Travel Clichés

Some time ago I went on a writing course with a noted travel writer, who provided us with, amongst other things, a list of no-no clichés (see previous posts too)...

...so here are some of the most cringeworthy that you mind find in trave 'literature' - some of it might not even be directly taken from the canon of the Lonely Planet, Rough, and In Your Pocket guides and similar, but not much..

'snow-capped mountains'
'Majestic mountains'
'Lunar landscape'
'Narrow/winding cobbled streets'
'Perched on the hill/nestling in the valley'
'Like opening an oven door'
'Best kept secret'
'A land of contrasts'
'Where east meets west'
'The Athens of the North/Venice of the South'
'The real Borneo/Acapulco/Ulam Bator'
'In a time warp'
'Washed down with a glass of the local wine'

'Those wearisome adjectives of magnitude - big, great, vast, huge, tremendous, enormous, gigantic - which are nothing but emotive noises inviting the readers to do all the work. They are the plague of most travel books...'

...so there you go, I know some of our three  readers are budding travel writers and so hopefully this will have been 'food for thought' to coin another one..