creative writing about a vacation

1001 Writing Prompts About Summer Vacation

March 23, 2021

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Summer vacations play a significant role in literature, particularly in young adult fiction. This is because it symbolizes youth and freedom, as most school-aged characters are out of school and free to do anything they want during this time of the year.

One of the most notable stories about summer vacation is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares—a series that tells the story of four young girls who acquire a pair of jeans that fit all of them perfectly even though they have different body shapes and sizes, during the most important summer vacations of their lives. Another is Second Chance Summer—a novel that follows a girl named Taylor Edwards as she and her family return to their old lake house after her father receives terrible news.

If you want to create your own novel or short story about summer vacations, here are interesting writing prompts for you to try:

• It’s summer vacation and you decide to go on a family trip to the zoo.
• Write about something you did on summer vacation that you wish you had not done.
• Write this scene as a missing child report from police.
• Write about summer vacation.
• Prepare the best summer family vacation you can
• Write about the extremes of summer vacation.
• You and your family move and end up living by the beach for the summer.
• Everybody you know moved away, so you get a roommate for free during the summer vacation.
• Write about an old man who has a tough summer vacation.
• Write a letter you sent to a friend on summer vacation.
• You have been cursed to spend the rest of your life on summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and all you want to do is sleep.
• Your family spends a lot of time in nature camping. You go on the worst camping trip ever.
• One year at summer vacation, you forgot to go on vacation but somehow have slipped back in time.
• Write about a time when school got cancelled for some reason.
• People have traveled to your town during summer vacation and ruined something special. Write about what that something special was.
• You are on a small, tropical island off the coast of Hawaii with a small group of people and one of them has gone missing.
• You are at summer camp and all the kids in your cabin play pranks, whatever they can think of.
• Describe your first real summer job.
• Your family moves to a new town during summer vacation. At the end of the first day, you actually make a friend. Write about the ways that friendship progresses over the course of the summer.
• It’s summer vacation. Write a poem about it.
• Write a scene with three of your favorite weather elements.
• Write about what a terrible day it’s turning out to be.
• You’re out camping with your family or friends. Something goes terribly wrong.
• Your family is taking a trip on a pirate ship. Write about it.
• Spending summer with . . .
• Write about a problem you face that you would rather forget about.
• Write about the worst summer vacation experience.
• You have a week-long vacation at a beach house.  What happens at the beach house?
• Unlikely friendship carried out during a summer vacation.
• It is the summer of hot fudge sundaes, right down the street from you. Write about this.
• Harry and Lloyd take the girls on a road trip.
• The first day of summer vacation is the best.
• Write about your favorite summer activity.
• Summer vacation is boring until something exciting happens to you.
• Write about your dream summer vacation.
• You move from a city to the country and realize that insects can now get to you.
• You have been banned from summer vacation because of a prank. Write about how you are coping.
• Write about being bitten by a dog.
• Make a list of the summer things you do or want to do.
• Write about your least favorite summer vacation.
• Write about the summer vacation you thought you would take. Things kept getting in the way. Now it’s next summer and it’s too late.
• Write about an awkward moment you had while on summer vacation.
• Write about a vacation disaster.
• Write about your last summer vacation.
• The next president’s vacation has to be written about. The writer must choose the setting and make the writer feel like they are there.
• Write about some childhood summer vacations you remember.
• Your family hired an outdated watchdog named “Fido” for security.
• Later in the summer you notice your eye’s iris is turning a brilliant shade of green.
• Write about the time you spent in summer school.
• Use at least three of the quotes in this article.
• The summer vacation turns ugly when you are split apart from your friends. You decide to go on a journey to find them again.
• Write from the perspective of an odd family tradition. They roll up the carpets during the summer and unplug all electronics so they won’t overheat.
• Write about the time you did stand up at camp.
• Summer vacation is the best season of the year. Bartender, I’ll have you know how school for adults does summer vacation!
• It is summer vacation and two families are at a beach house in North Carolina.
• It is summer vacation and you just started a new diet. What are your temptations?
• You are stuck in an airport during a thunderstorm and you don’t know if you’re going to get to your flight or if your flight is going to take off.
• Write about the most boring summer vacation.
• Write about walking through the streets during a summer heat wave.
• It’s summer vacation and the school has left you behind. You have no friends and nowhere to go. What do you do?
• Someone you know is accused of doing something bad. You have to help them clear their name.
• A parent is on a summer vacation and is trying their best to stay in touch with their loved ones everyday while being gone.
• Summer break comes and you realize you have to find a summer job.
• Summer vacation is the perfect time to start a new hobby. Write about it.
• Your wife leaves you on the weekend of your anniversary during a heat wave. How do you survive it?
• Stuck home alone and bored during vacation.
• Describe your house on vacation.
• Write about a character who goes on vacation to a tropical island.
• It is the first day of summer vacation and one month until school starts. Write about how you’re feeling.
• Write about something you want to do at some point during summer vacation Write about how you spent summer vacation. Write about what you want to spend your summer vacation doing.
• It’s the first day of summer vacation and you aren’t looking forward to being awake for most of the day with nothing to do.
• It is summer vacation and a tropical storm is moving in.
• Attention everyone! We need more summer-themed stories.
• Write about what it was like when you were ten and moving into high school.
• It is the first day of school. Each student has to tell why their summer was the best.
• Write about the summer vacation the world wishes it could see.
• It’s summer vacation and you’re staying at your family house.
• It’s the middle of summer vacation and your dog dies.
• Summer has been going so fast you did not write down your employment details. You will get caught in a web of lies.
• Middle school kids get summer vacation and senior prom mixed up. Include at least two go-to vacation foods.
• Write about what happens on the first day of summer vacation.
• Write about a comforting room in a summer house.
• It is summer and one of the meteorologists from the local television station announces that the end of the world is coming.
• Your best friend is leaving for a different continent the next day for vacation. For everyone who has a flight and misses their best friend, next summer is going to be more difficult.
• Write about the worst summer vacation disaster.
• You just returned from the coolest trip of the summer.
• Your family has a problem with your summer vacation.
• Write about a bad or horrible summer vacation you had.
• Write about the day before summer vacation.
• Your party boat is coming in for landing.
• Write a one shot about a summer romance.
• Summer vacation is over and you have to prepare for a big test.
• Write about a summer vacation that never happened and the adventures you were going to have.
• Write about your family at the beginning of summer.
• Dreams of summer vacation
• Write about the first time you went on a family vacation.
• Write about a vacation you took without parents or guardians.
• Set a contemporary story in summer time.
• It is a day after your art camp and you’re reflecting on what happened.
• You’ve been invited to be a resident P.I. intern.
• The McAfee St. Louis Family Reunion is coming up and everyone will be there. Except your grandmother.
• During summer, everyone wants a tan. Write about your tanning experience.
• What would you do if your parents won the lottery?
• Describe a summer vacation memory from your childhood.
• The swimming pool in your backyard has a creature living beneath it. Write about what keeps you from telling anyone else.
• Write about what you did last summer… or maybe that’s a secret you’d rather keep…
• Write about a road trip.
• Your father is a famous musician and your family is superstar famous. He always gets to do whatever he wants. Your mom is always busy with her job. How do you stand out of the crowd as an Average Joe?
• You’re out somewhere late at night, when you run into something unexpected.
• Someone writes on your back and you have to rearrange the words to get the story.
• Write about how you plan your day so that you can spend every moment outside.
• Your entire family just got in a car accident and you were the only survivor. You had to stay in the hospital for the summer and now you have to write about it.
• It’s summer vacation and it just happens to be during monsoon season.
• Write about a summer vacation experience.
• A unique summer camp experience.
• Traveling Out of Town for the Summer 1) Write about the time you had to leave town for the summer. It can involve family, friends, pets, or be set anywhere in the world.
• Write about your exciting summer vacation.
• It is July 30th and you’re ready to head back to school.
• It’s summer vacation, time to go exploring!
• What are you going to do for summer vacation?
• Write a story about an unexpected road trip you took with your family.
• It’s your first summer vacation trip and you want it to be special.
• Write about the biggest decision you made during summer vacation.
• Write about when vacation is canceled due to someone’s job loss.
• Write about christmas vacation.
• The hottest day of the year happened in the worst week of vacation. Rules are you’re going to be home the entire time, there’s nothing to do, you’ve already been swimming and working out, and it’s still hot.
• It is time for summer vacation and you get to decide where you want to go. However, you aren’t exactly getting along with one of your family members and it is affecting your ability to travel.
• Write about swimming at the pool.
• Write about the worst family car trip ever.
• It’s summer vacation and you’re listening to your favorite song.
• How does the heat affect your vacation?
• Write a scene or a paper about your ideal summer vacation.
• It is summer vacation in northern Minnesota. It is too cold
• Write about a fight between parents during summer vacation.
• The perfect day to spend at the beach, but, all your friends are grounded.
• Make a list of 25 things you want to do on your summer vacation.
• A  teacher  writes a letter to a former student that she hopes will change her and her  family’s  lives forever.
• You are working hard in summer school to graduate early so you can get to vacation.
• Write about what your favorite summer vacation was or what you want your summer vacation to be.
• Write about a time you thought you got away with something, but later got discovered and were punished for it.
• You and a friend are house sitting at a cottage for the summer.
• You are working the 6 a.m. shift at a newspaper and find out a secret your town will never be the same.
• In this world of technology and gadgets, you’re on summer vacation without any of that.
• Write about the highlight of your summer vacation.
• It’s the end of summer, you’ve enjoyed yourself, but soon school will be here. Write about any thoughts you have of the end of summer.
• You have the opportunity to take a special trip for summer vacation. Where do you go and why?
• Write about a day at the beach.
• One day it’s summer and the next it’s winter.
• Write about a time your plans for the summer vacation were not what you expected.
• A bad storm has just come through and turned your house upside down.
• It is summer vacation time and you get to see your favorite band in concert.
• Make a list of the top ten things you want to do over summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation. No school, just you and your family… at the beach! Write about your day.
• Parents have to work over the summer, and a list of annoying summer camp rules has to be followed. What happens?
• There is a town that gets trapped beneath a giant acrylic domed structure and it is discovered that they freeze and thaw of each other.
• It’s the summer before Senior year and looking back it seems like things are going by too fast.
• It’s summer vacation. Your teacher is sick. What do you do?
• Summer vacation is almost over, but there is one little adventure that you and your two best friends must go on.
• Write about a time when you spent the summer with your grandmother.
• Write about an amazing dream you had during summer vacation.
• A love story set at summer camp.
• You make one new friend on vacation and take him to an amusement park.
• It is the weekend before summer vacation and your friends want to pull a prank on you.
• Write about going to a summer camp.
• Write about a boring summer vacation.
• Summer vacation has come to an end and all you can do is reluctantly go back to school.
• Write about any kind of travel you’ve had.
• Write about your greatest summer vacation disaster.
• Write about being stuck at the beach on Labor Day weekend.
• It’s hot, hot, hot and you’re having trouble getting to sleep at night.
• You are sailing across the Atlantic on a beautiful ship.
• It’s your first day of summer vacation and you can’t sleep!
• Write about a neighbor whose family goes on an annual summer vacation.
• Mara and Hamilton are having a summer fling when Hamilton’s mother finds out and tells Mara that she has to break up with Hamilton or leave her family.
• Summer vacation got cancelled because the family got in a bad car accident.
• Write about your worst vacation ever.
• Write about how you spend Christmas vacation.
• Write about your worst summer vacation
• It’s summer vacation and you’re worried about staying in shape.
• A family makes a cross-country trip across the USA in a motorhome during summer vacation.
• You’re visiting your aunt and uncle’s beach house for the summer. Bring along a family member of your choice.
• It is summer vacation and you are bored. You wish something exciting would happen.
• Your parents go on vacation again and forget you. Write about what you do and what you don’t tell them before they go.
• Write about a summer vacation you would take if you had a time machine.
• Write about a dark summer vacation.
• Write about the day the weather goes crazy and all the random chaos that follows.
• Write about a trip to a historic landmark at this time of year.
• Describing what your favorite time of year is.
• Write about a good summer vacation you know of.
• Write about a summer vacation you had with someone or something from your story.
• Write about the most adventurous thing you did over summer vacation.
• You’ve been invited to the beach with your parents for the week.
• In your novel, what kind of person goes on a summer vacation that will change them and their life irrevocably?
• Your best friend asks you to describe your worst summer.
• Throughout your entire summer vacation, your actions may mean the difference between saving Earth or letting it be destroyed.
• Write about a time during your vacation when someone made you ashamed of yourself.
• The family cat goes missing and the kid has to step up for the both of them.
• It is summer vacation and school just ended.
• Your boss has the summer off, but calls in sick for you. You improvise.
• Write about a summer pet sitting like in the Air Bud movies
• Write about a time when you were late for school or work because of a mosquito.
• Write about a crazy road trip you took.
• It’s summer vacation for you. The only problem is your boyfriend/girlfriend is away on their own summer vacation with family or friends where you’re not invited. How can you be with them or at least talk to them?
• Summer vacation is here and everything is going great until someone says something wrong.
• Have a favorite color? Take a bit of that color on a journey through your summer vacation.
• Describe the day when your previous summer vacation ended.
• It is the worst summer ever and the AC has gone out. Now your neighbors spread the rumor that you can’t survive the summer without air conditioning.
• How long does it take for the adventure to be over?
• Summer vacation is approved for release. Time to get started!
• Write a problem and solution story related to summer vacation.
• Write about how you’d feel if you were on summer vacation and tragedy struck.
• Describe all the things you did at summer camp.
• You just want to get away from it all, so you go to a cabin in the mountains.
• Write about how you deal with the summer heat.
• The summer vacation is over and now you have to go back to school. What do you want to be when you grow up?
• Your grandfather won the lottery and buys your family the nicest house to live in. Your mother then decides that instead of the boring regular summer, they’re going to do something special, and all you are expected to do is act normal. Which you fail at.
• A gotcha style play where someone gets a summer job that they weren’t expecting.
• Write about how you feel just before going on summer vacation.
• Summer vacation takes a really bad turn.
• You need to work your way through summer vacation, but don’t want to. Everything gets in your way.
• Write about your least favorite summer vacation you’ve ever been on.
• For months you have been working with your family to get ready for your sister or brother’s wedding. That weekend finally comes but much to your surprise, your best friend ends up walking down the aisle instead.
• Summer vacation has arrived and all the kids are bored. They find an old toy box full of old board games. The games have to be played and you are allowed to write about any game you want to.
• You have three wishes. What happens during the summer vacation when you use the last wish?
• Develop your Summer Vacations by Listing Out Your Three Must-Haves, One Must-Visit and One Must-Do.
• Write the details about a birthday party you went to over the summer.
• Write about the WORST summer vacation you can imagine.
• Summer vacation is unholy and the heat is just unbearable. You have to resort to some subversive acts.
• Write about a week in your life on your summer vacation.
• Write about the time when you had to go to summer camp THUS initiating your hatred of fun. OR when you decided to make the most of your days at the fun farm.
• Write about an exciting summer vacation you had.
• It is summer vacation and you have just moved to a new town. You venture to the nearest lake and find something unexpected there.
• It’s hot, hot, so hot! You are stuck outside in the summer heat and there’s no way to cool down. What do you do?
• Write a poem about warm weather.
• It’s summer and it’s hot outside. All you can think about is how much you want to be cooling down by the water.
• Write about the weirdest summer job you ever had.
• The day is a scorcher and there’s no air or water anywhere!
• It is the last week of Summer vacation. What will you do with the remaining time?
• Do you have to work on vacation? Write about it.
• A nurse friend is super rude to you because she thinks that you are still a medical mess. How do you approach this?…
• Write a scene with a car full of kids on their way to camp.
• Move to a new town.
• Write about the yearly family vacation.
• A competition is held just two weeks before the end of summer vacation. Each person throws ideas into a hat until all have stories written.
• A careless driver causes an accident while taking a summer vacation.
• Write an adventure story where the main character is on vacation with friends.
• Write about something good that happened during summer vacation you’ll never forget.
• Write about the day the summer heat followed you indoors.
• Summer vacation has turned out to be everything you hoped it could be.
• Explain that you witnessed an unwanted pregnancy in the summer.
• Summers here are crazy hot. What do you do to try to stay cool?
• You go to camp and learn a valuable lesson.
• It is Christmas Eve, in Summer
• Write about a summer vacation that ended in disaster for your character.
• A journal entry about a series of summer jobs – held by the same person.
• The summer heat is getting to you.
• Write a black comedy about horrible summer vacation events.
• Write about your worst summer vacation.
• It is the last day of school and summer vacation is almost here. You get stuck working with somebody you barely know. What do you do? You are on vacation and your grandad has died. Explain how you are feeling. It’s summer vacation. Start by describing what you are doing.
• What is the strangest and weirdest thing that ever happened to you during summer vacation?
• Write about your family going on summer vacation, something exciting happens there.
• You take a vacation to a place you have always dreamed of going to. You take a leap of faith and risk your safety. Write about it!
• Write about the oddest odd jobs you have had this summer.
• When you were in the past, what is your favorite summer vacation spot? What is it about that place that makes it a favorite?
• Dad responds to the question, “Do you remember your favorite summer of your childhood?” about you by recounting the terrors of your younger years.
• After school it’s time for – flip-cup.
• Explain an incident that occurred during the summer of your childhood that you will never forget. Condense the story to three sentences that highlight what was memorable about it.
• You’re on vacation with your family doing shore fishing. During the trip, you come across an incredible encounter.
• It is the last day of summer vacation but you won’t be going back to school.
• Write about a vacation you plan to take in the future.
• Write about the hottest day of your life.
• When your parents go out to dinner, they leave you home with an impossible task.
• This is the view from your apartment window.
• You have a heart breaker on your date but you’re stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.
• You’ve decided to make walking the dog your summer job.
• Describe someone you know well taking their first summer vacation.
• One day of summer vacation goes by with boredom.
• Your family doesn’t use technology/social media  because of your beliefs. Your parents now want you to use technology for school.
• It’s summer vacation. You really want to visit some relatives but end up making other plans in a new city. What do you do?
• A powerful dragon appears over the summer camp.
• It’s the summer between 7th and 8th grade.
• Write about a day on your favorite beach.
• It is summer vacation and kids run free.
• Write about summer vacation from another culture’s view.
• Summer vacation in your mind.
• Snowpea is going on summer vacation. She would like to bring a good book. Write about what she reads.
• Family leaves the pet home alone for the first time.
• During summer vacation, a mischief-making dragon terrorizes a town.
• A horrible storm hits just as you are on vacation.
• Write about a dream you had during the summer.
• An airplane crash in 1960s-era Hawaii leads Indiana Jones to an adventurous summer adventure.
• A rainstorm interrupts your summer vacation.
• You were on summer vacation and forgot to eat. You were just about to faint and collapse, but a stranger helped you. Explain the dream.
• It’s summer vacation and your family is traveling. Your parents want you kids to enjoy this break and have fun while learning something new.
• A group of friends come across a stranger in the woods while vacationing.
• It’s the first day of summer vacation. You’re not at home, but you’re not with all your friends either. Where are you?
• This list of writing prompts can help school students keep their mind fresh and positive during house construction.
• Write about a bad experience you had on vacation one year.
• Write about what you would do if you were stuck at the airport terminal during an intense storm.
• Describe a sunny day that was ruined by a storm.
• There’s a huge snowstorm on summer vacation.
• Write about your summer vacation when you were a child.
• An older sibling goes on a long awaited camping trip. He gets sick but no one will come out and get him.
• Write about a summer vacation that happened when you were young.
• Spend a day at summer camp.
• A zombie apocalypse is going on and you must save your family. You’ll need your goldfish to make a quick getaway.
• You have been gone for days on vacation and now you return.
• Write about the things your family and friends did on summer vacation.
• You are on summer vacation at your favorite place. You’re sitting on a beach, soaking in the sun. It’s warm and comfortable. You’re surrounded by friends. You don’t hear a sound, that is until…
• The ice cream truck stopped by.
• Here is the summer vacation you always dreamed of.
• Write about the best beach vacation ever!
• Describe a non-vacation summer day.
• You have just received part of your college rejection letter. What do you plan to do about finding the perfect summer vacation spot? Write about the plan.
• Something goes wrong and summer vacation ends early. Write about the ending of vacation.
• Bring your summer vacation to a close by writing it as if it were a cooking recipe.
• Your family decides to travel. While traveling, something happens to you that changes your life forever.
• Your best friend saves up her money to go on a trip to the Bahamas and invites you along…by mistake.
• Describe your average day at summer camp.
• Write about the weirdest summer vacation you’ve ever had.
• Julie’s family plans a vacation to some Scandinavian country for the summer. They don’t tell Julie about it ahead of time and instead notify her at the airport.
• A tornado hits and you have to seek shelter from the storm.
• Just before summer vacation, someone stole your swimsuit. How do you get it back? What does it look like? What was it like when you got it?
• A husband and wife travel on a road trip and face a terrible band of brothers in the middle of nowhere.
• You live in paradise but it’s hot and miserable. What do you do?
• Start off with the facts, then write about how you feel about the situation using your opinion, feelings, thoughts, etc.
• If you pick your school you friend group, you just might live a life of summer vacations. 17.
• What do you expect to experience during your childhood summer vacation?
• Write about your first summer vacation when you were nine years old.
• Write a scene taking place in a dream that happens during the summer.
• It is winter, and the snow has unexpectedly piled up. School is canceled. Write about your idea of fun during the winter.
• Summer vacation is over and you feel really nostalgic about it.
• Using a journal write about what you do on an average summer vacation.
• Write about a kid who is home alone or the only kid on vacation.
• Write about a summer-long episode of your favorite television show, novel, etc.
• Discovering your sibling’s diary by accident over the summer.
• Write about the day you caught yellow fever.
• The weather has been strange all summer.
• Interview a teenager for the school newspaper about their summer vacation.
• An entire family has to work in their summer vacations.
• It’s summer vacation and you have left your cell phone at home. When you realize your mistake, you’re halfway around the country. Write what happens.
• Write about a risky thing you would do during the summer if you got the opportunity.
• Summer vacation comes to an end all too soon.
• A family goes to England for summer vacation.
• A group of friends decided to throw an outdoor party on the last day of summer vacation, on the beach.
• You discover you have a summer job and your boss is not only a horrendous person, but also a liar.
• It’s summer vacation and a storm is happening outside.
• Write about a summer where it’s too hot to do anything.
• A person who usually doesn’t like to travel appreciates a trip he takes unexpectedly.
• Write about a week of your summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and you don’t want to be in your hometown.
• You are stuck inside by the heat and the only cool place is the fridge. What do you find there? And how do you keep cool while staying inside?
• It is another gorgeous summer vacation and you are stuck in your small hometown summer jobless and bored. Does it change your view of being at home for the summer? Write a letter to the editor to complain or make suggestions for how the city can welcome people if they could not be here when hurricane season is over.
• Write about a friend who is going away during summer vacation.
• Write a diary entry from the point of view of two brothers on the day before school starts. One brother is quite excited to go back to school while the other brother is dreading the experience.
• It’s summer vacation. Write about what you would be doing, working on, or every day.
• Write about your favorite restaurant from a previous summer.
• Write about a summer night when something strange happened.
• Summer vacation means…
• It is summer vacation and you’re scared to leave your house.
• Write about your best summer vacation.
• You unexpectedly meet an old flame on vacation.
• Write about your last summer. Whoever was there with you is gone or is not doing well. You have to do something to fix things, but that person is still not there with you. Write about your feelings during and after.
• Write a summer vacation interruption story.
• You decided to take a road trip cross country alone. Write about your trip experiences.
• Christmas Vacation
• Detention can wear down your mental state over time. Write about the craziest things people do while they are in detention.
• Summer vacation is coming up and you just have to figure out what you’re going to do.
• Write about a summer vacation you never want to end.
• Write about the first day of summer vacation.
• Write about a typical morning in summer vacation.
• You go on holiday to a remote location for summer vacation with your family. Something happens which leads to the beginning of a new mystery and you become a real life Nancy Drew.
• Take a “trip” to a place you’ve never been. Write a travel brochure using all the elements of persuasion.
• There has been a power outage, summer vacation has arrived, and now you and your family must pitch in together to get through on your summer vacation.
• You have a grand adventure planned for summer vacation, but mother nature isn’t cooperating.
• On summer vacation you are visited by an unlikely person.
• The last week of summer vacation. You’re exhausted from it all.
• Bill takes his kids on summer vacation. They run into trouble on the road. How does Bill deal with it?
• Free write about it.
• It’s the summer after high school and you have to do something with your life. Write about it.
• What would you do if you saw a boy at the beach you really didn’t like wearing nothing but swim trunks.
• A girl travels to Greece on summer vacation and meets a mysterious boy.
• A soccer game is disrupted by a monster that just won’t leave.
• The kids have all mixed up their sneakers and now they are taking turns in a footrace to put the right pair on.
• Write about a time you were almost eaten by a shark, or about a time you wished you were.
• Think of a place that you would like to visit one day.
• Write about visiting somewhere on vacation.
• Write about your first day of summer vacation.
• Your winter plans changed and you find yourself with a lot of extra summer vacation time. What happens next?
• Write about the funniest family vacation you’ve been on.
• It’s summer vacation and there is something in the news about a missing child. What if it is your cousin who is missing?
• You have the day off work and your friends are busy with their summer vacation.
• Write about bad luck. Write about good luck. Write a story about who gets what kind of luck in the end.
• Vacation time!
• What happens on summer vacation that is so crazy it has to be kept a secret?
• A group of friends goes off on a weekend road trip and causes trouble.
• Write about summer vacation memories from long ago. Start with your trip to Disneyland or your experience camping with relatives. They don’t have to be happy memories either.
• A family travels to Alaska for summer vacation and comes across a strange family.
• It’s summer vacation and your family is hiring countless amounts of tutors just so you can gain a college scholarship.
• Having trouble writing? Check out this page for writing exercises and prompts to get your creative juices flowing.
• You’re given a summer job. You can choose it or its location.
• Write about the worst day you’ve had during summer vacation.
• Write about the saddest vacation memory.
• Summer School vs. Summer vacation. Tell me about your summer school experience.
• Write about a summer vacation that takes place in a science fiction or fantasy world. It can be on another planet or a version of Earth in the future.
• Write about a paradise that turns into a place of trouble.
• Write about the last thing you do before leaving on summer vacation.
• It is summer vacation and it’s raining.
• Write about a family trip or day hike gone wrong.
• Write from the perspective of a disgruntled or excited teenager about how they are spending their summer vacation.
• Write about a vacation that you had to cancel last minute because of inclement weather and how your family got refunds.
• Write about a moment when you were wishing you could go on summer vacation.
• Write about a character wishing they were secretly off on summer vacation.
• Write about a family road trip.
• Write about a great way to enjoy a vacation.
• Your entire family goes on a yacht vacation. Disaster follows.
• You’re on your first job/career interview, and you discover something surprising is asked of you.
• Summer vacation and it’s your last fling before high school. Also, it is the last time you will see someone special.
• Write about the best and worst thing about summer vacation.
• You’ve decided to forget about stupid little things and celebrate summer for what it is.
• Write about your worst vacation.
• Your summer vacation is hard work but worth it for the reward.
• Write about your dream vacation place.
• Give us an essay on your best summer vacation memories.
• A person dies in a freak accident and goes to heaven and forgets what a vacation is.
• It is summer vacation and you are stuck at home while all of your friends are going on an extravagant vacation.
• A star player’s parents just got divorced and it seems that everything just went horrible this summer for the youth.
• You could choose to do more mundane things, but you decide to take on the challenge of writing the best short story you can.
• You never really knew how long summer vacation was until it was gone.
• Write about summer vacation from some other person’s point of view.
• What is your school holiday break like? Write a journal entry chronicling the excitement of the first vacation you or your family ever took together.
• Write about a famous summer vacation spot.
• It’s your summer vacation, your dreams have come true! After your vacation ends, your dream becomes your reality because of an unexpected development. Was it a good thing or bad thing?
• Your writing prompt is to write about going on vacation to somewhere you haven’t been to before.
• Write a brief note to the person sitting next to you on a plane. Make sure
• Summer vacation has begun and your family has headed to the beach. After a day in the sun, you play a little joke on your friend who’s thinking of joining the roller derby.
• The electricity is out all summer. Not being able to turn on the air conditioner or refrigerator makes life interesting.
• Write about a happy summer vacation memory.
• Write about the summer you moved away to the country and had to adjust to living in a place where you were not close to everything.
• Your summer vacation is going great until the littlest member of the family gets kidnapped by a super villain.
• It’s Christmas and because of the harsh winter your parents decide it’s too much to travel to see your family.
• Write about the first day of summer school and what you did on break.
• It’s summer vacation and you just got a new digital camera. Everything is awesome!
• It’s possible that effective storytellers always have such in
• Vacation at the lake gets interrupted when you see something unbelievable,
• You’re at a summer camp, but it’s not your typical camp. Map out the camp.
• On your summer vacation all the game consoles broke and will cost money to fix.
• During summer vacation, the parents of a family go out of town and leave the children home alone.
• It’s summer vacation at the beach. The water looks incredibly enticing. You’ve never gone swimming before…
• A mother takes her children on a hike and is injured. The children have to find a way to help.
• Write about what you think is the most difficult part of vacation.
• Let’s have a summer vacation where we actually leave the house.
• Write about a nightmare you had which “happens” to be your summer vacation.
• It is your third summer vacation at this resort and you love it. Suddenly the most important person to you isn’t going to be there next summer. Write about it.
• It is summer vacation and your mother says you have to babysit younger siblings.
• It’s Christmas Eve, summer vacation is almost over. Your child complains about how bored things are.
• Write about the perfect summer day.
• Summer vacation and you are sick for the first time.
• You had the worst summer vacation of your life. Write about it.
• It’s summer vacation. You want to write a war story, or something. Write a flash piece instead about a normal day, the end of the day, etc.
• Write about a summer vacation of a past family trip.
• Your summer vacation is cut tragically short as your house burns down late one summer afternoon.
• Someone gave you a time machine for summer vacation and you could travel anywhere in time. Where do you go?
• If you’re stuck in an airport for a long time, what do you do?
• Your boss wants volunteers to take a two-week vacation in his place. What do you do?
• You just graduated from high school and are eager to go to college. What do you do over the summer?
• A teenager is starting her first summer job.
• Write about the vacation destination you have always wanted to go to.
• Write about your first time on a plane.
• Day 1 – Write a poem about your first day of summer break.
• Write about something you did during a summer vacation that you wouldn’t do again but you will never forget.
• Write about a character with an odd summer vacation.
• The end of summer vacation is coming up and you have one day left. What do you do?
• Write about the worst summer vacation you can think of.
• What do you need to have in your beach kitty to enjoy the beach?
• Write about the panic of a late night phone call.
• You are on vacation with your family and you stumble upon someone you dislike very much.
• You’re overseas on vacation and find yourself in a risky situation.
• The family summer vacation was ruined by a natural disaster.
• Write about something you love that summer took away from you.
• Write a song about your summer vacation. How does it compare to one of your favorite vacation songs?
• Introduce a character that seems to be stuck in some oppressive environment with no escape.
• Write about your favorite place to go on vacation.
• Everyone is out hiking and having the time of their lives. Everyone except you.
• Write about a summer vacation you have planned. This could be real or a fantasy.
• In the trash can
• Pick a place you want to visit and use a summer vacation activity as a life choice.
• Write about a family vacation in a foreign country.
• Write about a summer vacation camping trip.
• Write about leaving your house on vacation.
• Write about a summer day down by the lake or beach.
• Your city is hosting the Olympics this summer.
• Write about spring fever, the feeling you get when you can’t wait to get out of school and have summer vacation.
• You’re on leave after college and trying to decide where to go on vacation.
• Write about meeting your favorite band.
• Write a short story about your favorite part of summer vacation.
• Write about your first summer as a teenager.
• Write about the many things your family does over the summer vacation.
• Your doorbell rings this summer. A note with a riddle is left behind. You must solve the riddle to find the location of a summer event.
• Summer vacation and every kid is going to the amusement park. Write about a character who is too short to ride any of the rides.
• It is summer vacation and you are staying home. However, you want to go places but can’t. What do you do?
• Write about the most exciting thing that ever happened to you during summer vacation.
• Facing Death
• Godzilla finds himself on the streets of New York during Summer Vacation.
• You’re on a summer-long search for a job.
• Write about a summer vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend’s family.
• It is a long, hot summer. Your weekend plans just fell through and it seems like nothing is going right. What do you do to cope?
• It’s summer vacation and your mom cancels your plans and makes you guys spend it at the beach.
• A man or woman has been out with friends and they are very very drunk.
• Describe an object you would like to take on a summer vacation trip. Where do you go and what will you do with it?
• You wake up one morning in the middle of summer vacation and realize you drool in your sleep.
• Write about what you enjoy most about summer vacation
• It’s summer. You’re hot. You get up to go get a drink and you discover that your entire house has melted.
• A frustrated writer goes on a summer vacation with no plans to write. A week later they’ve written their best material ever. Explain.
• Describe a summer day from your perspective.
• Write about your favorite summer vacation food.
• Vacation reminds you that home has chores.
• You’ve had a conflict with a teacher and you have to work together to correct it.
• A typical day at summer camp.
• Write about your summer vacation when something was repeatedly happening.
• How was my recent vacation? The ups and downs…the funny stories, and the not so funny stories.
• Middle school students discover summer plans are canceled.
• The weather really rained on your summer vacation plans.
• It is the most boring summer summer ever.  All your friends got together and are leaving on an awesome trip and you are stuck at home. Now your summer sucks.
• A stranger offers your eleven-year-old the illicit drug of his choice. What will he choose?
• Write about a time you were forced to quit something.
• Based on the book Never Let Me Go, write about your summer vacation from your point of view.
• Write about a summer vacation gone very wrong, or very right.
• You’re at a beach watching the sunset and everything goes black.
• You rent a motorhome for your summer vacation. There’s nothing about the car to suggest it is haunted, is there?
• Write about an unfavourable vacation and something that makes you feel better about it.
• There is a big bind up of roads that lead to your vacation destination. Only thing is, they are all closed. You get stuck in traffic and your vacation is ruined. You’re sort of like green with envy. “Yes,” you think, “I would love for someone to do that to me!”
• You just moved to a new city and summer vacation is about to start. Write about your plans.
• Write about a summer vacation from your childhood.
• Write about a year in your life when vacation was the most important thing for part of it.
• Write about the best vacation you ever had.
• These first three stories occur over a long summer break, off and on. The last story occurs when summer is almost over and the narrator knows that school is starting the next day. In this story the summer is symbolized by a motorcycle.
• You get to take a trip to anywhere in the world you want!
• It’s vacation and mom wants to escape the heat. Have them go to the beach.
• It is summer vacation and you have decided to take a road trip through the west.
• Write about a day when it is taking forever to finish summer vacation.
• Write about a day at the beach during summer vacation. Essentially, this prompt is a huge gimmick since this article is clearly written for children FOR SUMMER VACATION.
• You finally get to go to Spain on vacation. While you are there, you find out the hotel you are staying in used to be a hospital for people with the Black Death.
• It is the summer before senior year and one student has to stay behind to work.
• A teenage girl from Spain is spending the summer in America with her grandparents. She has trouble adjusting to the new culture.
• Write about a summer event that affected everyone
• Write about a grandparent taking their grandchildren on vacation.
• Write about your worst summer vacation experience.
• Write about getting your summer job, or about working during the summer.
• You get picked out of a hat and you have to spend your summer vacation with someone you really don’t get along with.
• It is the worst summer ever because you have no money for a vacation, your neighbors are being audibly noisy and your best friend moved away.
• It is summer vacation time and here is your day…
• Summer vacation is over already and you were supposed to …… Do anything you are able to do about it.
• Write about your typical summer vacation.
• You always dreamed of going to summer camp and you finally get to go but it’s not what you expected.
• You are a flea. Write about your summer vacation.
• A long summer vacationing with your grandmother.
• Write about how the summer heat affects school.
• People aren’t playing as nice as they did before the school shootings. Write about that skyrocketing summer anxiety.
• It is probably every child’s nightmare…summer school.
• It is a buddy cop movie with two cops and one who is stuck at home for the summer.
• Summer vacation has been spent studying, now actually show your report to a teacher.
• Write about finding adventure on the summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and you are jogging. You see a stranger on the side of the road.
• A day during summer vacation.
• Write about what grandma will do and what grandpa will do during summer vacation.
• A summer day that begins like any other.
• Someone tries to “prank” you while you’re on vacation and things don’t go the way they planned.
• Write about a vacation gone wrong.
• Summer vacation is terrible! Research a topic of interest to create an entertaining essay.
• Hunger strikes – write a story about a survivor of the famines in Chad. Tell how they find water, food, and shelter.
• It’s the tenth summer anniversary of one of your friends and he or she begins reminiscing about the . . .
• It is 3 in the morning. A burglar breaks into your house.
• Write about yourself doing something strange on summer vacation.
• Tell the story of a vacation where either your flight, car broke down, a family emergency came up, or comparable incident.
• Every year people lock in deposits to vacation spots months in advance. This year they fail to do so and everything is booked. Write what happens next.
• Write a letter to the editor of your local paper about the impact of global warming.
• It is the hottest August in history.
• You’re facing the first day of summer vacation. You’re a little nervous about going back to school — what went on over the summer that you’d like to get into?
• It’s the last day of summer vacation and you forgot to have fun.
• You are visiting your grandparents in the mountains and something creepy finds you in the house.
• Write about something that happened to you as a kid during the summer time.
• Having kids is like summer vacation.
• The cat does not want to go outside.
• Your summer is filled with boredom.
• Write about the best vacation someone has ever been on.
• Write about your idea of an ideal summer vacation.
• The city or town you visited for summer vacation doesn’t go according to your plan.
• It’s the hottest day of the summer. Write about as much as you can about it.
• Write about a time you went to the beach with your family.
• Write about an unexpected guest who shows up at your summer vacation home.
• It is summer vacation. The weather really sucks. Write about how awesome it is to be inside playing video games or reading comics.
• Summer vacation moves really slowly.
• Every morning it rains and your family must stay indoors.
• It’s summer vacation and the whole school is on a trip to Istanbul. You find yourself squished next to a stranger on the plane. What happens next?
• Recently divorced, you decide to take a last-minute summer vacation by yourself. You stay in a hotel by yourself and experience something unexpected.
• Write about doing something you’ve never done before with a friend.
• You turn to find an unusual character following you.
• It is summer vacation and you are at a camp with your friends. You find out that the camp mysteriously is harboring someone.
• Your Christmas is ruined by a snowstorm in the middle of summer. Write about it.
• Having summer off school isn’t all that great. Facing the end of summer is harder than expected.
• You have just arrived at a vacation destination. Write about the first thing you see.
• You promised your little brother/sister that you would take them to a water park but things obviously changed. Where would you take them now?
• When you have enough power to charge your phone and nothing gets done
• Write about the strangest thing you have done on summer vacation.
• Before the summer vacation, you feel like a sidekick but after the summer vacation you feel like a superhero because of your experiences.
• Write about your uneventful summer vacation.
• Write a journal entry from your parents’ perspectives while on summer vacation.
• Write about going on a summer vacation.
• Write from the perspective of food.
• Write about a time when you lost your way.
• It’s summer vacation and it’s raining.
• Write a scene where someone experiences heatstroke and has a panic attack.
• Write about the worst summer vacation you ever had.
• A child’s family is having a reunion in the middle of summer vacation. The rest of the world hurries to get ready, but this family is ever ready to go.
• You’re a lonely kid visiting your grandparents’ house for the day. Explore your grandparents’,  your own feelings, or create a full story.
• Write about a summer cold or flu.
• Tell the story of an average summer vacation.
• It is the middle of summer vacation and the workers strike. You are stuck.
• Your high school Prom is in just a few days and you’re working on your big date. Everyone else wants to go to a concert that same weekend, making coming up with a solution difficult.
• Summer vacation is over. Your parents are driving you back to school when something goes horribly wrong.
• It’s summer and everyone is heading up to the mountains to camp, but you are not going anywhere. This is when you realize what a burden you are to the family.
• There’s a campfire going and your friends and family are telling stories. Tell one.
• Write a story using the two plot techniques given here.
• Three teens travel to Italy. Their life is about to change drastically.
• An unfortunate Boy Scout trip ends in death.
• It’s been raining for days and everyone is inside. Someone might have come inside but you’re not sure.
• You just discovered that the place you are staying has a ghost.
• It is summer vacation and a bunch of your friends come up with a great idea for a prank but will you go along with it?
• In summer vacation, your house catches on fire.
• Write about an Indian Summer.
• Dream journal with a focus on a specific event in summer vacation.
• Summer is here and your sister needs your help. Find out why.
• Your parents have a spat that ruins your summer plans.
• Write about the fear you felt when you were waiting for your summer vacation dates from school.
• You download the vacation app for your phone but you cannot access any information. Not even a single word. How can you live on vacation now?
• There’s a person in your neighborhood/city that is great at playing the guitar.
• A popular recording artist played your hometown this year and you are bummed, because you were hoping to see them in concert.
• You come across a message in a bottle while on vacation.
• Someone organizes a Treasure Hunt to celebrate summer vacation.
• Write about what your family does for summer vacation.
• On a trip to the museum discover a family secret that keeps you coming back every summer.
• There is no air conditioning in your home and the weather has been unbearable. How do you survive?
• What does summer vacation look like to kids today? What did it look like when you were a kid?
• Write about a lazy summer day.
• It is the first day of summer vacation and you’re trying to avoid the summer sun.
• It’s summer vacation and your parents are out of town.
• Write about a vacation you went on that ended in disaster.
• It is the hottest summer ever and the AC just went out. Talk about what you did to keep cool.
• Write about a day you forgot your umbrella and it starts raining.
• It’s summer vacation and as a family, you are in between homes. It’s super hot. You’re stranded at a hotel by the dusty interstate because of a snowstorm. The school inspectors suspect you aren’t from around there, but they can’t prove it. You’ll be kicked out of the hotel in a few days. What do you do?
• Write about your morning commute to school. It’s summer vacation and you’re still on the clock.
• It is your first summer vacation.
• Write about time-travel to summer vacation in the past and future.
• You go to the saloon in summer to rob it but your plans change when you see an old flame there.
• Write about a family spending a summer vacation – either real or imagined.
• What do you do during the summer vacation?
• Someone sees a ghost on their summer vacation.
• It’s the Fourth of July, but no one wants to visit the fireworks. For one reason or another.
• You head out to summer vacation with full expectations, but something goes terribly wrong and you’re forced to return home.
• What is a story that all people should take away from summer vacation?
• Write about the first summer vacation you remember.
• The police suspect you did something and have you in their interrogation room. Write about what you tell them. The police think you have information on a crime, but you don’t. They don’t believe you and beat you before you give them the answer. Write about the answer you tell them.
• On your last summer vacation you went deep sea fishing. The boat tipped over and now you are stuck in the middle of the ocean on a floating piece of wood. Describe your predicament or whatever predicament you come up with.
• Write about an unexpected item you needed on vacation.
• Summer vacation means four weeks of opposite-sex neighbor camp. The boy you secretly like is staying in the cabin right next door. What happens?
• Your parents use the money you saved over your winter vacation to buy a second car.
• It is the start of summer and all the stores have very few things left.
• You are stranded on a deserted island and forced to survive the summer.
• Write about your first summer developing a crush on another person.
• Your parents decide to send you to military school. Summer vacation is just around the corner, what would you do?
• It is the hottest summer ever and you just got fired.
• Write about the hottest summer ever and what you do about it.
• Two unpopular kids are on summer vacation and somehow don’t end up at the pool or beach like most low-status kids.
• There is a storm at night and you are home alone.
• Write about what you would do if you tried and failed to steal the school bell.
• Describe a perfect summer vacation.
• It is the most boring and frustrating summer vacation ever. But not until the very end of summer vacation. Now write about the amazing and action packed first day of summer vacation.
• It is a boring summer vacation and you worry that this is going to ruin your summer. Anything goes.
• Your child has a summer job.
• You go out of town for the summer and your house is robbed.
• Write about a summer vacation to another planet.
• Write about your first summer at summer camp.
• Write about your students going on summer vacation.
• Three friends are on the beach and find an urn.
• Describe a deserted island. Do you end up stranded?
• Write about your first year of summer vacation.
• You are on summer vacation. You are inspired and ready to write. But all the material is here. What do you do?
• So Much Paper, So Much Paper
• Write a story about what you don’t like about summer vacation.
• Your family wins a trip to the far side of the world, but only for one week.
• Write about a day you had on vacation.
• The water park has been the only place to cool down all summer long. Then, you discover, it’s been filled with the toxin that has been turning people into alligators!
• Imagine you get a summer job as a lifeguard and it starts to get hot. What happens?
• A teenager goes wild on summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and you’re with family on a vacation. Write the next day’s blog entry.
• Write about your worst vacation disaster.
• The hotel your family is staying in is haunted.
• Tell a story of a fun filled day at Disneyland
• A group of friends that normally don’t get along must spend summer break together. What happens?
• Does your holiday routine change when summer vacation arrives?
• It’s the most depressing day of the summer.
• Is your city or town famous for anything? What?
• Write about your first job.
• You are a queen. Your husband has just died, and your advisors have managed to convince you that the most sensible course of action is to remarry the most vile, repulsive man they can find. Summer rolls around, and you mount your horse to leave your summer palace to find a suitor. Who ____ decides to pursue you?
• Your family decides to get a seasonal job so you can afford that new swimming pool.
• It is Your Birthday and you would like to make a tribute blog about your life so far!
• Write a scene using all dialogue only.
• Describe the worst summer vacation experience you ever had.
• Write about a funny thing your sister or brother does or says when you are on vacation.
• Write about your favorite summer memory.
• Write about a time where you got severely sunburned while on vacation.
• The summer boredom has gotten to you. You have gone a little crazy and discovered something on your own.
• Write about a person who is having a hard time during summer vacation.
• Write about a summer vacation where it is sunny and fun every single day, something completely unexpected.
• You get locked out of your home during the hottest summer ever.
• You’ve just been informed that you get all summer off and an entire month of summer school from the teacher’s union. How do you spend the summer?
• You wake up one morning to find a creature in your bedroom. What is it? Where did it come from? How do you get rid of it?
• It is summer vacation and for some reason you are stuck inside.
• What kind of training do you do in your vacation days?
• You don’t Start the first writing prompt for the story. Write about how to start writing a short story. We will help you to start writing fiction. It’s an introduction to creative writing challenges.
• Write about the apocalypse happening on the first day of summer vacation.
• In the middle of summer vacation, you receive a phone call. Write about the plot of what happens over the summer vacation.
• A writer’s biggest fan vacations at the same location every summer. Write one of their letters.
• It’s summer vacation and you’re at summer camp. You happen upon something in the woods and it might just be the death of you.
• It’s the last day of school but you are determined to have the greatest summer vacation ever.
• Write about visiting international relatives that live in a country with a really hot climate.
• You’re given a tutor for the summer. Your parents didn’t tell you he’s silver and bigger than they are. Will you tell your parents about your tutor?
• Your favorite beach is slowly being covered by the rising tides due to global warming.
• Write about an argument you had with a sibling over the summer.
• Although it is summer vacation you have to work all the time.
• It is high school graduation day. Write about your friends preparing for high school graduation.
• A family summer vacation to the beach. It can be skit, or a play or even just dialogue. But this has to be the hottest time ever. One person must break out and use magic and all sorts of interesting things.
• During a summer vacation, a family stumbles across some unexpected friends.
• It is summer vacation and your parents have gone on a “blind date”. They get stuck with no telephone, and you need to call them. How do you do it?
• Write about a lazy summer afternoon.
• Write about something going on during summer vacation that was more exciting than you expected.
• It is the hottest day on record and everyone starts to argue with each other.
• It’s summer vacation and you run away. What happens?
• Beach Vacation
• Write about the first time you swam in the ocean.
• The story of a summer romance.
• The teacher goes on vacation for the whole month of June and just forgot to write the final essay.
• Write about your most miserable vacation ever.
• Write about your summer vacation immersed in Minecraft or similar video games.
• It is the best of times and the worst of times.
• Write about a kid who goes on the perfect spring break.
• You’ve been dreading your summer vacation for the last few years. This year you get to leave and go to your dream destination.
• It is parent-teacher night at your child’s kindergarten. You wake up the morning of it wearing explosive diarrhea as a result of eating bad seafood. Your wife chastises you for doing so as you need to wear khakis to the meeting tonight. What do you do?
• Text only or write?
• What do you do during summer vacation?
• Your best friend is coming to visit and they want to go on a hot date. What do you do?
• A very hot summer day.
• You are a police officer on summer vacation dealing with a particularly goofy case.
• What’s the most ____ thing you’ve ever done in the summer?
• A child describes their perfect summer vacation.
• Write about a community where everyone is required to do the same thing for summer vacation.
• A pool party.
• You’re a college student who has to work at a summer job. Write about your experiences.
• The family car breaks down in an unfamiliar town on summer vacation.
• You wake up at the beginning of summer vacation on the worst possible day for it.
• Your family wins a cruise! The best part is that you just get to stay in a suite for the whole time, and the worst part is that someone has to take over watch for pirates.
• Write about the best way to spend your summer vacation. What will you be doing? Will you be traveling or just staying at home?
• It’s summer vacation and your parents are fighting ALL the time. What do you do?
• Write about the last summer vacation you went on.
• At summer camp, what is the funniest thing that’s ever happened?
• Kids ignore all the risks and climb through an abandoned ventilation shaft fossil dig at the local museum.
• What do you do on summer break that relates to your writing?
• What are your plans for summer vacation?
• Write about a summer vacation that changes your life.
• You travel with your family to another country for summer vacation. The trip involves a bicycle tour through the desert. How do you get through this trip?
• You and your family have been invited to attend a two-week music festival in another country. You even get to sleep in different tents. What instrument do you play and how far do you go with your guitar?
• Write about a summer vacation gone wrong.
• It’s the summer before school begins and you have even less free time than usual. How do you occupy your time?
• Write about an unexpected end to your summer vacation.
• Someone you tossed pennies into a fountain for luck is now alive and sitting right beside you.
• During summer vacation, you got pushed into some water and almost drowned.
• What is your favorite place to spend summer vacation?
• Summer vacation finally comes.
• Write about something you learned on vacation as you wandered.
• Write a list of things you do to stay cool during the summer heat.
• Write a creative piece of dialogue about summer vacation.
• Your parents are ship-wrecked and are now stranded on a desert island. What do they do?
• Summer vacation is a great time for catching up on chores or doing some things you’ve wanted to do for a long time.
• A thunderstorm rolls in and the power goes out.
• Your favorite film/movie is being made into a musical. They are shooting it on your favorite beach. What do you do if you see the cameras rolling?
• You are planning the perfect summer vacation but your plans are ruined. Write about what happens.
• Write an empowering letter to a fictional or non-fictional character explaining how you want your summer vacation to go.
• John and Mary are searching for a hotel for the night.
• You’re fifteen-years-old. School starts in two weeks. What do you want to happen that summer?
• Write about a night in which a hailstorm threatens your summer vacation home.
• Write about the first date you had in the summer. Something you should never write about involves your summer vacation.
• Your parents want to get a divorce and you’re not sure how to react.
• It is your last summer vacation with your cousins. They’re moving away.
• People just cannot turn down free food.
• Parents leave for an International trip leaving you and your siblings. What do you do?
• You are at a theme park and one of your friends spots a ride that looks like fun. You do not want to ride it and you tell your friends. Why can’t you ride the ride?
• Write about an experience from summer vacation before you had children.
• A week at the beach means sun, surf and weird people.
• Write a story set during the fourth of July holiday weekend.
• The best summer of your life starts out wrong. Years later you’re thankful for it.
• Write a scene of a vacation to Germany.
• While on summer vacation, Alex is haunted by a dream.
• You move to the country for the summer.
• Your last day of summer vacation gets interrupted by the most peculiar visitor.
• Write about enjoying a wonderful summer day
• It’s summer vacation but none of your friends are around.
• Write about your family struggling to survive a summer without electricity. A summer-long power outage would cause people to express their true feelings for their loved ones.
• Summer vacation is coming up. The whole grade is celebrating
• Write about a time you got heatstroke.
• There is major traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway. People leave their cars and hike out until they find a truck stop with AC.
• A character has to make summer vacation plans when one of their relatives unexpectedly arrives for the week including that relative.
• Winter Vacation Writing Prompts
• The air conditioning unit at a public pool has broken. It is really hot outside, it feels like one hundred degrees outside. The day is long and you are hot and sweaty.
• Write about the coolest summer vacation you ever had.
• A day at the beach takes a turn for the worse.
• Write about the most exciting thing you did on summer vacation.
• Write about getting into trouble over the summer.
• Write about the very first part of your vacation, then shift to the last part of your vacation. See if the ending differs.
• It’s July, mid-summer, and it’s the heat wave of the century.
• Write about the changing relationship between two characters during summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and your teacher hurries up to each of you to say goodbye and hopes you have fun.
• You and your mom go to a pool for a swim and get whacked by all the kids splashing around.
• It is your first summer living alone and you feel like it’s just not going well.
• You are a camp counselor for a rowdy inner-city youth full of gang members. What do you do?
• Write about your least favorite memory of summer vacation.
• It is the day of your favorite vacation. You took care of every last thing at home, packed your bag, and got everything ready. When you get to the airport, you find out your reservation is missing the destination you thought was Hawaii. It’s been mixed up with Ottawa. How do you handle this very important trip?
• The dog just had puppies and one of the puppies was hiding in your suitcase. The puppy pooped in your suitcase.
• Write an interesting story about a typical summer afternoon.
• Write a story about your experience with a sleepover.
• Your best childhood summer vacation memory and why it is your most prized summer vacation memory.
• It’s the end of the school year and all the girls are getting new clothes. The guys act like it doesn’t matter.
• It is the summer and anyone and/or anything is mobile.
• You went to summer camp and it is time to go home, the only problem is that you have been kicked out due to an unknown miracle. Write about it.
• It’s the hottest summer ever. You have been locked out of the hottest car ever.
• It’s summer vacation and you’ve been stuck inside a cave for the past 6 months. You’re finally free to go out in the sun but you can’t take off the blindfold and earplugs.
• Parents leave on vacation and leave kids a list of chores, but no one wants to do them.
• You’ll need cool, nomalicious summer vacation food. Write about your ideal one.
• Write about a terrible summer vacation.
• Write about a perfect summer morning.
• Write about the worst summer vacation ever or a time when you enjoyed not going on vacation.
• You find yourself trapped in a car in an endless summer traffic jam.
• Write about the most 5 star vacation you have ever been on.
• Describe a typical summer vacation day.
• You bust your neighbor sneaking into the pool during the night.
• Suzanne’s summer vacation turned out badly and she became famous.
• Tell us about a summer vacation that had a great beginning, but ended in disaster.
• You just moved to the Caribbean and it will be your first summer in a hot place.
• Write about summer vacation from the perspective of a camping trip.
• Write from the POV of a house pet that is alone all summer.
• Write about your summer vacation from last year. Write about it as if you are on vacation right now at the exact same moment last year.
• Consider making your summer vacation stranger than anything you could imagine.
• You’re set out on Thanksgiving to spend Thanksgiving alone.
• Fun in the sun is over and it is back to school. Write about what you did on summer vacation.
• Write about what you want to do about summer vacation so far.
• On a family vacation with your boyfriend and his parents, siblings and grandparents, you encounter a problem that requires unique talent to solve.
• Kids are supposed to stay within the confines of the bunk or cabin while on school group hike. Terrifying things happen as a result of this.
• Describe a busy, non-stop, out-of-control summer vacation.
• Write about what you should bring, do, or see while on summer vacation.
• Write about a time you went to college in the summer.
• A mutant and his searching for a way to save his home planet lands on the original mutant homeland.  He decides to return with a weapon.
• Your family pressures you to take vacation photos in order to use them for the next year’s Christmas cards.
• Write a story about your summer vacation.
• Write about the best summer job you ever had and why it was so good, and why you didn’t last.
• It’s the first day of summer vacation. You’ve written a will, made out a professional, & drawn up a list of your final affairs.
• You are on the other side of the world. Write about what you see.
• Write about your first time camping or on a summer vacation.
• Your summer vacation is over and you cannot believe it.
• Visit your favorite beach and create a song, video, or painting about the experience.
• Summer vacation is fast approaching. It’s been six months since you last saw your lover. Write about meeting up for vacation.
• Write about your first summer vacation on your own, away from your parents.
• A high school teacher finds out the secret that his students have been lying to him for years.
• Brave, strong, and sensible are all effective words. Curly, freckly, and sweet, however, need not apply. Which child is the misfit in the group?
• Everyone’s favorite summer vacation movie is “Jaws.”
• Write about a special summer your family spent.
• It is the hottest summer ever and the AC just went out. Your parents tell you that they won’t be able to afford air conditioning repair for the rest of the year and now you and your little sister need to find a way to stay cool.
• Describe a “perfect” summer  vacation.
• There’s the luxury cruise, and then there’s your family’s two week driving vacation. After meeting the rest of your extended family in California, where are you headed?
• It’s the last day before vacation is over, but someone forgot the sunscreen.
• Summer vacation has arrived and you are given a trip to explore space.
• How do you feel about summer vacation?
• Your best friend doesn’t move away, so you declare it “The Summer of George.”
• You have just had the most crowded and horrific experience on a plane of your life.
• Write about an important lesson you learned while vacationing.
• Lying on a beach and trying to write a novel.
• Write a story about the last day of summer vacation.
• You became famous overnight but one thing hasn’t changed and that’s your summer vacation plans.
• Have you ever wished you were somewhere else during summer vacation?
• Write about your hottest summer.
• Write about a time you had to work or do chores during the summer because adults pressured you to.
• You never wanted to travel during summer vacation, but this year your parents couldn’t agree on a vacation location, and now everyone in your family is at your house for the weekend.
• Write about getting caught in a rainstorm while on vacation.
• Write about the magical summer vacation you had that you wished would never end.
• A field trip to the beach turns disastrous.
• Families generalize family vacations- “It’s always the same.” However, for the first 24 hours everything is different.
• You are at summer camp. An emergency is occurring. What is it?
• There is a simmering war between the girls. Your best friend is in the middle.
• Write about the perfect beach vacation.
• Your father has a job that takes him out of the country for most of the summer.
• Your favorite television show just got cancelled. How will you react?
• You’re on the beach. The ocean is cool and the waves are high.
• Write about your favorite summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and you aren’t sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
• What is your idea of a perfect summer vacation?
• Write about your house being robbed while you’re on vacation.
• Write your own summer vacation.
• Summer vacation and you’re broke. How will you survive?
• It’s summer vacation and your friends visit the same beach you visited last summer. What do you do?
• Wake up on your first day of summer vacation. Where are your friends? What does everything look like?
• Describe a summer day of your life.
• Write about how your day is going at the beach/pool/park.
• Write about losing your things at the beach/park/beach camp.
• The kids take the family car and run off for a few days.
• A spaceship lands in your backyard. They need help repairing the spaceship and the rocket ship away.
• You’re a presenter and have to give a speech at your summer camp, but it turns out you slept through the most important meeting. How do I handle this?
• You and your mother just had your first fight as a result of broken curfew.
• Describe the last family vacation you took.
• Write about death by heat stroke.
• One of the characters in your story is struggling with a problem that is so consuming that you’re afraid that person is about to make a big mistake.
• Write about a summer vacation being ruined by something unexpected that goes wrong.
• Use the following list to write about an event that changes your life forever
• The temperature is at an all-time high, but your family plans to go out to the beach all day.
• Write about your favorite season plus summer. It could be fall, winter, spring or summer.
• What’s the best part about summer vacation and what’s the most fun thing about summer vacation?
• A family moves off the busy streets of New York City and onto quiet country roads.
• Write about how you spend your summer vacation.
• Write about a summer you remember, when everything went wrong.
• Summer vacation is awful because you keep getting in fights with your siblings. Write about a time that you yourself had a great time on vacation.  Write about your summer vacation. What did you do and what did you like the most? Describe a bad summer vacation that you remember. Write about a difficult experience that occurred on a vacation. What happened? What did you learn from the experience? Write about the worst tourist you have ever met. Write about the relaxing moments that you experienced during a summer vacation. What did you like about them? What did you experience?
• You are out for a day of boating with your family on summer vacation. It is a lovely day and the family has just finished building a sand castle. You go to set sail for home. But when you turn the engine the entire boat goes completely black. You flip the light switch. Still nothing. You search for your phone and also can’t find it. You can’t remember if you put it in the bin where you put your sunscreen. The next morning you discover you don’t have service and your family’s phones don’t have any battery. How will you get help?
• It is supposed to be summer vacation, but naturally everyone gets sick.
• Summer vacation is nearing an end and the freedom that comes with it is about to wane.
• Write about your favorite summer sport.
• The sun is shining, but there is a storm approaching.
• Your summer job is building houses, but you have nothing but time. What do you do?
• Family vacation gets cut short when the parent’s job takes them back to the city.
• Out for your morning run you witness a murder in an alley…then you wake up.
• Write about what you regret doing during your last summer vacation.
• Of course, you can always choose to make up your own subject, topic, and/or pronouns.
• Write about the adventures of your family this summer.
• Write about what happens if your hottest summer ever suddenly turns deadly.
• Describe your worst summer vacation…ever!
• Just because vacation is over doesn’t mean that it can’t be celebrated. What did you do during the end of your summer vacation?
• Describe a family vacation in summer. What did you do? Did some new love blossom? Why didn’t you make it to Yellowstone National Park? How did you ruin the vacation overreacting to something small? What did you do to make up for it?
• Write about a summer vacation survival guide
• Write about your parents and your summer vacations.
• You went on a summer vacation and you found a secret about your family which led you to an important decision.
• Island fever hits and they have to get home, but there are no flights until tomorrow.
• What would you do if you found yourself awake one night alone at home on summer vacation?
• Write about a summer vacation you don’t want to return from.
• Write about a family on a trek in Australia. A giant lizard attacks.
• Write about your ideal adventure.
• Your family travels to a foreign country. You’re just as excited as when you were little. The only problem is the country is not as welcoming as you’d like.
• You escape from the zombie apocalypse at summer camp.
• Summer vacation isn’t necessarily a good time for you. They’ve gotten much worse since you were a child.
• Describe the littlest thing inducing summer vacation nostalgia for you.
• Write about taking a family vacation where the children are the only ones who are excited about being there.
• Describe your summer vacation.
• Write about your life from June 1st through Labor Day of your junior year of college.
• Take your favorite stuffed toy/teddy bear/puppet on vacation. Where does he go? What does he do?
• During summer vacation, a normal summer day becomes anything but.
• Do you prefer school holidays or long summer vacation?
• It’s summer vacation. You’re most excited about this.
• Your husband has been transferred to Paris for three months and is asking you to go with him. You wouldn’t have to leave your children behind, but you would have to leave your family and friends. You get a call that you’re being transferred to Egypt for three months, but your children will stay behind and you must leave sooner than three months. You would have to leave it all behind. However, you wouldn’t have to leave your parents. So you are excited and hesitate because there is uncertainty involved. You must decide.
• You meet your favorite celebrity who offers to take you on an adventure!
• You’ve spent the majority of your vacation trying to reach someone, but to no avail.
• Whatever happens, enjoy the summer!
• Write about a favorite summer vacation memory from your childhood.
• It is the coldest summer ever and the heater just went out.
• Write about a horrible summer vacation.
• You spend the summer vacation trapped in a hotel room.
• Having to run the vacuum
• Summer vacation is around the corner and at the same time, people are losing hope because of the economic financial situation. How can you help lift people’s spirits up?
• Summer vacation, who-needs-it?
• Summer vacation is here and you’ve got the beach in your sights. You’d be happy, except for one problem. It’s not your beach.
• Write about a time when you had to do something for summer vacation.
• Before next summer, your parents tell you you have to study more and you’re only allowed to open your window to get fresh air. All of a sudden your other parent says you’re forbidden to open your window.
• It’s the beginning of summer vacation. What do you do on the first day? What happens on your last day? What does school feel like in between?
• A magazine comes to your house selling “discounted” summer vacation packages. What might be the catch?
• It’s summer time! Take a side job or go on a date.
• School lets out for summer vacation and while most people take it easy, you party even harder … but at what cost?
• A boy’s summer vacation ends worse than he anticipated.
• Summer vacation becomes a nightmare when your younger sibling continually follows you around.
• Pick any place and write about a normal day there.
• What if you had six months of summer vacation?
• Write what you’d write to a friend if they were forced to spend summer vacation with their parents.
• Write about what happens when someone tries to breach bedtime or curfew on summer vacation.
• It’s summer vacation and the vacation you were supposed to take didn’t happen last summer. Time for make-up.

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• 1001 Writing Prompts About Superheroes
• 1001 Writing Prompts About Night

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9 Creative Writing Tactics to Enrich Your Travel Writing

My Top Travel Writing Secrets I Probably Shouldn’t Share

I have been writing about travel for two years now four years now ( update 2022 ). When I started this blog, I wrote about personal growth and life inspiration. But because I travel constantly and I relish writing about nature, people, and experiences, I began writing travel articles on On My Canvas. ( I’m an itinerant writer now.)

When I first ventured into travel writing, I panicked every time I put down my solo excursion tales and travel guides. I didn’t know how to write about traveling. I didn’t have the right tools. I remember telling my partner it would be a long time before I write good, relatable travel stories readers will enjoy. ( my ideas about good writing .)

But even as a beginner travel writer, I wrote subjective articles such as  why I travel  and how can we stop ourselves from turning into the worst dictators (inspired by Cambodia). I have always preferred penning down personal travel memoirs rather than writing about the five things to do.

Some of my travel writings turned out to be good and some bad. So while this piece on  the love and hate relationship with India  won accolades, I’m still ashamed of this  Vietnam photo essay .

I continued writing about trips to Southeast Asia and South America . As I published frequently, I started getting a hang of  travel writing.

Now instead of fumbling with how to write a travelogue or a guide, I was rejoicing at heartwarming comments and emails from readers.

A beginner travel writer messaged, “Probably your blog is the most useful one I have come across. Most of your posts are stories and experiences rather than what you see in usual blogs. It helps the readers connect.” 

So many writers loved my 11 best tips for bloggers I was overwhelmed. I pitched guest posts to many travel websites. All of them accepted my articles as soon as they read my travel stories. I got the Best Travel Writer award on Medium (which expired as I have stopped publishing on Medium). After reading my blog, editors and freelance clients reached out to me. Some editors said, to quote, “No doubt you’re an excellent storyteller.”

When anyone compliments my travel writing or says I have immense writing talent, I quietly remember the nights and days I spent bent on my computer writing, editing, reading aloud, deleting, rewriting, poring through writing tips for beginners , and so on. I want to stand on a rooftop and scream that writing is less of an inborn talent and more of a muscle that strengthens as we exercise it more.

I would be lying if I say I didn’t write before starting a travel blog. I began my writing career as a fiction writer. The first-ever rules I learned about writing were creative writing tactics. So to say, I launched into the travel writing world on a creative writing broomstick. 

Now I’m not Stephen King or  Ruskin Bond , but I write short stories, personal essays (like this one ), and poetry , too. Some of my work is published .

Within a few months of writing about traveling, I heard many times that I was not doing travel blog writing.

A reader’s comment read , “Beautiful written, your prose is lyrical that reads less like a blog and more like a novel.” That reader has a Ph.D. in literature.

I was writing travel stories and memoirs using my creative writing skills. And travel writing and blogging about travel are all about storytelling — at least they should be.

In this writing guide, I am sharing the indispensable creative writing techniques that have helped me write engaging travel stories.

In a storytelling workshop recently, the six attendants said I should have added more exercises to the class. I took the advice to heart. I have included a writing exercise with all the travel writing tips. Complete the exercises while reading or bookmark the article and get to them later. But remember, you can only master these travel writing tactics if you practice. 

Travel writers, fasten your seatbelts as I am going to take you on a ride. 

1. Write about travel, but don’t forget to Tell a Story

Stories hold words together.  Without a story, words are black noise on paper.

Do you know why we don’t look forward to academic texts and instructional blogs? Why do we enjoy reading Sapiens even though it is a non-fiction book about our entire history?

The former don’t have a story and the latter has.

Expecting your readers to enjoy your story-less writing is like expecting them to enjoy bland food.

Travel blogging needs more storytelling (as I keep repeating and even Jodi from the popular Legal Nomads travel blog started emphasizing a decade ahead of me) . To blog doesn’t mean to give information only. To blog implies to weave our experience in a tale that readers not only can’t keep down but believe in (since the beginning humans have got others to join them for a cause by telling stories).

A story arc goes like this:

• a scene or an event introducing the story and the characters (exposition)
• a buildup on the scene using the characters and their background (the rising action)
• a high-tension point (climax)
• arriving at the end while resolving those tensions or providing (and refusing) the characters’ desires (the falling action)

This video by Chungdahm Learning explains the story arc well.

For example, m y travel narrative of climbing the Volcano Villarrica begins with these lines: “The alarm rang at 3:30 am. In the dark hostel dormitory, I peeked out of my blanket and cursed myself for signing up to hike the 2,800-meter active volcano.” 

By opening the travelogue with a hint of the oncoming adventure, I make readers curious.

Then I share why I was climbing the volcano and that the hike was challenging — I lay the background.

Bringing the travel memoir to a middle point I say, “A thought that I might not be able to complete the hike knocked my head.” — This is a high-tension point because from here on either I will give up or achieve my goal.

I make the characters clash — “After a few hours of trudging up the volcano, I wanted to give up. So when Alejandro and Alison told me I had gone too far to quit, I didn’t relate with their relentlessness. Why couldn’t I watch the summit from a lower altitude and enjoy the majestic vista bordered by icy volcanoes?” — Though the character conflicts are subtle, this much tension is usually enough to drive a travel story.

I take the travelogue further by talking about how the guide and my friend cheered me — the falling actions. The story ends with me making it to the summit.

“ Every story is about something bigger than ourselves,” Neil Gaiman says, and I concur. The main point of the story was not trekking the volcano. It was about conquering my greatest fears and pushing myself to climb despite them. Ask yourself why do you want to write your story. Remember the reason while writing the travel tale.

One of the loveliest comments I received on the travelogue says, “I really enjoyed reading your story. It made me want to hike the volcano but it also made me slightly terrified of it.”

My purpose was achieved. I wanted to inspire people to climb the thing for I knew what an incredible experience they would miss if they gave in to their fears.

We have to narrate our travel guides like stories or a collection of many anecdotes. And for every travel article that cannot be a continuous story — such as logistical pieces like how to get a visa to Malaysia, things to do in Dharamshala et cetera — I begin by telling a related incident and then write down the information strewing many more tales throughout.

Writing Exercise —  Look at your drafts or a published piece. Or write about traveling to a place you loved. Write/rewrite as if you were telling the story to your best friend.

How cool would be to tell this story! The Sleeping Gypsy and The Lion, by Henri Rousseau / Public domain

2. Show, Don’t Tell

Show, don’t tell was one of the first writing advices I got. 

What does “show, not tell” means?

When you “tell” (not show), you dictate information to the reader, rather than letting her deduce it. 

When you show, you paint a picture of the scene rather than throwing all the facts at the reader .

In the  travel blog on Manikaran, Himachal, I could have written — The Gurudwara is white. The Parvati river flows by its side .

But I wrote — The milky gurudwara complements the white froth of the unstoppable Parvati bellowing by its side.

A few more travel writing examples on telling and showing :

If we tell, the story feels less like a story and more like a boring monologue spilled out on the page. But when we show, the reader watches the scene unfold in front of her, becomes a part of the journey, and draws her own conclusions.

To show what is happening, write using your senses. See, smell, hear, touch, and taste. Now write what you find.

Writing Exercise  —  Pick up an existing work or continue working on the travel piece from the first bullet. Or write about what you see now. Don’t tell, show. You cannot use the words sad, angry, hungry et cetera. Use your senses.

When you are writing about a trip, describe not just the people but also the mountains and the lakes. The Lone Lake by Franklin Carmichael / Public domain

3. Be Descriptive – One of my most important rules while writing a travelogue

This point is a continuation of the above tip on showing, not telling. 

To create a story, we need to give details about the setting, the scene, and the action.

In the  travel blog on Manikaran, Himachal I could have written — Tourists were getting photographed. It was a beautiful place with narrow streets. Shops lined the roadsides. People were shopping. Sikhs were visiting the Gurudwara. Mothers were taking their children to the hot water springs to bathe them.

But here’s what I wrote: 

“ Young girls dressed up in traditional bright Kullu dresses and Himachali topis waited to be clicked. Streets were lined with kitschy souvenir shops flaunting neon plastic toys, rudraksha malas, and brass bracelets.

Devoted Sikhs with their  Kirpans  hanging around their waist walked swiftly towards the Manikaran Sahib Gurudwara. Hindu families strode to the Shiva and Ram temple to bathe their young ones. The children trailed behind eyeing the hot jalebis and crispy samosas displayed at the roadside sweetmeats’ shop. “

In the first method, the writing reads boring, incomplete, and doesn’t help us see the place. I could be describing any religious site.

In the second method, I have added colors. I have not only used my senses to show, but I have focused on the little details that make Manikaran the place it is.

Zoom in and then use the five senses to show what is happening. 

Writing Exercise   —  Pick the story or the paragraphs from the above exercise. Edit the piece while filling in the details. So now you want to draw more lines, more leaves, more grass, and pour in some more color.

Traveling 160 years ago. The Traveling Companions by Augustus Egg / Public domain

Inspirational Read: How to Keep Going When Writing Seems Hard

4. Be specific

Specificity adds nuance and makes the scene real. Ditch common nouns and use proper nouns. 

She kept her copy of ( a book ) The Color Pur ple on the table. 

Celebrations were spent huddled around the barbecue with  ( a drink ) terremotos in hand. 

When I got tired, I walked back to the homestay and listened to ( music ) Anoushka Shankar fill the treehouse. 

There was ( a car ) a white ambassador with a broken headlight on the road.

Writing Exercise  — Take any travel article and replace all the common nouns with proper nouns wherever it makes sense.

To help the reader relate, talk about your fears and apprehensions often. Franklin Carmichael / Public domain

5. Tell what you care about, but don’t ignore others

Consider this paragraph: “I arrived in Manikaran at noon. I wanted to take a long hot bath in the thermal pools so I walked to the temple. But as families and their children had already crowded the bath, I got out early. After the bath, I was hungry so I ate a samosa. The rudraksha males were beautiful so I went to one shop to buy. “

A lot of travel blogs read like the above. 

Why would anyone be interested in my monologue? People would rather binge-watch Netflix.

Virginia Woolf said ,

“Your entire devotion is due to your story. You cannot leave it to attend to some personal grievance. Let not anger tug at our imagination or devotion and deflect it from its path.”

We only read when we can relate with the writing while getting entertained (I will talk about entertainment in another point). And readers would only relate to our writing if they can imagine themselves in our shoes.

If our writing is relatable, it will be enjoyable, too. The reader would laugh along and would be embarrassed when we fall flat on our faces at the crowded Andheri railway station. 

To make the writing relatable, we show what is happening with us, but we don’t skip the world. So the floodlight is on us, but the rest of the stage isn’t dark either. And in this space the reader can scooch in wherever she likes.

Rewriting the above lines:

“ When I arrived in Manikaran at noon, the town was bustling with activity. Tired from the journey, I headed to the temple to bathe in the natural hot springs. Some twenty children were playing in and around the temple pool. The mothers yelled to get the children out of the water.

Postponing my desire to take a long bath I was out of the water in a few minutes. Soon I was on the street. The thick fragrance of the freshly fried samosas pulled me towards the sweetmeat shop. There was a long queue, but I got my samosa. Right opposite the shop, an old man sold rudraksha malas. The sunlight seemed perfect to click the ruddy necklaces. so I walked to him. Who knows, I might buy one this time. “

I’m still talking about myself, but while describing the people, places, and scenes I come across.

Writing Exercise   —  Read what you have written. Do you hear “I,” “me,” “I,” “me,” or does the story care about others, too? Make a friend read the draft. Ask her what she thinks.

Quiet a landscape, eh? How will you describe it in words? Karl Paul Themistokles von Eckenbrecher / Public domain

6. Weave the facts throughout the story 

Fiction writers never give all the facts and data in the first paragraph of the story. Travel writers shouldn’t stuff all the logistics and information at once either. Otherwise, the piece will become a read-before-sleep rather than a read-because-you-can’t-stop concoction.

Read this: “ The museum was opened in 1871. With the ticket, we got an audio tour of the museum. The museum had four walls, all painted white, and four galleries. The first gallery is of the realism paintings. Then comes the second gallery with oil paintings. The third gallery is of natural paintings. By the fourth gallery, the writer d..o..z…e..s.s. off… The reader d.o.z…z…e.s off…   “

Now consider this :

“ The ticket to the museum said it opened to the public in 1871. Out of the four museum galleries, I first walked towards the realism paintings gallery.

…Journey in the realism paintings gallery…

After half an hour, I exited the realism to enter the world of oil paintings, the second gallery. The audio tour was so helpful I haven’t had to look up anything on Google, yet. Et cetera. Et cetera. “

As travel writers, we have to share information and facts. But we can’t burden the reader with all the information in one go. Unfurl the truths of the place slowly. When you write about a trip, weave the dates and the data in your narrative.

Writing Exercise   —  Check your piece for facts. Weave them subtly in the article.

7. Show more than you are comfortable with – Writing travel articles would need you to open up.

Personal essays and travel stories read real when we share how we feel. Of course, it is hard to open up on a public platform. Nor do we feel comfortable knowing others can see into our personal lives.

But to become a travel writer, you have to compromise on privacy. You have to let people inside your head. Else you will not be writing books but would only be protecting your identity. 

Here is something personal I wrote about my first solo travel in Thailand : “One morning in Chiang Mai, I was walking in the middle of a street. Clutching my bag, I was trying to read menus written in Thai. Just then, on a phone call back home, my mother said she would never forgive me and hung up. She wanted me to return home immediately but I wanted to travel more. “

I wasn’t comfortable sharing the entire conversation. But to progress the narrative and give context to my subsequent feelings and actions, I shared a less dramatic version of the phone call.

If we are not writing about a travel experience from a personal point of view, the piece would just read like a report on the destination. 

Don’t be shy. Share how you feel so that people can relate. After all, you are not the only one struggling with angry mothers and Thai menu cards. 

Readers want you to hook them from the beginning. Christen Dalsgaard / Public domain

8. Don’t bore the reader. Make her laugh. Make her cry. But never bore her.

We read to get entertained.  We read to forget ourselves for a while and get lost somewhere else. Reading is another form of meditation.

Recently in a storytelling workshop, I asked the six attendants why they read.  Their reasons ringed close to entertainment though they never used the word.

There is nothing wrong with reading for fun. Even though we might be learning alongside, growing as a person, getting out of the mundane, and venturing into different worlds, we wouldn’t read unless we were having fun.  ( these 21 books changed how I look at life .)

By enjoying a book, a story, or an article, I do not mean the reader would always be rolling on the floor laughing. She might cry. Her heart might get broken. She may miss her family. She might regret something she did ten years ago. 

As writers, our job is to make a reader feel all those emotions she was hiding from — that is the entertainment.  At the end of the read, the reader should feel as if she has just come out of another world (the one we will serve on a plate).

How would you make sure your travel writing isn’t boring? 

Read your work aloud. Cut every redundant and dull word and line. Be more frugal than the Michelin star chefs.

Laugh upon yourself if you have to. Talk about your fat nose. Tell us about how you were blown away by the wind. Open up about that embarrassing morning when the hostel bathroom was occupied and you had eaten too much salsa picante . 

Use metaphors. They will be a hit and miss in the beginning but you will soon make sense. 

In an essay on changing my career to become a writer , I wrote — Parents didn’t allow their children, especially girls, to go out and play with friends, and Voldemort wasn’t the reason. Men ogled women on the streets freely, and I was grabbed a few times even in crowded places as soon as I hit puberty.

I talked about why children weren’t allowed to go out by sharing a dark reality but putting in a little punch of Voldemort laughter there. 

Here’s another example of travel writing from an essay on being clueless in Chile when people spoke in Spanish :

Suddenly, I was the toothpaste cover girl: silent and vacuously smiling. Like the referee in a tennis match, I turned my head from one speaker to another to understand the expressions. I was the excluded newcomer in the class; rarely asked for advice or answer unless directly involved. Avoiding conversations was a new skill that I was assimilating. The quick cat who used to jump at everyone (literally with words) was out of breath and was watching silently from under the bed .

Unless my piece entertains me, I keep editing it. When you can’t enjoy your writing how would anyone else enjoy it? 

The scene could be soft and slow. But you have to write it such that people don’t get bored. On the Desert by Jean-Léon Gérôme / Public domain

9. Read like a Writer

As I am writing more, I am reading more, too. I have talked about the importance of reading in my 27 tips on improving writing skills , too. (my best non-fiction books from 2020 and best fiction books from the same year.)

Not just reading, but reading as a writer is one of the most important practices for any writer.

When I started reading travel blogs, I was overwhelmed. They were so many. How could I ever finish? But I realized I could read only some of those blogs. The rest were either boring or too short or just talked about how the writer enjoyed the place and didn’t give enough information, and so on (no offense to anyone for I am just sharing my reading experience).

I picked up the dos and the don’ts of good travel writing from my own experience as a reader.

While reading, notice what made you laugh or which part of the travelogue made you put the article aside. Was there an awkward word? Was the information weaved into the story? Would you read more of this writer? Why?

Learn from other writers. 

Here are books that have helped me progress as a writer (or at times have helped me write at all),

• Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari — I’ve included this one because Sapiens establishes how humans could (cognitively and otherwise) evolve by telling stories to each other
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl — One of the best non-fiction memoirs I’ve ever read by such a young author
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life — for inspiration to write, and also to let go in the avalanche of warmth that flows out of this book
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  by Stephen King — Learn from the best. King always knows how to cut the noise.
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke — Another book which suffuses me with strength, courage, and belief all writers so badly need. 
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf — Inspired by A Room of One’s Own, I even have a meditation on Woolf’s advice on writing and life . Virginia’s essay is a must read for all writers (and those aspiring to write).
• The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent van Gogh — In these priceless letters to his brother Theo, Vincent inspired everyone to pursue their art with utmost devotion. I read the letters frequently to fill myself with courage, focus, and belief.
• Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg — The title says it all. But this one stays with me wherever I go.
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Junior and E.B. White — for learning the basics of grammar and, literally, how to write
• Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University — another must have on non-fiction. I’m always reading this one yet I have so much more to learn 
• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser — a must have in my opinion
• Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (99U) — a brilliant book from the creatives around the world on how to manifest the creativity inside us in our work

Now go get them.

for as Vincent said , what is more artistic, doing it or not going it?

Writing Exercise   —  Pick up any travel story. Maybe take one from my blog  (could be this BR Hills piece ) or any other blog you love. Print it out. Now keeping the tips for travel writing discussed here in mind, read the story. Underline the descriptive words. Circle the boring parts. Mark the sentences that tell instead of show. Understand where you got bored or what kept you going. Now do it with one of your pieces. Rewrite the things that don’t feel right.

I hope these ideas on how to write about travel help you write better. Word by word, my friend, word by word.

Follow Up Reads: My best Blogging Tips from 2 years of blogging , Creative Routines for everyone , and an inspiration on pursuing our dreams

Are you writing about traveling, too? Do you now have a better idea on how to write a travel article? Let me know in the comments.

Like this post? Please pin it so that others can find it on Pinterest. Thank you. 

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6 thoughts on “9 Creative Writing Tactics to Enrich Your Travel Writing”

very informative

नमस्कार क्या आप मुझे बता सकते कि कहानी को लिखने का सही तरीका क्या है क्योंकि मैं बहुत दिनों से ट्राई कर रहा हूं पर लिख नहीं पा रहा हूं।

Hey priyanka, It was a great blog. I liked the whole blog specially the second point of Showing instead of telling. Keep going

Very good information blog! it is useful to me to write a Travel blog and thank you for posting.

Hi Priyanka, This is a wonderful article. Congratulations! I have just completed a travel book called ‘The Last Train Through the Heart of the Americas,’ for which I am trying to find a publisher, so I can very much relate to the travel tips you give in the above post, as I had to learn most of them the hard way. My book has been 30 years in the making and still isn’t published…. And I too worked in investment banking before setting off on travels to India, South-East Asia and South America. Although you are in India and I am in Canada, we have some things in common. You have used lovely illustrations in the blog post too, which added to the pleasure I got from reading it. And that’s how I write my pieces as well, keep rewriting and rewriting until it amuses me, and hence the reader. All the best, Ian Birch

Hi Ian, thanks a lot for your lovely message. We have so much in common it surprises me. And I have some many good friends from Canada. Your book will soon get published 🙂

Also, appreciate your feedback on the pictures. I take some time to find good images and paintings that would complement the piece. Here are some old paintings that are getting dust on Wikipedia so I thought to share them with all.

Good luck. Stay in touch, Priyanka

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31 Travel Journal Prompts + Creative Travel Journal Ideas

Looking for travel journal prompts and creative travel journal ideas ?

Then you’re in the right place! 

Especially right now as travel is limited and people are searching for ways to travel at home, such as through relaxing staycations , keeping a travel journal can be a great way to relive your favorite trip memories. 

Moreover, it can keep travel alive, allow you to explore the world from home, and help you stay curious. 

Keep reading for a list of fun journal writing prompts related to travel as well as tips for creating something tangible that truly helps you feel inspired. 

Table of Contents

Downloadable Travel Journal PDF

Before we dive into the post, though, I want to offer you the chance to grab my free printable travel journal . 

The trip journal includes 56 prompts in total. 

This inspiring printable and fillable journal is great for exercising your creativity while traveling from home as you remember your favorite trips. 

Grab it, and then feel free to message me on Instagram ( @jessieonajourney ) to let me know which travel journal writing prompts were your favorite and why.

I plan to update the journal in the future — and you’ll get any revisions I make — so your feedback is appreciated!

What Is A Travel Journal?

A travel journal is a place where you can document your trip memories, whether you’re spending 7 days in Cancun , going on a solo USA road trip , off completing the world’s best hiking trails , or something else.

These can be paper or digital, bound or looseleaf, thin or thick. And— when it comes to how to write in a travel journal — it can include just text or a variety of mediums.

The point is, it offers a way to record what happens to you on the road — though you’re welcome to take your entries and give them a fictional twist for fun! 

Choosing Your Travel Journal

I may be a little biased, but if you’re looking for the best travel journal with prompts, I recommend grabbing my free printable journal here . 

Because I made it fillable, you can also use it as a travel journal online!

Additionally, there are loads of inspiring options online if you’d prefer to purchase one. A quick note that the below journal links are affiliate links. 

On Amazon, I love this vegan leather option as well as this mindful travel journal .

Additionally, I’m a huge fan of the travel journals at Modcloth. Click here and search “journals” to view their latest collection.

Creative Travel Journal Ideas

Wondering how to be creative in your journal?

First of all, remember that a journal doesn’t just have to be writing. Use markers, paints, stickers, glitter, and even momentos from your travels to really bring the text to life. 

Of course, don’t forget about travel-themed accents, too, like stamps, tickets, postcards, and maps — you can even cut out sections of a map to showcase your favorite destinations. 

If you’re artistic, you might also consider bullet journaling and other techniques to make your journal more visual. 

In terms of keeping your travel writing fresh, having details to pull from can be a huge help.

When possible, try to experience a place with all five senses so you have more to draw from later. I personally like to take notes right after any experience I think I may write about later. 

Keep in mind, being fully present in this way is also just an overall healthy practice. 

If you’re having trouble remembering details, try to sit in silence and do a visualization. Personally, when I do this exercise I aim to not only see myself in a place, but to put myself back in the place so that I am seeing the scene through my own eyes. 

Feeling writer’s block?

Sometimes all that it takes is a change of scenery to get inspired again. Try going for a walk or trying a new cafe to see if that helps.

If not, put the journal away, give yourself some mental space, and pick it back up tomorrow. 

And if you’re proud of what you’ve written, feel free to post it on social media, share it in an email with friends or, of course, keep it to yourself. 

How To Keep A Travel Journal: Quick Tips 

As an avid journaler myself, these are some of my personal tips for having fun, feeling creative, and staying inspired while writing.

As with travel tips and trip styles, everyone has their own process when it comes to journaling, and something that works for me may not work for you. Feel free to try out this advice, keep what works, and let go of what doesn’t.

Overall, the goal is that you get something beneficial out of these pages.

Tip #1: Journal when you feel most creative.

For instance, you might choose some mindful ways to start your day and have completing daily journal prompts be one of your morning rituals. 

However, if you find you feel more creative in the afternoon or evening, plan your writing for then.

Tip #2: Don’t edit as you write.

Allow your first draft to be all about getting your ideas and thoughts down onto the paper and getting into a creative flow state.

You can always tweak things later.

Tip #3: Remember the power of lists.

This is one of my favorite trip journal ideas!

Writing in lists can be helpful when you’re:

• having trouble getting started
• wondering what things to put in a travel journal
• feeling like your sentences just aren’t flowing together

This way, you can at least get your ideas down and edit them together in a cohesive manner later on.

Tip #4: Write stories.

While this isn’t mandatory, those who are curious how to write a travel journal that’s worth reading should consider writing your thoughts as stories instead of in a stream-of-conscious fashion. 

To write a story, make sure you have a beginning, middle, and end. Actually, if you really want to do it right, you should also consider character, plot, setting, and tension.

For a lesson in storytelling, make sure to check out this video on how to improve your creative storytelling skills for more engaging writing:

Tip #5: Go beyond text.

Wondering what to put in a travel journal?

Realize there is no right or wrong answer to this question!

Keep it text-based, or add paintings, drawings, stickers, momentos from your trip, and more. 

Personally, I’ve started writing out my journal entries and then drawing them to add some additional creativity and really bring the pages to life. 

The Best Travel Journal Apps

Prefer a digital journal option over paper? 

There is an app for that! 

I’ve talked about my favorite travel safety apps before, but here are a few of my favorite apps for keeping a travel journal:

Travel Diaries .  This free app allows you to create both public and private journals. The layouts are customizable, and you can easily add text, photos, and even maps. 

One really neat feature of this app:

You can turn your travel diary into a physical creation to be shipped to your home!

Day One Journal . This is another great travel journal app that makes it simple to record your memories using photos, videos, drawings, and even audio recordings. 

The “On This Day” feature allows you to go back in time to revisit your favorite trip moments, while automatic backups ensure your content never gets lost. 

Unique app feature:

You can handwrite in your journal using your finger or Apple Pencil. 

This travel app has both free and paid premium versions. 

Polarsteps . Dubbed “the personal travel log in your pocket,” Polarsteps is an app that helps you plan your trips as well as record them along the way in a visually-appealing manner.

In fact, this app puts an emphasis on adding experiences to maps and using video to document, so you can really bring your trips back to life later on. 

A feature I love:

You can turn your travel memories into a stunning hardcover book to keep!

Unique Travel Journal Examples

Looking for some travel journal inspiration?

Here are some mood boards with journal examples to help get your creative juices flowing.

These are also helpful if you’re wanting to learn how to make a travel journal.

By the way:

Check out the bottom right photo in the top collage if you’re looking for travel journal layout ideas.

Travel Writing Prompts – Quick Picker 

If you’re like me and often feel indecisive when choosing a prompt, I’ve got a fun little tool that can help:

The above video moves through the list of writing prompts quickly.

To use it as a quick picker, press play, turn your gaze down, and then stop the video at a random moment.

Then, voilà , you’ve got your travel writing prompt chosen for you! 

31 Travel Journal Prompts

Whether you’re physically traveling or at home dreaming of the road, use these travel prompts for your journal.

I love these prompts for when I’m feeling stuck and am searching for things to write in a travel journal:

1. Remember a time when you met people while traveling that felt like family. Describe your time with them in great detail.

2. Write a postcard to a friend from a place you’ve loved visiting.

3. Think about a problem that exists in travel. Now, invent a solution to the problem. Hey, could this journal help you come up with your next million-dollar idea?

4. If you could go on a trip with anyone, dead or alive, who would you go with? Where would you go and what would you do?

5. Share a time you were lost or that you lost something while traveling. 

6. How has travel changed or shaped you? Note: This is one of my favorite self-discovery journal prompts!

7. Start your travel story with the following: “It was a dark and stormy night…”

8. What is the first vacation memory that comes to mind? Come up with your memory in 10 seconds or less!

9. Think back to the most beautiful place you’ve ever been to. Now, describe it using all five senses.

10. Write about a multi-destination trip — from the perspective of your backpack.

11. What is a sticky situation you’ve gotten out of on the road? Hint: Allow this to also be a reminder of your strength!

12. What is a fear you’ve overcome while traveling? How?

13. Take your story from the previous prompt about overcoming a fear while traveling and rewrite it from the perspective of an onlooker.

14. What has been your craziest transportation experience?

15. Write a review of the best hotel you’ve ever stayed in.

16. Write a review of the worst hotel you’ve ever stayed in using humor.

17. Write a letter of gratitude to someone who showed you an act of kindness on the road .

18. Write about the last trip you took — from the perspective of yourself in the year 2600.

19. Write about a hike you loved doing using all five senses.

20. “Travel makes me feel _____.” Why?

21. Write about a trip you took last year from the perspective of your favorite book or movie character.

22. What is the biggest lesson that travel has taught you? Share a story that brings this to life.

23. Pretend that you were given an extra day on a trip you loved. What would that day have looked like?

24. Choose a trip you haven’t written about yet. Now choose a different time period, and write about the trip as if it happened in that time period.

25. In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about travel?

26. Think back to an interesting conversation you’ve had while traveling and begin your story with that dialogue.

27. Transport yourself to a beautiful beach you’ve visited. Suddenly, a message in a bottle washes up onto the shore. What does it say? How do you react?

28. Here is a road trip journal idea! Write about a road trip you went on, but have someone else from the trip be the narrator. Hint: If you traveled solo, have the car or an onlooker be the narrator.

29. Think of a time you went on a trip that took you out of your comfort zone. Write the end of the story, then the middle, then the beginning.

30. What is one piece of advice you’ve been told by a local while traveling? Have you applied it to your life? Why/why not?

31. If you were to write a travel memoir, what would the first chapter look like?

Bonus: Pair Your Journal Prompts With Self-Care

In my opinion, the best way to enjoy time spent journaling is by pairing it with other self-care activities.

In the video above, I share my top 10 favorite self-care tips and rituals for travelers — though they can also be enjoyed at home!

My recommendation:

Make a day of it! Use the journal prompts and the self-care rituals to create your own DIY retreat .

Want more travel-themed prompts?

Don’t forget to grab my free downloadable Inspired Storyteller Travel Journal — featuring inspiring quotes, writing tips, and 56 fun prompts to help you recount your favorite trip memories and write creatively. 

Do you have any travel journal prompts to add?

What are your favorite creative travel journal ideas, related posts:.

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These prompts are just the inspiration I needed to capture my thoughts about travel. Not only do they tap into my travel memories, but they feed my creative spirit. Who says you have to actually go anywhere to be well-traveled? 😉

I have trouble keeping a journal, but have always want too – these are such good prompts ill have to give it another try!

Wow, what an incredible article! I’m so grateful to have come across this treasure trove of travel journal prompts and ideas. The suggestions provided here are truly inspiring and have sparked my wanderlust even more. From capturing the sensory details to reflecting on personal growth, these prompts cover every aspect of a fulfilling travel journal. The beautiful descriptions and practical tips have motivated me to start documenting my adventures with a renewed passion. Thank you for sharing such a valuable resource that will undoubtedly enhance my future travel experiences. Keep up the fantastic work!

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BRYN DONOVAN

tell your stories, love your life

• Writing Inspiration
• Semi-Charmed Life
• Reading & Research
• Works In Progress.

50 Summer Writing Prompts!

These summer writing prompts are appropriate for all ages…

Because I know a lot of teachers are looking forward to the summer…along with a lot of students, and a lot of writers. In my mind, the season inspires a lot of good creative writing topics, and it wasn’t hard to come up with this list!

If you’d like creative writing ideas with more magic and fantasy, you might also want to check out my post on 50 Fantasy Writing Prompts and Fantasy Plot Ideas . And whether you’re looking for June journal prompts or starting a new story, I hope one of these creative writing ideas inspires you. Be sure to pin it on Pinterest for future reference!

1. Write a scene that includes fireflies.

2. Write a scene that includes mosquitos, hornets, or wasps.

3. Someone is driving with the car windows down, singing at the top of their lungs to their favorite song. Who are they? Where are they going — or what are they getting away from? Why do they like this song so much?

4. Write about someone at a state fair. Why are they there? What are the sights, sounds, and smells?

5. Come up with a conversation that takes place around a campfire.

6. Write about a teenager at their summer job. It could be a normal one, or something unusual.

7. Write a scene that includes a waterfall.

8. Describe lightning striking something — or someone — along with what happens next.

9. Someone is packing their bag for a summer vacation. Where are they going? What are they bringing along?

10. Write about something going very wrong on a vacation.

11. Incorporate the chirping of crickets or the buzz of cicadas into a piece of writing.

12. Set a scene at an ice cream parlor, a frozen custard stand, or near an ice cream truck.

13. Write about an outdoor event getting interrupted by a downpour.

14. Write about a bike ride to an unusual place.

15. Describe a baseball game that takes an unexpected turn.

16. Write about something you used to do for fun as a kid during the summertime.

17. Write about a parent whose out-of-school kids are driving them bananas.

18. Two characters are picking berries. What’s their relationship to each other? Are they having fun, or no?

19. Write from the point of view of someone who hates summer.

20. Describe one of your favorite summer experiences, such as cooking steaks on a grill or getting a pedicure.

21. Write a scene that takes place at a swimming pool.

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22. Come up with a scene that includes a sand castle.

23. Imagine a kid at summer camp, and describe what they do there.

24. Someone is fishing… and pulls something out of the lake or ocean that is definitely not a fish.

25. Somebody on a beach finds a message in a bottle, washed up on the shore. What does it say?

26. Come up with a scene that features fireworks in some way.

27. Describe a happy scene at a farmer’s market.

28. Describe a fight — silly, or serious — that takes place on a cruise ship.

29. Write from the point of view of someone who is sailing alone.

30. Picture yourself in a rose garden. Who does it belong to? Why are you there, and what happens?

31. Write from the point of view of a character in one of your favorite blockbuster movies.

32. A camper is in their tent  — alone, or with someone else. What wakes them up in the middle of the night?

33. Write a scene in which the characters are hot and sweaty.

34. Write about a place that characters go just to cool down.

35. Describe the perfect summer meal, beverage, or dessert.

36. Write from the point of view of a moth telling himself not to go near that flame.

37. Write a scene where somebody runs through the sprinklers — intentionally or not.

38. Imagine being at a big outdoor music festival, and write about what you do and the people you meet.

39. Write about a character who’s wearing sunglasses… and never takes them off.

40. Write about something embarrassing happening to someone who’s wearing a swimsuit.

41. Write about a father and a son meeting for the first time in years on Father’s Day.

42. Write about a character who has strong feelings about Independence Day (the 4th of July.)

43. Write about a road trip you took once.

44. Describe a stay at a funky old motel.

45. Write about characters sleeping out under the stars.

46. Make up an eccentric relative that you might meet at a family reunion.

47. Write from the point of view of a dog at the dog park.

48. Imagine going to a flea market or garage sale, and finding something that thrills you… for cheap!

49. Write about a character making a wish by blowing on a dandelion puff.

50. Somebody is reading on the beach… but it’s not the typical beach read. What’s the book about? Why is this person interested?

I hope you enjoyed the summer writing prompts! I’d love to hear your comments. If you don’t want to miss future creative writing ideas, follow the blog if you aren’t already — you can subscribe below. And if you want to share something you wrote, go for it — that would be so much fun to see. Happy writing!

I hope you enjoyed these summer writing prompts…

And if you’d like a huge collection of writing prompts for many fiction genres, personal essays, and more, check out my book, 5,000 Writing Prompts ! It has hundreds of five-star reviews, and every prompt can be used in almost endless creative ways.

Are you working on a project you love this summer?

Do you have other thoughts about summer writing prompts? Let us know in the comments section below! Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!

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9 thoughts on “ 50 summer writing prompts ”.

I love summer back in the midwest, because of the fireflies (although in southern Indiana they are called “lightning bugs.”)

I used to catch them and put them in a jar with holes poked in the lids to keep by my bed overnight. They inevitably would crawl out somehow, and I’d wake up to find flashing bugs crawling around on my walls and ceiling.

Mean kids would pull the them in half and draw glowing pictures or words on the front of their shirts. This always upset me and caused me a great deal of stress and outrage.

I also remember how at the hay farms, the fields would have an unearthly, flickering glow at night from all the fireflies hiding in the tall hay before it was harvested.

Fireflies and the loud buzz of cicadas = summer nights for me. 🙂

I was trying to catch some last night! Just for a picture. It’s not as easy as I remembered 😀

Someone told me that when she was a kid, they used to dig out the glowy bits and smear them around… I was horrified!

I love the fireflies. 🙂

These are great! I think I will use them with my students this year also.

Your first few suggestions brought back a family memory of when my daughter Katie was a new driver as we were on a family trip.

Her stress level when she felt pressured driving 55 mph through road construction on the freeway with the yard-high orange barrels on her left and a semi-truck moving on her right became amplified when a wasp flew in her window and landed on the front of her shirt. Katie’s loud and continuous screaming while she tried to flick off the wasp and keep control of the car prompted her older sister in the back seat to use an empty pop bottle to bonk Katie on the back of the head several times in an attempt to quiet Katie down.

That action required Katie to then alternate between trying to blindly brush off the wasp and grab the bottle as it attacked her head. The rest of us couldn’t stop laughing at her misfortune. There was nothing we could do during that 2-minute portion of the drive, except when I asked the bottle bopping to end.

Katie pulled over to the side if the road when the construction area ended, and immediately exited the car to shake herself off with more screams plus scoldng her sister for threatening our safely with her annoying action.

That was one of our most memorable family events.

Kathy — oh my gosh. I remember how nervous I would get anyway as a new driver… The poor thing! But that is so funny!

Thank you very much for this blue. This is a very inspiring piece. I have written a long conversation between mosquitoes and a bed bus. If you would like it I would mail it to you. I would try on several prompts. Thank you once again.

Hi Sayed, thanks for reading, and for the kind words! I’m so glad you like the post. My email is [email protected] — I’d love to see what you did!

What fun topics for summer inspired writing prompts! I hope I can share on here soon. I stumbled across your blog as I was searching for ideas on describing facial expressions.

Hi Miss Kim, welcome to the blog! So glad you like it 🙂

Great prompts, thank you!

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Free Creative Writing Prompts #20: Travel

On a rainy day (like it is in Chicago on the day I'm writing this) sometimes there's nothing more you want to do than to get out of town. Whether it's for a vacation, a business trip, or for a family matter, travel can take you through a lot of different emotions and past memories. This is a treasure chest of writing ideas waiting to happen for most people who've bounced around the country (or several) during their lifetimes. While not all of our travel memories are happy, these free creative writing prompts can hopefully make them productive. Feel free to use any of them to create some writing in the form at the bottom of the page.  Free  Creative Writing Prompts : Travel

1. What is the best vacation you've ever been on? Who were you with, where did you travel to, what were some of the sights that you saw? Write down every detail and pose a hypothetical trip with the same people if you went back today.

2. What is the worst vacation you've ever been on? What fights occurred, how lost did you get, how much money did you lose, etc.? Pose a hypothetical of the trip going perfectly and see what major things would have changed.

3. What is your most memorable airport/airplane experience? Did you sit on the runway for a long time? Talk to a runway model on the plane? Have to run...way far to get to your gate on time? :) Use lots of details and try to remember all of the emotions that you had at the time.

4. Talk about a time in which you had to show someone foreign to your neighborhood, town, country, planet around the area. Do you feel as though you were a good tour guide? What did this person (or alien) think after your demonstration?

5. Create a story in which you are in a foreign country in which you don't speak the language...and you've lost all of your belongings (cash included). How do you deal with this situation?

6. Why is travel so stressful? What would you have to do to take all of the stress out of traveling for yourself? A closer airport? Calmer family members? Your own jet? Talk about it as if it was happening and detail your first stress-free traveling experience.

7. Did you ever have a foreign love experience? If not, make one up and talk about how you met, how your love progressed, and what it was like leaving him or her (if you ever did leave!).

8. Have you ever traveled back to the "mother country" to discover your family's roots? If not, make up a story in which you did and see how much you can find out about your ancestry. Did you learn anything about yourself and the kind of person you are on this trip?

9. Talk about a road trip that you've had. Who was there, where were you going, and what seedy rest stops did you go to along the way? If you haven't been on such a trip, create the ideal trip for yourself by getting your best friends together and going to your favorite driveable location (that is at least 100 miles away).

10. You are in the airport and you are about to travel home for the holidays. Except one problem. You're snowed in! Talk about your night (or nights) at the airport and if you meet any strange and interesting people.  As I always encourage with these prompts, you can use them both for writing and as a way to grow. Plan out that trip that you've always wanted to take that you know will be a growing experience. Or just create that novel you've always wanted to pen out. Either way works fine by me :). As long as you are creating using these free creative writing prompts, I am sure that you are using your time wisely. Happy writing!  Bonus Prompt  - You have been granted the ability to fly! I mean, like Superman! Where do you travel with this newfound ability now that you don't need to save up frequent flyer miles? 

Related Articles Free Creative Writing Prompts from the Heart, Part 1 Free Creative Writing Prompts #2: Love Creative Writing Exercises #2: Relaxation

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40 Creative Travel Journal Ideas & Writing Prompts to Save Your Best Travel Memories

It’s so easy to let our travel photos get buried in our camera roll or to say “I’ll remember this night forever” and forget the details that made it so special just a few months later. That’s where keeping a travel journal becomes such an important part of your trip! These travel journal ideas & writing prompts will make you fall in love with trips all over again and keep your favorite memories alive.

Travel journaling is therapeutic, fun, and provokes self-reflection and creativity. While we travel, we can be pretty busy – exploring different places, sleeping on planes, meeting new people. But just because you’re busy during your trip doesn’t mean you can’t keep a travel journal!

Keeping a travel journal is even more rewarding when you can make it personal with mementos (and other travel journal ideas I’m sharing below!)

And if you’re just here for the prompts, you can jump to the bottom of the post or download the free ‘Where She Goes’ Travel Journal Prompts list from The Travel Library .

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Let’s get into everything there is to know about travel journaling and the creative ways you can go about your trip memory-keeping.

Some of these links are affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through that link, I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure !

All About Travel Journaling: What It Is, How To Do It, & Should You Keep A Travel Journal?

Keeping a travel journal is simply about recording memories from a trip. You can even keep track of and plan future trips in a travel journal (which I, as someone in love with lists, do often!)

There’s no one way to journal about travels. You could write during or after your trip, keep a travel bullet journal, track you running bucket list, save travel tips for your next trip – the important thing is to be creative and reflective!

Travel journaling is an amazing tool to see how travel has influenced us to grow as a person, from conquering fears to gaining self-confidence.

It can be used to beat the lonely times of solo travel or try to escape the post-trip blues by reliving those memories just made.

While we travel, there are so many highs, lows, emotions, funny moments and more that we say we will never forget. But to really never forget them, we have to reflect on them and document them! That’s where keeping a travel journal comes in handy.

The Best Travel Journals

There are lots of different options for travel journals. You could use a plain basic notebook or write in a travel diary with printed prompts and exercises. So, how do you know which one to choose?

The truth is, you can go through a lot of travel journals. Maybe you’ll get the chance to experience multiple different kinds! If you are naturally more creative, choose a mostly blank travel journal to which you can add personal touches.

If you struggle with what to write about, opt for journals with prompts built into them (or scroll down to the prompts below and download the list!)

Two travel journals that are both cute and interactive are the Wander Always Journal and the Page A Day Journal . These have prompts and activities within them, so there’s a bit less room for creativity. But, it also makes the process easier and faster with these bonuses.

Another travel journal that is perfect for those wanting a more sleek and clean look is the WNDRD Trip Planning Journal . As it says in the name, you can use this notebook for journaling and for trip planning with the specially printed planner pages.

Travel journals can also be great sentimental gifts for friends and family (or for yourself – I won’t tell!)

Travel Journal Apps

Everything has an app these days, right? Travel journaling can even be done on your phone! Some apps for travel journaling include:

• Travel Diaries

There’s also a sweet app called Journi, where you can create photo albums with diary entries and track your trip on a map. Then you can print or share these mini albums! You can group your photos while traveling or after so that they are easy to find. This way won’t be lost in your camera roll!

Creative Travel Journal Ideas

If you want to do more than just write in your travel journal, then there are many ways to make it special and personalized!

These unique travel journal ideas are meant to get you thinking about how to make your love for travel or the travels themselves come alive.

Look for inspiration everywhere. Maybe you have a ton of extra coins lying around from your trip to Italy . Or you saved those flowers you picked near the coast of France and they are now dried. These can all be accessories used to bring your travel memories back to life in your journal!

Photo Pocket

The first travel journal idea is to add a photo pocket to the back or front of your journal. This is a super simple way to create a little storage of your photos without having to spend time doing a complete album!

Simply take a piece of cardstock or stiff paper and cut it into a rectangle large enough to hold your photos. You can even create a scoop like mind so they peek out.

Then add adhesive to the bottom and sides and attach it to wherever there is a sturdy spot on your journal. Voila, you have a place to put all those photos instead of letting them get buried in your phone!

Scrapbook Layout

While the first idea to making your travel journal more creative was a simple way to include photos in your journal, this version takes a bit more time and creativity.

In your travel journal, you can either leave space on the pages as you write or write and layout photos at the same time to create a commemorative mini travel scrapbook.

You’ll need small adhesive, scissors, and some creative juices flowing to transform blank pages into something beautiful.

Decorating your travel journal is another way to give it more personality and bring out the fun of your trips.

You can opt for inexpensive sheets of stickers or find specific decals you fall in love with to tell the story of your trip!

Good places to buy unique stickers and decals are Etsy , Amazon , and Society6 .

Here are some of my favorites for an aesthetic travel journal cover and pages!

• Go Travel Decal
• Trip Planning Stickers
• Vintage Vinyl Stickers
• Gold & Black Aesthetic Travel Stickers

Add Your Own Art

Take the design of your travel journal to the next level by channeling your inner artist. Use paint to decorate the outside. Doodle your favorite places on the pages or the cover to bring you back to a place.

Whatever artistic addition you can make to your travel journal, the more personal to and reflective of you it will be.

Preserving Tickets, Passes, & Other Mundane Mementos

One of the best travel journal ideas is to preserve all of the extra bits from your trip – things like train tickets, museum passes, and local maps – to add to your writing entries.

They may seem useless after your trip, but these tokens of your travels are the real elements that bring your memories to life. Seeing a word can help you imagine a place, but physically touching your metro pass or gallery ticket takes you right back to the moment you used it.

Tape these small papers to page corners, stuff them in the photo pocket, or even use them as little bookmarks to organize your journal.

Choose Something to Collect

Make your travel journal completely unique by sticking with a theme. This idea for travel journals will take some time to execute throughout your travels, but it can be a special way to remember each place you’ve been to.

Whether it is stamps, postcards, or boarding passes, build up a consistent collection of them from wherever you travel.

Then when it comes time to assemble your journal, you have a cute consistent theme and a visually appealing diary to document every place you have been.

Travel Journal Prompts for Reflection & Memory-Keeping

Travel journal prompts are ways to combat writer’s block and inspire creativity. To make these prompts easier to reference, you can download the free printable of ‘Where She Goes’ Travel Journal Prompts from The Travel Library, where you’ll also have access to resources like my girl’s packing list and Lightroom photo presets.

The Journey

• What was the journey like to be here? What happened on the way to your destination?
• Did you learn anything new on the journey?
• Who did you meet while traveling to this place?
• What was your favorite part of the journey?
• Did you reach here by car, plane, train?
• Was it a long journey? How did you feel once you reached your destination?
• What songs did you listen to on the way that take you back to this trip?

The Destination

• Describe your current surroundings.
• How does this place make you feel?
• Why did you want to be here? Did you want to be here?
• What surprised you most about this place?
• Who are you traveling with?
• What have you learned about this place since arriving?
• What’s a funny story you would tell your friend about this trip?
• Where did you explore off-the-beaten-path?
• Did you try any unique foods?
• How would you describe this place to a friend or family member?
• Name one thing you never want to forget about this place.
• What is a memory you’ll cherish forever from this trip?
• Did you enjoy your trip? If not, why?
• What did you learn about yourself after visiting this place?
• What could have gone better?
• How do you feel after leaving? Would you return?
• Name three things you are grateful for from this trip.
• Describe your favorite photo from this trip.

General Memory-Keeping

• Write about the first travel memory that comes to mind.
• Doodle a monument or favorite place you have visited that made you want to pinch yourself.
• Describe your first travel experience. What were you feeling? Scared? Excited? Anxious?
• Make a list of all the people you’ve met while traveling.
• What’s one thing you would change about travel?
• What’s one thing you want to do better while traveling?
• Where’s your favorite place to travel with family? Describe it in vivid detail.
• Describe a place you’ve visited through using all five senses.
• If you could choose one place you’ve been to stay forever, which one would it be?

Final Tips for Travel Journaling

Hopefully with all these travel journal ideas and writing prompts, you feel more comfortable and excited to document your travels! Here are some extra tips to make travel journaling work for you:

• Keep your travel journal with you as you are on the go. This may seem obvious, but when you think about it, we don’t want to pause our day to go write about what’s happening that very second. Instead, have your journal with you to doodle your surroundings or write down specific feelings you have at the moment. You can elaborate later!
• Write down keywords to escape writer’s block. If you have trouble getting started, jot down a few words that come to mind when you are looking at a prompt. Often when writing, we get overwhelmed by what the finished product should look like that we can’t even start! Start as small as keywords and as your ideas come in the writing will flow.
• Use every sense for details. An easy way to get more creative and describe a moment well is to think about it from the perspective of all five senses you experienced with. What sounds did you hear, things do you see, flavors did you taste?

Let me know what you think of these travel journal ideas, prompts, & tips with a comment!

Save this guide to Pinterest for later reference!

The more memories we make, the more important it is to jot them down so we have them forever. Tell me if you’re excited about travel journaling like me!

Michela is a travel writer and photographer living in northern Italy. She is passionate about helping people make the most of their travels by sharing advice gained from her personal experiences, off-the-beaten-path destinations and time-saving quick itineraries. Browse her top articles or have her help you plan your itinerary to your dream destination!

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How to Describe a Beach in Writing (21 Best Tips & Examples)

The gentle ebb and flow of waves, the warmth of golden sands, and the melodies of seagulls overhead – beaches captivate the senses.

I’ve described beaches many times in my own short stories and novels.

Here’s how to describe a beach in writing :

Describe a beach in writing by focusing on its unique size, climate, sand color, and location. Explore sensory details such as the sound of waves, the scent of saltwater, and the feel of the sand. Highlight cultural elements, marine life, vegetation, seasonal shifts, and local activities.

In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know to describe a beach in writing.

1. Unearth the Sands of Time

Table of Contents

Every beach tells a story.

Some are age-old resting spots for local fishermen, while others have seen shipwrecks, invasions, or have been silent witnesses to lovers’ tales.

Before diving into descriptions, research the history of the beach you’re writing about.

This will not only add depth to your narrative but also connect readers to a bygone era.

Plus, if you love beaches as much as I do, then this will be pure heaven for you.

While some beaches have preserved their old-world charm with untouched landscapes, others boast modern-day beach shacks, surfing schools, or yoga retreats.

Distinguishing between the ancient sands and modernized coasts can set the mood for your description.

2. Palette of the Sands

Not all beaches are golden.

Some have white, powdery sands, while others flaunt a rare black, pink, or even green hue.

The color of the sand can significantly influence the ambiance of the beach.

Dive into the specifics – is the sand fine or coarse? Is it cool to the touch or sun-baked and warm?

Often, the sand isn’t just sand. It’s interspersed with shells, pebbles, seaweed, and sometimes even fragments of corals. Highlight these unique elements as they add character to the beach and provide sensory details for readers.

3. Dance of the Tides

Some beaches are known for their calm, lapping waves, making them ideal for relaxation.

In contrast, others are marked by powerful, crashing waves perfect for adventurous activities like surfing.

Describe the rhythm, sound, and sight of the waves to convey the beach’s spirit.

Understanding the tidal patterns can greatly enhance your description.

Low tides might expose hidden tidal pools, while high tides might bring with them a sense of mystery and anticipation.

This also affects the beach’s width and appearance at different times.

4. Symphony of the Shore

The beach isn’t silent.

From the cries of the seagulls to the whispers of the winds and the rhythmic sound of waves, nature creates a symphony.

Use auditory descriptions to transport readers to the shore.

On popular beaches, the sound of children’s laughter, chatter from nearby cafes, or tunes from a distant radio can add layers to the auditory experience.

Decide whether your beach is serene and untouched or bustling with activity.

5. Coastal Climate Chronicles

Is the beach sun-drenched, making it ideal for sunbathing? Or is it frequently cloaked in mist, giving it a mysterious aura?

The weather plays a crucial role in setting the scene and can influence activities, moods, and narratives.

Beaches transform with seasons.

While summer brings in crowds and vibrant energy, winter might render the beach desolate, with only the bravest souls venturing out.

Describe these shifts to add depth to your narrative.

6. Sunlit Spectacles

The magic of a beach often unfolds during the golden hours.

Narrate the transformation of the horizon as the sun rises, casting a delicate pink and gold hue, or as it sets, engulfing the world in fiery reds and deep purples.

The changing colors reflect not only in the sky but also in the water and sand.

While sunrise and sunset are dramatic, the midday sun brings out the vibrancy of beach activities, and nighttime might unveil a sky full of stars or even bioluminescent waves on certain beaches.

7. Flora’s Flourish

Many beaches are lined with specific vegetation, from towering palm trees to delicate dune flowers.

Describe the flora’s color, shape, and how it dances in the breeze, adding life to the coastal landscape.

Floral aromas mixed with the salty sea air can create a heady combination.

Bring out the varied fragrances one might encounter while taking a leisurely stroll.

8. Fauna Features

Tidal pools might house starfish, crabs, or tiny fishes.

Coral beaches might be teeming with colorful marine life. Delve into the beauty of the creatures that call the beach their home.

From seagulls to pelicans and sandpipers, the avian world adds movement and sound to the beach.

Their behaviors, from hunting for fish to playful chases, can be delightful to describe.

9. Activity Avenues

Be it children building sandcastles, surfers riding waves, or yoga enthusiasts greeting the sun, beaches often become hubs of activities.

Depicting these can give readers a sense of the beach’s energy.

Not all beachgoers seek company.

Some look for solitude – a quiet corner to read, meditate, or just gaze at the horizon.

Highlighting these moments adds depth and contrast.

10. Textures and Touch

Beyond visuals, the feel of the beach is vital.

Is the sand powdery soft, or is it grainy and rough? Does the water feel icy cold or pleasantly warm?

Engaging the sense of touch can make descriptions palpable.

How does the beach make one feel? Tranquil, exhilarated, nostalgic?

Tapping into emotions can resonate deeply with readers.

11. Tastes of the Tides

A trip to the beach is incomplete without the taste of salt on your lips from the sea spray.

For many beaches, nearby stalls serve fresh seafood.

Describing the tantalizing flavors of the ocean’s bounty can make readers’ mouths water.

Beach destinations often have signature beverages – from coconut water to adult drinks.

Highlighting these drinks can set the tone and mood of the beach scene.

12. Auditory Adventures

Every beach has its unique sound of waves – from gentle lapping to roaring surfs.

These sounds are soothing and rhythmic, making them integral to a beach description.

Include the distant laughter of beachgoers, the chirping of coastal birds, or the playful shout of children.

Such sounds breathe life into the scene.

13. Historical Hints

Many beaches have rich histories, from pirate tales to ancient civilizations.

Weaving in some historical elements can give depth to the beach’s narrative.

Statues, forts, or old lighthouses can stand as silent witnesses to the past. Mentioning these can make a beach scene more vivid and layered.

14. Moods of the Sea

The mood of the sea changes with weather and tides.

While a calm sea can be serene and inviting, a stormy sea can be wild and dramatic. Depicting these moods can influence the story’s atmosphere.

Low tide might reveal hidden treasures like shells or ancient shipwrecks, while high tide brings in waves and fresh mysteries.

The ebb and flow of tides can be metaphorical and descriptive.

15. Colorful Canvases

Describing the varying shades of blues, greens, and golds of the sea, sky, and sand can paint a vivid picture.

Sunlight plays a role in these changing hues, so consider the time of day.

Beaches at night transform into a world of silvery moonlight, shadows, and possibly bioluminescent creatures.

Using a palette of darker shades can set a contrasting and mystical scene.

16. Human Imprints

From lone footprints in the sand to majestic sandcastles, human touch is evident on many beaches.

Describing these imprints can suggest recent activity or age-old legacies.

Sadly, not all human imprints are poetic (or positive).

Describing signs of pollution, like plastic waste, can serve as a stark reminder and add an environmental angle to your narrative.

17. Unique Underwater Worlds

Many beaches are gateways to underwater paradises.

Vividly describing the diverse, colorful corals can transport readers into a magical realm.

Each coral formation has its own charm, from brain corals’ intricate patterns to the elegant sway of sea fans.

Beaches often harbor rich marine ecosystems.

Describing encounters with playful dolphins, curious turtles, or schools of shimmering fish can add depth and wonder to your narrative.

18. Local Life and Culture

Many coastal communities have age-old traditions linked to the sea.

Highlighting local festivals, rituals, or even daily activities like fish markets can provide readers with a cultural immersion.

Local handicrafts or special beachside dishes can offer a sensory feast.

Be it a description of intricate seashell jewelry or the tantalizing aroma of grilled seafood, integrating local flavors can enrich your beach description.

19. Dynamic Dunes and Vegetation

Sand dunes, shaped by the wind, can change forms and create mesmerizing patterns.

Describing these dynamic landscapes can add an element of nature’s artistry to your narrative.

Coastal vegetation, from tall palm trees to dense mangroves, not only adds to the beach’s visual appeal but also plays a crucial role in maintaining coastal ecology.

Diving into descriptions of these can add both beauty and educational value.

20. Seasonal Shifts

While summer might bring in sunbathers, winter could wrap the beach in misty allure. Capturing these seasonal nuances can create varied and engaging settings.

Monsoon or hurricane seasons can drastically change beach atmospheres.

Describing the sheer power of nature during such times can infuse drama and tension into your story.

21. Adventure and Activities

From surfing monstrous waves to peaceful kayaking sessions, beaches offer numerous adventure opportunities.

Describing the thrill and challenges of these activities can inject action into your beach scenes.

Leisurely activities like beachcombing can be therapeutic and rewarding.

Detailed descriptions of discovering seashells, driftwood, or even messages in bottles can add mystery and intrigue.

Here is my video that I made about how to describe a beach in writing:

30 Best Words to Describe a Beach in Writing

I’ve collected some of the best words to describe beaches.

Feel free to use these words to bring beaches to life in your own stories:

• Sun-drenched
• Crystal-clear
• Picturesque

30 Best Phrases to Describe a Beach in Writing

Consider using these phrases to describe the beaches in your stories:

• Waves lapping at the shore
• Blanket of golden sands
• Palm trees swaying gently
• Horizon stretching endlessly
• Colors of the setting sun
• Children building sandcastles
• Echo of distant seagulls
• Soft whisper of the ocean breeze
• Shells scattered like treasures
• Footprints washed away
• Secrets of the deep blue
• Calm before the storm
• A dance of playful dolphins
• Reflection of a crimson sky
• Nature’s perfect canvas
• Dunes shaped by the wind
• Taste of salt on the lips
• Shadows growing longer
• Aromas of beachside grills
• Moonlit silver waters
• Mystery of tidal patterns
• Laughter and beach games
• Sway of coastal grasses
• Rhythms of the coastal life
• Stories the tide brings in
• Gentle embrace of the sea
• Paradise found and lost
• Hideaway for dreamers
• Dance of light on waves
• Sands of time standing still

3 Examples of How to Describe a Beach

Let’s look at three imaginative depictions of beaches, each resonating with the unique essence of its respective genre.

• Romance : The serene beach under the moon’s embrace seemed to whisper tales of ageless romances. The moonlight cast a silvery glow on the quiet beach, where waves serenaded the shores. The sands, cool beneath their feet, became their dance floor. Their hearts resonated with the rhythm of the waves, as they lost themselves in each other’s embrace, amidst the vastness of the ocean.
• Mystery/Thriller : A heavy atmosphere weighed down on the beach, with secrets buried as deep as its oceanic abyss. The beach was eerily silent, save for the relentless pounding of the waves. A thick fog hung low, concealing much of the shore. As Detective Adams approached, the beam from his flashlight revealed a set of footprints, leading into the mysterious abyss of the night.
• Fantasy : To the common eye, it’s a beach. But for those with the sight, The Golden Sands of Elaria were gateways to otherworldly adventures. As dawn broke, the sands sparkled with magic. Mermaids emerged from the turquoise depths, dragons soared above the azure skies, and ancient runes appeared, guiding brave adventurers to hidden realms beneath.

Final Thoughts: How to Describe a Beach in Writing

Describing beaches is truly an ocean of opportunities.

Dive into more treasures by exploring other articles on our site – you never know what pearls of wisdom you’ll unearth!

Read This Next:

• How to Describe a Bed in Writing (10+ Tips and Examples)
• How to Describe a Train in Writing (30+ Words & Examples)
• How to Describe Flying in Writing (21 Best Tips + Examples)
• How to Write Traveling Scenes Readers Love (21 Best Tips)

74 Summer Writing Prompts for Students to Keep Them Engaged and Creative

By: Author Valerie Forgeard

Posted on Published: September 7, 2022  - Last updated: July 31, 2023

Categories Creativity , Inspiration , Writing

Summer vacation is a time for students to relax and enjoy themselves. However, it can also be a time for students to get creative and engage in writing activities. Here are 74 summer writing prompts to help students stay engaged and entertained during the summer months!

• What makes you feel like summer is finally here?
• What words can you use to describe summer?
• What does summer smell like?
• What happens at the beginning, middle, and end of summer?
• How did your school year end?
• Write down what you’re looking forward to this summer.
• What goals have you set for yourself this summer? (e.g., make a new friend, travel more often).
• Who’ll you spend the summer with?
• What’s the best part of summer?
• How would you describe a perfect summer day?
• Do you like to be outside in the summer or prefer to stay inside? And why?
• How do you feel about picnics in the summer? Do you have a favorite food or place to have a picnic?
• What’re three summer activities you want to do this summer?
• What summer activity is at the top of your agenda for your next summer vacation?
• What’s the worst thing that can happen during the summer?
• What did you do on your last vacation?
• What’s your favorite food to eat in the summer?
• Your favorite summer color?
• Your favorite summer clothing?
• Your favorite summer drink?
• Your favorite ice cream?
• Your favorite summer song?
• Your favorite summer story?
• Your favorite writing activity?
• Your favorite summer activity (beach, pool, etc.)?
• What’s your favorite summer movie and why?
• What kind of books do you like to read at the beach and why?
• What’s the most important thing about being home in the summer?
• What animal would be your spirit animal for the summer? (For example, a dolphin because it’s playful and friendly).
• You and your family are on vacation! What’re you doing there? (picture or story)
• What was it like the first time you went on vacation with your family?
• Write down the last time you went camping with your family or friends and describe what happened that day.
• What’s your favorite memory of summer camp?
• What crazy and ridiculous things can happen at summer camp?
• What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in nature?
• Write about a song that reminds you of summer vacation.
• What’s your favorite summer memory?
• Describe the first time you went to the beach or swimming pool as a child and tell us about that experience (don’t forget to mention what happened before and after).
• Have you ever been to a waterfall? If so, how did it make you feel?
• What’s your least favorite summer memory?
• What would you like to do again?
• What does July 4th mean to you?
• What do you think is the best part of summer?
• What do you think is the worst part of summer?
• What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you this summer?
• What do we all have in common when it comes to our summers?
• What did you do this summer that you’re proud of?
• What’s your favorite thing to do outside this summer?
• If summer were a person, what kind of personality would it have?
• What did you not get done this summer that you wish you’d have had time to do?
• Where have you been this summer that you’ve never been before?
• What’s the best way to spend a hot summer day?
• What would be your dream vacation spot? And why?
• What’s the best way to cool off when it’s hot?
• What do you like to eat when it’s hot outside?
• What would it be and why if you could only take one thing with you on vacation this summer?
• How is daylight saving time different from wintertime (other than temperature)? Should there be more differences between the seasons, or are these differences enough?
• What do you want to be when you grow up?
• Write down what you’d do if it never rained again
• Write about what you’d do if the sun never came up again.
• Write an epic poem about everything you’ve planned for your summer vacation (and all the fun things that might happen along the way).
• Write an acrostic poem
• How do you imagine Christmas in the summertime?
• Write a short story or a scene at the beach where someone is trying not to get caught up in their worries while hanging out with friends or family-however hard that might be!
• Write about a time when you tried something new this summer, and changed your life.
• Describe what made this summer different from all other summers (in your opinion).
• If you could choose how long your summer vacation would be, what time would you choose and why?
• How will the upcoming school year be different than the last?
• Do you’ve homework to do before you go back to school?
• If you could choose one teacher for the upcoming school year, who’d it be?
• What’re you looking forward to when you go back to school?
• What’re you most afraid of when you go back to school?
• Write down 10 goals for the upcoming school year.
• Write down how you plan to accomplish these goals.

Summer Is a Good Time to Practice Writing

Here are some ideas for making the most of your summer writing prompts:

First, you can use them to encourage creativity in your students. Summer is when kids aren’t in school and not learning as much as they normally do.

You can help them take advantage of this downtime by giving them summer writing prompts that they mightn’t find in their textbooks – for example, writing about their favorite place in the world or describing a dream they had last night. This writing prompt allows them to create something new rather than just regurgitating information from earlier in the year.

Second, you can use summer writing opportunities to practice basic skills like spelling and grammar. Writing isn’t just about writing well, it’s about knowing how to spell and use words correctly, so other people understand what you’re trying to say!

Summer is a great time to practice these skills because students have no pressure at home (and can afford to make mistakes). A great way to do this is to give students homework assignments where they’ve to write emails or letters home about what’s been going on in their lives lately – summer vacation gives them plenty of time to think about it.

Improve Your Creative Writing Skills During Summer Vacation!

If you’re a student or a parent of a student, you know all too well how important writing help is during the summer.

Summer is often when students have a lot more free time, but it’s also when teachers aren’t around to provide helpful feedback and guidance. This can make it much harder for students to get the support they need to do well in writing, a skill that will be useful throughout their lives.

There are many ways you can use summer writing help:

• You can talk to your teacher about getting extra practice during the summer months. Many teachers offer “distance learning” programs where they create materials that students can use on their own time at home (sometimes even before school starts again). This way, they can continue to work on the subject matter and get additional practice on certain skills that may have been difficult for them during the year.
• You can request one-on-one tutoring with someone who’s experienced working with students like you! A tutor can help you understand what’s going wrong and give tips on improving your writing skills, so that next year doesn’t look like this year!

A Great Time to Journal

These creative writing prompts are also a great way for students to start journal writing.

When you first start writing a journal, it can be quite intimidating. There are so many different options; if you don’t know where to start, it can feel like it’s just not working for you.

But journal writing doesn’t have to be complicated! Summer may be the best time to try it – especially if you want your kids to get into the habit of putting their thoughts and feelings down on paper. Here are some tips on how to make journal writing more fun:

Start With Small Topics

Don’t take on the big topics right away, but write about something simple, like your favorite color or an animal that lives in your yard. This way, students can explore their feelings about these topics without feeling overwhelmed by the task.

Use Prompts That Evoke Emotions Rather Than Memories

For example, instead of asking them what they did last summer (which would likely lead them down a path full of memories of previous summers), ask them what they’d like to do this summer! This allows them to think

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Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity for Kids

July 22, 2019 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Sharing is caring!

It’s already back to school season. Can you believe it?

Personally, I’ve had a wonderful summer break and I am not in any way ready to get back to class. I have a pretty strong hunch my kids feel the same way.

But, like it or not, summer is coming to an end. So, I thought it would be a little easier to get back to ELA with this easy  creative writing activity  about summer vacation!

We usually take a vacation each summer. This year, we went camping for the first time. And we didn’t die!

My kids had a lot to say about that trip, but I also wanted to encourage them all to  write about it, including my younger learners. 

This simple vacation-themed creative writing prompt is great, because it’s a bite-sized lesson. So if you have reluctant writers, they won’t be intimidated by it at all.

Read on to see how to get your copy for free! And, for more fun with ELA, don’t miss my Donut Colors Sentence Writing Activity !

To use this vacation creative writing activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy .)

• Printer (with ink)
• Child-safe scissors (optional)
• Colored pencils (optional)

This activity includes five pages of prompts: four with different colors and a line art version. 

I found it best to print it on cardstock, because I wanted kids to be able to cut out their finished writing and hang it up on the wall.

If you use the line art version, kids can color in the suitcase themselves!

Students can use this activity to describe their actual vacations or to write about places they’d like to go. And, since it’s evergreen, you can use it any time there’s a school break, including, fall, winter, and spring. 

Scroll down to get your copy of our Vacation Creative Writing Activity!

Take a look at these other ways to learn with ELA!

Follow my Language Arts for Kids board on Pinterest for more ideas!

To get your free copy of Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity for Kids, click the image or the text below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

>>> Travel Tales! Vacation Creative Writing Activity <<<

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How to Write an Essay on How You Spent Your Summer Vacation

Last Updated: January 4, 2020

This article was co-authored by Alexander Peterman, MA . Alexander Peterman is a Private Tutor in Florida. He received his MA in Education from the University of Florida in 2017. This article has been viewed 53,955 times.

Writing an essay on how you spent your summer vacation is a classic way of starting a new school year. Think about this essay as an opportunity to tell a story about your summer while reflecting on the experiences you had. Choose a memorable moment you had this summer and start crafting your essay, giving as many details as possible.

Choosing a Topic

• These can also make nice visual aids if you are asked to present your essay.

• A list might be full of things like babysitting, attending a camp, working at a local store, taking a road trip, etc. This type of brainstorming can help you pick major events and other important moments from your summer.

• For example, maybe you spent your summer traveling around Japan. Think of a memorable moment you had while traveling — maybe you walked up a mountain in the pouring rain — and write about this moment, adding lots of details.

• For example, if you're writing about spending time at the beach, your outline could remind you to talk about the sandcastle building contest you entered, the dolphins you saw, and the ice cream you ate every day.
• Details might be what the other sandcastles looked like, how far away the dolphins were, and what kind of toppings were on your ice cream.
• Your outline is just to help you organize your thoughts — it can be written by hand or typed.

Crafting the Essay

• Instead of saying that you worked in a pet store, ate a PB&J sandwich, and walked home every day, talk about more than just your actions. You could talk about which pets are your favorites to work with, how it felt to eat the same sandwich every day, or what you thought about on your walk home.

• Using sensory details like these will help your readers visualize and engage with your writing. These help your audience make your experiences feel real to them, even though they weren't there.

• For example, instead of saying “I went to the beach this summer,” try saying “I spent my summer swimming in the frigid water at Virginia Beach.” The more details you can provide, the more engaged your reader will be.

• Instead of saying “the burger was really good,” you could say, “the burger was juicy and filling.”

• Don't just rely on spellcheck. It will help catch some errors, but it will miss some things, too.
• Ask a parent or other adult to read over your essay too, if you'd like.
• Setting your essay aside for a little while will give you a fresher perspective when you go back to revise it.

Structuring Your Essay

• Make sure your conclusion doesn’t just copy the introduction.

Community Q&A

• Write your essay from the first person point of view, using "I." Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1

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• ↑ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-smock/8-tips-for-dazzling-an-ed_b_5498918.html

About This Article

If you need to write an essay on how you spent your summer vacation, there are simple ways to take your writing to the next level. Choose a moment that stands out to you, like playing at the park with your friends or watching a movie you enjoyed. Think about all the feelings and thoughts you had, and use them to write sensory descriptions that will take the reader on the journey with you. Use your introduction to set the scene and draw your reader in. Then, use each paragraph to explore different aspects of your favorite moment. For example, if you won a video game competition with your friends, you can talk about the rivalry between you, the rounds of the game, and how you celebrated. For more tips from our Education co-author, including how to edit your essay, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Summer Writing Prompts for 1st Grade: Embrace Vacation Stories

My name is Debbie, and I am passionate about developing a love for the written word and planting a seed that will grow into a powerful voice that can inspire many.

1. Exploring the Power of⁣ Imagination: ‌Fun and Engaging Summer Writing Prompts for 1st Graders

2.​ spark creativity with⁢ vacation-inspired writing: ‍summer prompts ​for ​1st grade ‍students, 3. ‌unleashing​ the storyteller within: exciting​ writing ideas ⁢for ‌first⁢ graders during summer ⁣break, 4. from beach ​adventures to ‍nature walks: stimulating prompts to inspire⁤ 1st graders’ summer writing, 5. dive into ⁣journaling: promoting language skills ⁣through reflective summer ​writing ​for⁣ 1st graders, 6. transforming ordinary moments into ‌extraordinary tales: creative⁢ writing exercises ⁤for‌ 1st ⁤graders in summer, 7. capturing memories with⁣ words: inspiring summer prompts to ⁣build writing skills in 1st graders, 8. from ⁤daydream to ⁢paper:⁤ developing writing fluency through summer prompts for 1st grade students, frequently asked questions, to conclude.

Encouraging‍ young minds to unleash their ⁤creativity, our collection of summer writing ​prompts for ⁢1st graders​ is designed ⁤to ignite their ⁢imagination and make writing a joyful experience. Through these fun and engaging ​prompts,⁢ children will not only improve their writing skills but also cultivate a love for storytelling.

1. Transport to a Magical World: Imagine a place where ‌everything is ‍made of candy! Describe what it​ looks like, ⁣how it feels to⁣ touch, ⁣and what ⁢flavors​ it‍ tastes like.

2. My Superhero Adventure: Invent your ⁤own‌ superhero! Draw a picture of them ⁢and write a ‌short story about their most thrilling⁣ mission.

3. Animal Tales: Choose any ​animal you⁤ like and write a story from‌ their perspective. ⁣What challenges do they⁢ face?⁣ What⁢ adventures do⁤ they embark on?

4. Dream Vacation: If you ‌could go anywhere on vacation, where would⁢ you go? Describe the‌ place, the⁤ activities ⁢you would‌ do, and‍ why it is your dream destination.

5. ​Incredible Inventions: ​Think ‌of ‌a⁤ useful⁢ invention that‌ hasn’t been⁤ created yet. Describe what it does, ‌how it works,⁢ and why it would​ benefit people.

These writing prompts⁣ are just‌ a glimpse of what lies ahead for your young writers. Make⁢ writing⁢ time enjoyable and⁤ celebrate their creations to⁤ inspire‍ their imaginations⁣ for years to⁣ come!

Summer ⁣is the perfect time to encourage young ⁢minds to explore​ their creativity through writing. By ‌incorporating‌ vacation-inspired prompts, ​first-grade‍ students‍ can embark on exciting writing adventures while honing their writing skills. Here ‌are some engaging ​ideas to ignite their imagination:

• Sandy Adventures: Encourage ​students to ‌describe their dream beach day, using descriptive words to paint a ​vivid ‌picture. They​ can write about building sandcastles, playing beach games, or even their favorite beach snacks.
• Around the World: Let students choose ‍a country they​ would love ​to visit and have them write a postcard from that​ destination. They ‌can describe the ​sights, food, and the activities they would love to do ⁤there.
• Magical Vacation: Invite students‍ to write a short story about a ‌magical vacation they take to⁢ a ⁣far-off land. Encourage them to let their imaginations​ run​ wild, including talking animals,‌ enchanted forests, and any other magical elements​ they can dream up.

By⁣ incorporating‍ these‍ summer-themed⁣ writing ⁣prompts, first-grade students can not only enhance their ⁣writing‌ skills but‌ also ​experience the⁣ joy of using their⁣ imagination to​ create unique stories. Encourage them to let their creativity shine and provide ⁤them​ with a ​positive and supportive ‍environment to ⁣express ⁤their thoughts ‍and ideas.

Summer break is ‍the perfect ⁢time for first⁣ graders ⁤to⁢ let their imaginations soar ​and‌ develop their storytelling ⁣skills. Here are ​some⁣ exciting​ writing ideas that will unleash the storyteller within:

1. ⁤Picture Prompts: ‍ Encourage your child to choose a ⁤captivating picture and write a ​story based ⁢on what they see. ⁣It could be a picture ‍of a magical forest, a thrilling‌ adventure, ​or even‍ an adorable animal. This activity not only sparks creativity but ‌also ‍helps in improving descriptive writing skills.

2. Story Starters: Provide​ your child with interesting story starters ​such‌ as “Once upon a time, ⁤there was a talking cat ‍who…” or⁣ “On a sunny‍ day, I discovered a hidden ​treasure in ⁢my backyard and…”. These prompts ⁣give young writers a jumping-off‍ point ⁣for ⁢their imagination to take flight.‍ Encourage them to expand on⁤ the ideas and​ create‌ their‌ own unique stories.

3. Collaborative Storytelling: Engage ‌in a fun storytelling ‍session with your child. Start a story with a few sentences, then take‌ turns adding to it. It’s an exciting ​way to blend ideas and ⁢encourages children to⁤ think ‍on‍ their feet. Get creative​ with characters, settings, and plot twists! This activity not only fosters imagination but also​ enhances listening and speaking skills.

4. Personal Narrative: Ask your child to recount a memorable summer experience or a special family⁤ event. ‌Encourage them ⁤to use ⁤detailed descriptions⁢ and sensory language to make their⁤ writing come⁤ alive. This activity not ​only helps‍ develop narrative skills⁢ but also promotes ‌reflection and boosts⁢ self-expression.

With⁤ these⁤ engaging ​writing ⁣ideas and activities, first graders can⁣ have a productive and⁤ fun-filled summer ⁣break ‌while honing‍ their ​storytelling abilities. Encourage them to let ⁤their⁣ imaginations run ‌wild and watch as their creativity flourishes!

Summer is the perfect ‌time to ‍encourage 1st graders to dive into‌ their imaginations ⁤and explore ‌the world ‌through writing. With a plethora of exciting activities and ‌adventures‌ awaiting them, there are endless prompts that can ignite their creativity.​ Here⁤ are some ⁣stimulating‍ ideas ⁢to‌ inspire their ‍summer⁤ writing:

1.⁣ A Day ⁤at the Beach: Transport your⁤ young writers to sandy shores⁣ and sun-soaked adventures.⁣ Encourage them to describe the⁣ sights, sounds, ⁤and sensations they experience ‍during a ⁤day at the ‌beach.‌ From building sandcastles to splashing⁤ in the waves, encourage ⁣them to⁤ write‌ about‌ their favorite beach activities.

2. A Magical Forest: Take your 1st graders on⁤ a nature walk through the enchanting woods. Ask them⁤ to ‌imagine stumbling upon a hidden path that leads to a magical world. Prompt⁤ them ‌to write about the extraordinary‌ creatures they encounter, the ‍colorful flora that surrounds ​them, and the awe-inspiring adventures ​they embark on.

3. Camping ‍Under ​the Stars: Inspire their inner ⁢explorers by​ encouraging⁣ them ‌to write about a⁤ camping trip under the starry‌ night sky. Whether it’s a campfire story, a thrilling hike, or sleeping in​ a tent, challenge them to⁢ describe the sights, sounds, and emotions associated with this outdoor escapade.

4. Exploring Ancient Ruins:​ Transport your young writers back ⁣in time to explore the‌ mysteries of ancient ruins. Encourage them​ to​ describe the crumbling structures, the ​whispering wind​ that carries⁢ the ‌stories of the⁤ past, and the ⁣curious artifacts they stumble⁢ upon during their archaeological adventure.

5. An‌ Exciting Safari: Fuel their curiosity​ about‍ the⁣ animal kingdom by inviting​ them to write about an ‍unforgettable safari. Prompt them to‍ describe the thrilling encounters with magnificent creatures like ⁤lions, elephants,⁤ or‍ giraffes. Encourage them to share ​their awe ‍and learnings about the extraordinary wildlife⁤ they witness on this exhilarating journey.

In order to foster language⁤ development and enhance communication‌ skills, journaling can ‌be an⁣ engaging and beneficial activity for 1st graders ⁣during ​the⁤ summer break. Writing‌ in a‌ journal allows children to‌ express⁣ their ⁢thoughts, feelings, and ⁣experiences​ in a safe and personal space. It serves as ‍a ‍creative outlet that promotes self-reflection, critical thinking, and ⁢language fluency.

Encourage your child to embark‌ on a writing⁣ journey this summer ‍with these ideas:

• Pick⁤ a stimulating journal: Select‍ a journal ⁤with vibrant colors or‌ an appealing design to spark your child’s⁤ creativity.
• Write⁢ about daily adventures: Encourage your child ⁣to write about ​their daily activities, outings, or⁢ even their ‍vivid imagination. This will help them develop ‌a storytelling style and improve their vocabulary.
• Promote self-reflection: ⁣ Encourage your child to​ reflect on ‌their feelings, emotions, and experiences. This will aid ‍in developing ‍emotional⁢ intelligence and communication⁤ skills.

By encouraging 1st⁢ graders to journal during the ⁢summer, parents and teachers⁢ can create a⁤ platform for‌ language growth ⁣and ‌self-expression. Creating a routine where​ children regularly reflect and communicate through writing will undoubtedly benefit⁤ their language skills and overall development.

Looking for fun and⁤ engaging activities to‌ keep your first grader’s‍ creativity flowing⁢ this summer?⁣ Look no ‌further! Our creative writing‍ exercises are designed to transform ⁤ordinary moments into extraordinary‌ tales.

Through a variety​ of interactive‍ and imaginative⁢ prompts, your child will embark on a journey​ of self-expression and storytelling. They ⁢will learn ‍to capture​ their ⁢thoughts and ideas, ⁢developing their​ vocabulary and writing‍ skills along the ‌way.

• Spark their imagination: With prompts like “Imagine ⁣you discovered ⁤a hidden treasure⁤ chest ⁣in your backyard,” ⁢we will‍ ignite your child’s creativity⁢ and encourage them ‍to think outside the box.
• Enhance⁤ storytelling skills: From setting the scene ‌to creating memorable characters, our ⁤exercises⁢ will guide your little ‌one‌ in ⁣crafting vivid​ and ‍engaging stories.
• Build writing confidence: Our ‍activities provide a ‍safe and supportive environment for your child to‍ express themselves freely, boosting their self-assurance and love⁤ for writing.

Whether your first grader dreams of becoming the next bestselling author or simply wants ‌to explore their creative side, ⁢our ⁣summer creative writing exercises⁤ are the perfect way to ignite ‌their ⁤imagination and have a blast along the way. So, ⁣let the storytelling adventure begin!

Summer is the perfect time for young learners to express their ‌creativity ⁤and develop ​their writing skills. Encouraging 1st graders to write ⁣during the summer break​ not only ​helps ⁤them retain what‍ they’ve ⁤learned in ​school, but ⁤also ⁣allows them to ‌capture their cherished ‍memories through words. ‍Here are some⁣ fun and inspiring writing prompts‌ that will ignite their imagination and‌ build their‍ writing ‌skills:

• A Day at the Beach: ​Describe your perfect day at the ⁣beach. What does the sand ⁤feel like? How⁣ does​ the ocean sound?⁤ Write a story about a memorable beach adventure.
• My Favorite Ice⁣ Cream ⁢Flavor: If ⁢you‌ could create your⁤ own ice cream flavor , what​ would it⁢ be?‌ Describe ‌the⁤ taste, color, and ⁣any fun toppings. Write a persuasive paragraph convincing​ others to try your ⁣unique ⁤creation.
• Exploring‍ Nature: Take a ‌walk in your backyard, a park, or a forest. Write about⁤ the different plants, animals, or insects ​you encounter. Can you⁤ create a‌ short poem about one ⁢of your⁢ discoveries?

By using these summer writing​ prompts, not only ‌will‍ 1st graders enhance their ⁤vocabulary and ​sentence ⁤structure, but they will also⁤ learn to express ‌their thoughts and ⁤emotions effectively. Encourage them to be creative, descriptive, and imaginative with their writing. Remember, it’s not just about building their academic skills, it’s about capturing⁤ memories with⁤ words and fostering a love for writing‌ that will last a lifetime.

Summer​ vacation is often associated with relaxation and ‍play, but it ‍is also⁢ a valuable time‍ for ⁣young students ​to⁢ practice and hone their writing skills. ⁢Engaging in ​fun and ⁢creative writing prompts can help ⁤1st-grade students develop ⁢writing fluency and enhance their storytelling abilities. Here ⁢are some exciting ways to inspire‍ your child to put ‌their ‍daydreams ⁢onto paper this summer:

• Explore the⁤ great outdoors: Encourage your ‍child‍ to spend⁤ time outside,​ exploring nature and discovering fascinating elements ‍in their surroundings. Ask ⁣them to write about their adventures,‍ describing the sights, sounds, and textures‌ they encounter. ⁤This activity not only enhances⁤ their observational⁤ skills but also ⁤encourages them to‍ use descriptive ​language.
• Write a⁤ summer bucket list: Have your child create a⁢ list of ‌activities they want to accomplish during the ⁤summer break. It could include⁣ ideas like visiting ‍a museum, trying a new hobby, ​or ⁢learning a⁣ musical instrument. This exercise ‌fosters both writing ‍skills and goal-setting abilities.

By providing 1st-grade students with engaging⁤ and creative writing prompts, ⁢we can ⁣fuel⁣ their imagination, nurture their ⁢writing ‌fluency, and help ‍them develop a ​lifelong ​love for​ storytelling. So,​ grab a pen and paper, and let⁢ your child’s daydreams ⁣find a⁤ home on the written page this summer!

Q: What are some summer writing ⁣prompts suitable ⁢for 1st graders? A: Summer writing prompts for 1st graders‍ are fun⁤ exercises that encourage young learners‍ to ⁣embrace their vacation experiences and develop their storytelling skills.

Q: How can ⁢these writing prompts benefit 1st graders ? A: ‌These prompts‍ provide ‌a⁣ great opportunity for 1st ⁣graders to enhance ​their language ‌and writing⁢ abilities while having⁢ fun. Engaging with ‌summer topics helps them to express their thoughts and experiences‍ more effectively.

Q: What are‍ some specific writing prompt ideas for 1st ‌graders during ​summer? A: ‌Some exciting summer writing prompts for 1st graders include writing about ⁣a memorable vacation, describing ⁣a favorite​ summer activity, or‍ creating a ​story⁤ about a⁢ magical summer adventure.

Q: Why‍ is it important for ‌1st graders to continue writing ​during⁤ their summer break? A: Writing ​during‌ the⁣ summer​ break helps 1st graders​ maintain their literacy skills, preventing any learning loss over⁢ the holidays. ‍It also encourages creativity and self-expression in an enjoyable way.

Q: How ⁣can parents‌ or teachers support 1st graders​ with these writing ​prompts? A:​ Parents and teachers can support 1st graders by providing guidance, encouraging brainstorming, and helping them organize their ideas. They can also celebrate‌ and appreciate​ the child’s ⁢efforts, boosting their confidence.

Q: ⁢Are ‍there any strategies ‌to make the ⁢writing experience ⁢more‍ enjoyable for 1st ​graders? A: Absolutely! Making⁢ writing visually appealing by using⁢ colorful ⁤pens ‍or ⁤stickers can‌ make‍ it more enjoyable. Additionally,⁢ incorporating props or real-life experiences into ‌the ⁢prompts‍ can spark their ‌imagination ‌and⁤ make the process even more⁣ exciting.

Q:‍ How can⁣ teachers further‍ engage 1st graders in writing over ​the summer? A: ‍Teachers can ‌organize virtual or ⁢in-person writing workshops specifically designed for the summer break. They can also create⁣ writing challenges, encourage peer collaboration, or showcase their students’ work ​in‍ a class‍ blog or newsletter.

Q: Can these writing prompts be adapted ​for students⁣ with different skill levels? A: Of course! ⁢These⁣ writing ⁣prompts can be‌ adjusted​ to suit ⁤various skill levels⁢ by modifying the complexity of the task or‌ providing additional guidance as ‍needed. Adapting the prompts ensures that all students can ⁢participate and⁢ grow ‍at their ⁢own pace.

Q: What are‍ the⁢ long-term​ benefits of ‌practicing writing at a young ​age? A: Practicing writing at a ‌young age builds a strong⁤ foundation for effective communication and ⁤critical thinking skills. It‍ helps children express ‍themselves clearly in writing, which⁤ is a crucial skill they will need ⁣throughout their ‍academic and professional ​lives.

Q: ⁤Where can parents and teachers find more summer writing prompts for ​1st⁢ graders? A: ‌Various educational websites⁤ and‍ resources ​offer a wide range of⁣ summer writing prompts​ for 1st graders. ⁣Additionally, libraries, books,​ and educational material stores might ‌also ⁢have suitable writing prompt books‌ available.

In conclusion, summer‍ writing prompts for 1st ⁢grade provide a‌ great opportunity for young students to express their⁢ vacation stories and enhance ⁤their writing ⁤skills in⁤ a fun and engaging way. So, embrace the ⁢summer and ⁤let the creativity flow!

Podcast Wisdom: What Do You Do When You Have Writer’s Block Podcast

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Welcome to Creative Writing Prompts

At Creative Writing Prompts, we believe in the power of words to shape worlds. Our platform is a sanctuary for aspiring writers, seasoned wordsmiths, and everyone. Here, storytelling finds its home, and your creative journey begins its captivating voyage.

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About Our TWO Different Writing Retreats:

Maine Writers Studio is excited to offer two different writing retreats:

An annual and free one-week writing retreat in a gloriously renovated barn located near the town-green in Brunswick, ME, and a four-day generative workshop retreat in Harpswell, ME, on the ocean. 

The free, one-week writing retreat will be awarded to a qualified writer who can benefit from a quiet space to advance their current project.

The retreat is located in a gloriously renovate barn in the quaint college town of Brunswick , just 30 minutes north of Portland, ME. Walking distance to everything the town has to offer, and just two blocks from the Amtrak train station and 30 minutes from Portland Jetport, this is the perfect and peaceful hideaway to dive into your work. 

Brunswick has it all: ocean, rivers, mountains, and beaches. Located on the Androscoggin River and also on the Gulf of Maine it has a plethora of hiking opportunities in stunning natural surroundings. And let's not forget the lobsters, if that's your thing!

To be considered for the retreat, go to our application guidelines here .

One writer will be selected each year.

Please note that transportation and meals are not included. 

Peaceful, beautiful, and comfortable accommodations in a gloriously renovated barn apartment in Maine college town 

Weekend Workshop Retreat on the coast of Maine, planned for October 2024

In the early fall, you will be able to join a group of fellow writers by the ocean in mid-coast Maine for a weekend-long generative writing retreat, including workshops, lodging, and meals in stunning natural surroundings. 

Every year we announce a unique theme, and writers working in all genres of creative writing (memoir, creative nonfiction, poetry and fictions, as well as hybrid forms) and on all levels are welcome. 

Registration will open in May 2024 for our mid-fall workshop retreat. 

THIS YEARS THEME: WRITING THE BODY

Spend a weekend with fellow women writers at a quintessential Maine Inn, a true unassuming gem, surrounded by breathtaking nature & ocean.

Bring your body, all the treasures it carries, your notebook/laptop, and a desire to generate new, revelatory writing, write in community and in solitude (we will make room for both!), share, join us for some gentle yoga and body-mindfulness meditation, make new friends, relish the natural Maine ocean surroundings, and much more. Room, board, workshops, and yoga & meditation included. Body massage possible on site with licensed LMT. Stay tuned for a detailed schedule, rates, and registration link. 

Link to where the weekend retreat will be held: Driftwood Inn at Bailey Island, Maine. 

Sign up for our newsletter so not to miss updates about location, dates and cost. 

Imagine how inspired you will be by these beautiful surroundings along the coast of Maine

How to Write a Professional Vacation Request Email (With Templates)

G etting vacation time approved is hard. But a solid vacation request email can go a long way to helping you secure some much-needed time off. A professional vacation request email requires you to research the company’s vacation policy beforehand.

You must also write down all the necessary information, including dates of leave, your strategy, and any secondary modes of contact. Here is a detailed guide to writing a professional vacation request email, along with templates to help you get started.

Things to Do Before Writing a Vacation Request Email

Here are some things you must do before writing a vacation request email:

Research the Company's Vacation Policy

Different companies have different procedures and guidelines related to holiday requests. Conforming to these standards is essential if you want your vacation request to get approved. So, you must research the vacation policy of your company beforehand.

This will tell you how early you need to give notice when applying for vacation days. It will also help you figure out the number of vacation days you are entitled to based on your circumstances.

Consult Your Co-Workers

It is very important to talk with your co-workers before applying for a vacation. Chat about their availability during the days that you'll be gone to prevent any potential bottlenecks in the workflow.

It is also a good idea to chat about the company's policy and the management's attitude towards vacation requests. Who knows, a co-worker with past experience drafting holiday requests may be able to help you write a winning appeal.

Casually Mention It Beforehand

It's not a good idea to blindside your boss with an email requesting time off. So, consider casually mentioning your plans to them beforehand.

This could be straightforward or more subtle, depending on the communication style that your boss prefers. Knowing small things like these about your superior is essential if you're looking to improve your relationship with your boss .

By casually mentioning your plans to go on vacation, your boss will have time to adjust the workflow. They'll also be able to schedule extra shifts to make up for your absence if need be.

How to Write a Professional Vacation Request Email

Here is a step-by-step guide to writing a professional email requesting vacation time:

1. Start With the Right Subject Line

Pick a clear and concise subject line for your email. A subject line’s purpose is to get across the intent of your email, which in this case, is to request vacation time. So, you can go with something like “Request for Vacation Days” or “Vacation Request”. This way, your boss will know at a glance what your email is about.

2. Get Straight to the Point

You must get straight to the point when writing the first few lines of your vacation request email. Write in a polite manner and tell your boss that you need vacation time.

While you aren't required to disclose your reasons behind requesting time off, you may pen them down if you have a close relationship with your boss. But if you're only giving your boss a short notice, it'll be a good idea to disclose your circumstances regardless of how close you're to your superior.

3. Don't Forget the Dates

Next, you should include the exact dates that you'll be off work. If you mentioned your vacation dates in the subject line, double-check to ensure that they match the dates in the email body. If your company has a paid time off policy, be sure to mention how many hours you'll be taking off.

4. Detail Your Strategy

In the strategy section of your email, you'll tell your boss how your work will be handled while you are away. You should tell what projects you're currently working on and what responsibilities these projects entail.

It's a good idea to list all the tasks you're working on at the time of drafting the email. Then, mention which tasks you can and cannot complete before your requested time off.

Additionally, tell them what tasks you'll be delegating and what their deadlines will be during your absence. This information should include the name and contact details of the colleague or team who will be handling your responsibilities.

5. Mention Your Preferred Mode of Contact

Disconnecting from work before a vacation is a good idea. But if you'd like your organization to be able to contact you during your vacation time, consider including a section about your preferred mode of contact.

List down the time during which you'll be available on this mode of contact. If you wish, you can also include an emergency number in case the company needs to get in touch during hours when you'll not be available on your preferred mode of contact.

6. Convey Your Thanks and Openness to Any Questions

It is common courtesy to end an email by telling your boss that you are open to any questions. To facilitate this, you can add your preferred work contact, like your work email. You can even tell your boss that you're up for a face-to-face chat if need be.

When ending the vacation request email, don't forget to thank your boss for giving you their time. A simple “Thank you.” will suffice.

Vacation Request Email Templates

Here are some vacation request email templates to help you get started with your own appeal:

Template 1:

Subject: [Your Name] Vacation Request

Dear [Boss’s Name],

Hope this email finds you well.

I would like to request vacation time from [insert date] to [insert date]. I will have all my projects completed before the starting date of the requested vacation time. Additionally, [insert co-worker’s name] has agreed to take on my work during my absence.

For emergency contact during my vacation, you can call me at my cell phone number [insert phone number]. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me using my work email: [insert email address].

Thank you for your time.

[Your name]

Template 2:

Subject: [Your Name] Email Requesting Vacation Time

Greetings of the day!

I'm emailing to request vacation time from [insert date] to [insert date]. I need this time off because [insert reason]. I have assigned my pending projects and tasks to [insert co-worker’s name], who has agreed to take on my projects during my absence.

My team has also agreed to cover my work during my vacation days. I will be unavailable for contact during this time off, but if you need me urgently, you can call me at [insert phone number].

If you have any further questions, you can contact me at [insert email address].

Template 3:

Subject: [Your Name] Requesting Vacation Time Off from [Date] to [Date]

Hope you're well.

As we previously discussed, I would like to request vacation time off from [insert date] to [insert date]. I will finish my due projects after I return from vacation. Meanwhile, my team has agreed to take on my work during my absence.

If you have questions about my request, please email me at [insert email]. If you need to contact me while I am away, you can call me on my cell phone number [insert phone number].

Looking forward to your response in the next few days.

Requesting Vacation Time Shouldn't Be a Challenge

To ensure that your vacation request is accepted, be sure to research your company’s time off policy. When writing the email, stick to the point and detail how your work will be handled in your absence.

Also, tell your boss how they can get in touch with you in case of an emergency. It's also a good idea to inform your superiors before sending the vacation request email. This will prevent them from getting blind-sighted or accidentally ignoring the email.