The students in this semester’s Special Topics in Travel Writing class are busy traveling to a variety of sites in the region as they gather information to write 2500-word articles for their final projects. Students in Professor Stephanie Verni’s class were asked to select a spot in the Maryland-Virginia-Washington, D.C. area and spend a minimum of two days exploring the location, interviewing people, and immersing themselves in the place as they take in the splendor of the location.
Through exercises such as keeping a detailed travel journal, creating a photo library, and conducting various types of primary and secondary research, students are working to craft articles that illuminate their place of travel through their own personal experiences and narratives. Additionally, the class reads and critically analyzes articles written by world-class travel writers including Paul Theroux, Andrew McCarthy, Pico Iyer, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Rolf Potts in order to gain a solid foundation of the variety of travel writing and how it can be transformative and enlightening.