Research vs. Experience: How to Write About Places You've Never Visited
Last week, I was researching the Caspian Sea for a WorldAtlas article. It was fun to write but I've never been there.
Travel makes me want to research, and research makes me want to travel. My love for one drives my love for the other, but they're separate passions. I can write about a place I've never visited because I know how to learn it deeply enough to explain it. I can also write about a place I know intimately because I've stood in its markets and eaten its street food. Both require curiosity. Both require honesty about what you know and what you don't.
The Caspian Sea sits 28 meters below global sea level, holds massive oil reserves, and is governed by a treaty four countries have ratified and one hasn't. I learned all of that from research. What I can't tell you yet is what the air smells like in Baku at dawn. That's the part travel would teach me, and the reason I want to go.
Then there's experience writing.
Halie eating a bowl of pho in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 2019
I wrote about eating pho in Hanoi a few years ago. I remember the stall with three plastic stools. I remember the grandmother who didn't speak, who just pointed at the bowl and handed me chopsticks. I remember the broth was the best I've ever tasted, and I remember trying to figure out why. I don't know the chemical composition of fish sauce. I don't know the GDP impact of rice noodle exports. I don't know if that stall still exists.
Both pieces are true and both have limits. The Caspian Sea article is accurate but bloodless. The Hanoi article is vivid but narrow. I can tell you what the Caspian Sea means to global energy markets. I can tell you what that bowl of pho meant to me at 7am on a Tuesday. What I can't do is swap them. I can't write the Caspian Sea from memory because I have none. I can't write the pho article from research because the whole point is the specific bowl, the specific morning, the specific silence of a grandmother who didn't need to explain anything.
The best travel writers I know understand this distinction. They know when they're writing from research and when they're writing from experience. They don't pretend memory is research. They don't pad research with fake sensory detail. They do the honest work of each.
Research gives you structure, context, and authority. Experience gives you texture, specificity, and doubt. The doubt matters. I don't know if the Caspian Sea is as troubled as the treaties suggest. I don't know if the pho stall in Hanoi is still there. Admitting what you don't know is part of the honesty.
I want to visit the Caspian Sea now. The research made me want to go. I want to return to Hanoi too. The memory made me want to go back. That's the relationship. Research makes me want to travel. Travel makes me want to research. The two feed each other, but they're separate skills.
If you write travel copy, know which one you're doing. If you hire travel writers, ask which one they did. The answer matters more than most people think.
I specialize in both. If you need destination content built from research or from memory, view my portfolio or reach out. I'd love to show you what honest travel writing looks like.
