How to turn a vacation into a book

Two titles in my contemporary travel romance series

I love traveling. I started by moving from the Philippines to Utah at age 15 and I haven’t stopped since. We have been blessed as a family with opportunities because my husband gets to go on a lot of conferences (and I get to tag along), we choose to invest in travel, and we are able to schedule the time off.

This past summer, we were able to go to Morocco for five days, as part of a Southern Spain/Morocco trip. I had fully intended to collect enough material to put into a book, and I did. For about two weeks, I knocked out a 20k word romance novella, Saffron Summer. Next, I plan to write A day in Paris, which is based on a literal day I spent with my husband there for our 22nd wedding anniversary. Other places I plan to write about: Seville, Spain; Ireland; Aruba; Grenada; and the Philippines. My bucket list for both travel and books: Italy, South Korea, China, and Greece.

If you’ve ever thought about turning a vacation into a book (fiction or non-fiction), here are some things that are cool about it:

It’s tax-deductible. Our accountant says we may be eligible to write off 20 per cent of our trips' expenses because I base my books on them. If you write a book within a certain time period, I believe it’s either one or two years, you can write it off. (Be sure to check with your accountant.)

It is easier to conjure up a book cover. I am not a pro cover artist by any means, but I like dabbling in it. I have hired pro artists before, and ultimately, I give them an idea that works for my cover, so I figure, why not save the money and try to make it myself? Especially for mock-ups. For the third book in the series, I am thinking of setting “An Irishman’s Promise” in Ireland. Having been there, some cover elements came to mind easily: rain, umbrella, doors (Dublin), lush green, rain boots.

It gives you license to imagine "what could have been" in your vacation destinations. Once, when we went to Grenada, an older man gave me shells from his shell collection. I’ve always wondered about his own personal story. Now I can imagine it via a novel.

You pay more attention when you travel. When I go someplace, I like being up at sunrise and pay attention to sensory details. I remember little things like the prayer call in Morocco five times a day and the pealing of church bells in Sevilla. At the end of each day, without fail, where I’ve stayed up all night if need be, I write in my journal for hours, so that I could remember the experience, and it’s been invaluable to helping me with the setting for my novels. Even my historical novels benefit from this.

Going someplace is tons more fun than Internet research. I am not knocking Internet research, because it’s amazing what is out there. But if you’re going to write about churros dipped in chocolate on a street side café in a Spanish enclave in North Africa, why not go there in person?

You meet interesting people who make great characters in your books. Nothing reveals someone’s character better than traveling with them nearly 24/7. We’ve gone on several guided tours with people whom I have based characters on. It’s a great opportunity for people watching.

It’s a great way to relive your trip. As I wrote about Morocco in Saffron Summer, memories rushed back. It was as though I was there again. When I sat down to read the manuscript all the way through, I had so much fun. I am excited to relive the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower in A day in Paris.

You learn a lot. This is obvious, but until you get out of your comfort zone and experience other cultures, you don’t realize how little you know about yourself, the world and how other cultures live. Since I never know what material I will need I tend to be one of those slightly-pesky tourists who ask twenty questions on guided tours so I am usually overflowing with facts about a place.

You are contributing to the world’s travel knowledge. Even though what you might write is fiction, if it is couched in truth, you are revealing some neat things about other countries and cultures to your readers who might, by choice or opportunity, not be able to travel to the places you’ve been.