction. In the chapter "Writing About Places: The Travel Article," he exposes why most writing about places falls flat.

The Problem: Enthusiastic Overload

Enthusiasm is the culprit: travelers come home so excited they want to recount everything—every sight, every feeling. Readers, Zinsser points out, want only the unique:

"What made his trip different from everybody else's?"

We don't need every ride at Disneyland described, or the Grand Canyon called "awesome," or Venice said to have canals.

The Real Offender: Travelese

The real offender is travelese—the term Zinsser coins for the syrupy, clichéd style that turns vivid places into vague brochure mush.

Travelese relies on soft words that mean nothing under scrutiny: "attractive," "charming," "romantic."

Clichéd Offenders Include:

• "wondrous," "dappled," "roseate," "fabled," "scudding"
• "quaint" (especially for windmills or covered bridges)
• Towns always "nestled" in hills

Inanimate objects spring to life: storefronts smile, ruins beckon, chimneytops sing their "immemorial song of welcome."

Vague phrases like "the city has its own attractiveness" or "Hong Kong affords many fascinating experiences to the curious sightseer" collapse because they're subjective and empty—one person's romantic sunrise is another's hangover.

Zinsser's Solution: Two Principles

1. Choose Your Words with Unusual Care

If a phrase comes easily, suspect it's a cliché. Avoid straining for luminous lyrical effects; they sound artificial or pompous. Seek fresh, precise images that feel authentic.

2. Be Intensely Selective

Cut every "known attribute" (seagulls over beaches, waves on shores, white sand). Focus on significant details that do useful work: unusual, colorful, comic, entertaining, or narrative-driving. Capture the central idea of a place through people, motion, and activity.

Powerful Examples in Action

Joan Didion drives through Southern California's tacky landscape:

stucco tepees promising "SLEEP IN A WIGWAM—GET MORE FOR YOUR WAMPUM," whipping subdivision flags ("HALF-ACRE RANCHES! $95 DOWN"), faded bungalows amid eucalyptus

Revealing impermanence and borrowed dreams.

John McPhee captures Anchorage as:

"an American spore… condensed, instant Albuquerque"—a city burst from its seams, unrelated to its surroundings.

V.S. Pritchett on Istanbul:

amid shouting porters and chaos, a demure youth balances a brass tray of red tea through crowds. Turks "sit" beatifically—"his very face sits." Four words nail a national trait.

James Baldwin's Harlem church:

pulses with shared rhythm—tambourines racing, voices crying "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!"—visceral life beyond description.

Zinsser's own American Places proves even overdone icons yield truth by asking custodians—not tourists—"Why do crowds come?"

Answers like the Arizona battleship "still bleeding" oil daily hit emotionally without forced patriotism.

A Call to Truth-Seeking

The chapter is a call to truth-seeking: reject hype, distill essence, focus on what's distinctive through people and activity. Zinsser urges practicing locally—malls, bowling alleys—to isolate a place's real qualities.

That's Why We Built Travelese

We are a multimodal AI platform powered by xAI, designed for Flâneurs—the aimless urban wanderers, detached yet immersed observers who drift through cities seeking authentic textures, moods, contradictions, and human moments, not checklists or "must-sees."

Our Single Mission

Solve how to truly match who the Flâneur really is (personality, sensory preferences, wandering rhythm, inner contradictions) with their calendar (available time, spontaneity level) and money (budget realities) to deliver the closest ideal travel experience—flights, stays, loose destinations—where they can fully be themselves and drift meaningfully.

We Reject Travelese Completely

No "charming boutique hotels"
No "romantic sunsets"
No "generic hype"

Maximum truth-seeking: multimodal inputs (your reflections, photos of past wanders, mood notes) help us understand your essence. Then we selectively match—focusing on significant, resonant details that reveal a place's central idea for you, not everyone.

Like Zinsser's Principles Applied to Travel

Be intensely selective. Choose with unusual care. Capture what's truly distinctive.

No brochures. No lists. Just the closest alignment between you and the city's pulse.

In 2026, When Tourism Commodifies Wandering

Travelese empowers Flâneurs to travel as they live: truthfully, aimlessly yet purposefully, matched to self.

The name is our promise: we exist to banish Zinsser's travelese from your experiences.