4 Lessons From Eat, Pray, Love: Best Travel Memoir Example

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Aug 3

There are certain memoirs that are genre-defining, whether you like ‘em or not.

Eat, Pray, Love is one of those memoirs, as it’s one of the best examples of a travel memoir done right.

If you’re considering writing a travel memoir, here are 4 lessons you can learn from Eat, Pray, Love, and examples of what to do in this memoir subgenre.

Lesson #1: Describe Places with Visceral Detail and Metaphor

Naples is easily one of the most chaotic cities I’ve ever been to. I was transported back to this insane place by Gilbert’s fantastic description of this Southern Italian city:

“I instantly love Naples. Wild, raucous, noisy, dirty, balls-out Naples. An anthill inside a rabbit warren, with all the exoticism of a Middle Eastern bazaar and a touch of New Orleans voodoo. A tripped-out, dangerous and cheerful nuthouse. My friend Wade came to Naples in the 1970s and was mugged...in a museum. The city is all decorated with the laundry that hangs from every window and dangles across every street; everybody’s fresh-washed undershirts and brassieres flapping in the wind like Tibetan prayer flags.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

You’ll notice that this description isn’t just a list of popular places to visit in Naples. No, Gilbert weaves in storytelling to every sense of place, sharing how one of her friends got mugged in a museum — which is Naples in a nutshell! You’re not bored by this description. You’re entertained and primed to enjoy the scene that’s coming next, and you feel as if you’re there with Gilbert as she drags you with her through the crazy streets of Naples.

One of the most common mistakes I see authors make in their travel memoirs is overdoing descriptions of places.

Just give readers just enough visceral detail that they can feel grounded in the scene — and nothing more. If people really wanted to read all about a location, they’d go to Wikipedia. Keep your details motivated by character and action, and throw in some great comparisons to help people visualize what you want them to see in their mind’s eye.

Lesson #2: Personify Your Feelings in Scenes: Show Your Inner State, Don’t Tell

If you’ve taken a writing class or read a book on how to write a memoir, you’re probably used to being hit over the head with the adage show, don’t tell.

Eat Pray Love is one of the best examples of a travel memoir done right because of how Elizabeth Gilbert uses innovative metaphors and personification to show her inner state in a place.

One of my favorites is this excerpt, which shows how her anxiety and depression followed her to Italy:

“Depression and Loneliness track me down after about ten days in Italy… my thinking turns to brooding and that’s when they catch up with me. They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives, and they flank me—Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We’ve been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now. Though I admit that I am surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk. This is no place they belong.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

The chapter continues as the two feelings interrogate her like cops, and the noir-like aesthetic continues as Gilbert describes her battle with Depression and Loneliness.

As a digital nomad, this section hit me hard. When we go to “find ourselves” out in the big wide world, we don’t expect that our problems are on the flight right behind us.

In reality, travel strips away our excuses that we just need to go to Italy/France/wherever to be happy… because when we find ourselves still unhappy when eating pasta in Rome, the only thing we have left to complain about is ourselves. (And how expensive Rome is!)

When writing your memoir, think about a feeling you want to capture. Instead of leaning on descriptions of a place, try and show how your feelings are present in your travels. Focus on details that reflect your inner state and conflict. See how you can further externalize your emotions with tricks like personification, which Gilbert uses so masterfully in the above example.

Lesson #3: Commit to a Compelling Structure for Your Travel Memoir

Eat, Pray, Love is a great example of how travel memoirs can commit to a strong, organized structure.

I’ve worked with many authors who come to me with messy travel memoirs that are disorganized, overstuffed with stories, and feel like a hodgepodge of ideas. What these writers can learn from Eat, Pray, Love is that you can still have a collection of stories and places, but you need to organize your book by theme.

In my past writing life, I was a professional TV writer. Back when I was studying screenwriting at USC, I learned story structure backwards and forwards. Structure is the backbone of your book: it keeps people turning the pages and feeling like they’re in good hands. Gaining your readers’ trust is key, and that’s why I love using Eat, Pray, Love as an example of how to set reader expectations from the start. The title itself tells you what the book is about and how it’s organized!

When writing your travel memoir, I recommend writing down a list of all your travel stories. From there, see how they all relate. Can you group them by theme, and maybe tell them out-of-order? Or is there a way to make theme and structure more present in a chronological telling of your story? What visuals and motifs can you weave in to create a more cohesive feeling? What can be cut to streamline the plot and keep it clutter-free?

All of this needs to be decided before you start writing — or else you’ll be setting yourself up for a long and arduous draft process. When I ghostwrite memoirs for my clients, I always start with detailed interviews before generating a first macro outline, which focuses on big-picture structure, themes, A/B/C storylines, and more. Then, once my client is happy with the structure, I move on to creating a super detailed chapter outline that lays out how each chapter will flow into the next one.

This allows us to make a ton of structure decisions before I write a single page, and also allows my client to mine their memories and find the most compelling moments and storylines ahead of time. You’d be surprised how much discovery happens in the outline phase, and how looking at the story from different angles can reveal the best way to present your travel memoir to your reader.

Lesson #4: Show the “Why?” of Your Journey Throughout Your Travel Memoir

A travel memoir isn’t just a collection of journal entries from your trip.

There should be a thematic why? of your journey.

I love this passage where Gilbert describes her trip as if it was an epic quest:

“I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself... then truth will not be withheld from you." Or so I've come to believe.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Her “why” is clear throughout the book. She’s a woman trying to navigate her love life post-divorce and is on a quest of self-love and acceptance. Her “quest” is broken up into three countries: Eat (in Italy, where she learns to surrender to the pleasure of existing), Pray (in India where she learns the power of spiritual discipline), and Love (where she learns to love again in Bali.

This clarity is why Eat, Pray, Love is such a perfect example of a well-executed travel memoir.

The lessons that you learn on your own quest should be clear. The reader should understand how you’re evolving from point A to Z, and see the setbacks on your journey to change. They should be rooting for you to get to where you need to go the whole book — but to do so, they need to understand what you’re trying to learn from your travels.

Or, more simply, your why?

Why pack everything up and board a plane? Why travel to a foreign land? Why go on an adventure? Why?

Answer that why? loud and clear and the readers will know why they should keep reading.