14 Travel Clichés to Avoid and Why (& What to Say Instead)

I’ve been writing and talking (on my podcast) about travel professionally for years, and the way I write about it now is pretty different from when I started.

There are words and phrases I used all the time in my early travel blogs that I rarely use anymore. I’ve called places “hidden gems.” I’ve used “authentic” without really questioning what I meant by it. I’ve definitely described things as “must-see.”

But over the years, I’ve become more cautious about this language. Some travel clichés are vague or overused, while others can generalize communities, erase history or frame a place entirely through an outsider’s perspective.

But I don’t think the solution is memorizing a list of words we’re no longer supposed to use. Changing “the locals are friendly” to “residents are friendly” doesn’t accomplish much if I’m still making a sweeping claim about a community based on a few people I met.

For me, this has been more about changing the framework I use when I write. When I catch myself reaching for a cliché, I try to figure out what I’m actually trying to say and where that interpretation is coming from.

Here are 14 common travel clichés I’ve been rethinking and why.

Travel Writing Has a Complicated History

One reason I’ve started paying more attention to travel language is that I’ve learned more about the history of travel writing.

People have been documenting their travels for thousands of years, across many different cultures. Travel writing itself isn’t inherently colonial.

But European travel writing also became closely connected to colonial expansion. European explorers, missionaries, officials and other travelers wrote accounts of the lands they visited and the people who lived there. 

Those accounts were written from the perspective of outsiders, and they helped shape how European audiences understood other parts of the world.

That history has influenced some of the conventions that still show up in travel writing today. Scholars who study travel writing have looked at how colonial-era accounts often positioned the European traveler as the observer and interpreter of other cultures.

Once I started thinking about that history, I began noticing some of the same framing in modern travel content.

We still describe places as “undiscovered,” even though people live there. We call cultures “exotic” based on how unfamiliar they seem to us. A community can be described as “frozen in time” because it doesn’t look the way we expect a modern place to look.

Learning about this has made me question the framework behind the words I use to describe my travels, rather than simply looking for replacement vocabulary.

Why Does Language Matter in Travel Writing?

Travel content influences how people understand places they may know very little about.

That’s something I think about a lot as a travel content creator. Someone may read one of my blogs while planning a trip and have very little other context about the community I’m describing. A caption, podcast episode or article can contribute to the ideas they form before they ever arrive.

Travel writing also naturally puts the traveler at the centre. We’re usually describing what we saw, whether we enjoyed ourselves and how a place felt to us.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing from personal experience. In fact, I’ve found that being explicit about my perspective helps me avoid making broader claims that I can’t actually support.

The problem comes when my experience starts being presented as an objective description of someone else’s culture or home.

A place could feel remote to me because I travelled a long way to reach it. That doesn’t necessarily mean the people living there understand their community that way.

A custom may feel unusual because it isn’t part of my culture, or a meal might seem inexpensive because I’m converting the price into Canadian dollars.

I’ve been trying to get better at noticing those distinctions.

Travel Clichés That Can Erase People and History

Some travel clichés frame places as though they were sitting there waiting for travelers to find them. These are probably the phrases I’ve become most cautious about.

1. “Untouched” or “Unspoiled”

“Untouched” is often used to describe landscapes with few visible buildings, roads or other signs of development.

But a landscape that appears untouched to a visitor might actually have a long history of human relationships with that land.

This is particularly important when talking about places with histories of Indigenous stewardship. Lack of visible infrastructure doesn’t mean land was uninhabited or unused. 

Here in Canada, for example, Indigenous Peoples have lived on and cared for these lands since time immemorial. 

Describing a forest, coastline or other landscape as “untouched” can erase those relationships with the land, even if that’s not what the writer intended.

So when I catch myself wanting to write “untouched,” I ask myself what I’m actually seeing, and describe that instead. 

Maybe it’s a dense forest. There might be very little tourism infrastructure. Perhaps the area has protected status, or there are no roads. Those details tend to be more useful, anyway.

2. “Hidden Gem” or “Undiscovered”

“Hidden gem” has become so common in travel content that it barely tells us anything anymore. It’s also become a keyword and social media hook in its own right. 

Calling somewhere a “hidden gem” signals that you’re about to share something other people supposedly don’t know about, which can be an effective way to stop someone from scrolling or get them to click.

That framing is part of why I’m cautious about using it. When we call a town, beach, restaurant or hiking trail a “hidden gem” or “undiscovered,” the obvious question is: hidden from whom? 

The place is almost certainly already known to the people who live there, and framing ourselves as the person revealing it can centre the traveler or content creator in a story that was never really ours to uncover.

Instead, I try to think about what I actually mean when I’m tempted to call somewhere a hidden gem. 

If I mean that it receives relatively little tourism, I can explain why. Maybe it isn’t included on the most common tourism routes, access requires more planning, or it receives fewer international visitors than other places nearby.

3. “Discover”

This one depends a lot on context. I’m not that worried about someone saying they “discovered a bakery” while wandering around a neighbourhood.

I think it gets trickier when we use “discover” to talk about entire places, because it can make it sound like somewhere wasn’t known until a traveler showed up. 

There’s a long history of travel writing being written from this outsider perspective, where the traveler arrives somewhere and then explains the place and its people to everyone back home.

These days, I usually just say that I visited somewhere, spent time there or learned about it, depending on what actually happened. 

I’m not looking for one perfect word to replace “discover.” I’m just trying to avoid framing myself as the person who found something that was already very much known to the people who live there.

4. “Frozen in Time” or “A Step Back in Time”

I understand why these phrases show up so often. When you visit somewhere with old architecture or longstanding traditions, you want to communicate that sense of history quickly. 

But no living community is frozen in time. People continue to work, raise families, adapt traditions, deal with economic changes and make decisions about what their community looks like today.

I think these phrases can also encourage us to see a place through what we, as visitors, think looks “old” or “traditional.” 

We might notice historic buildings, fishing boats or a longstanding craft and interpret those things as evidence that life in that place hasn’t changed. Meanwhile, we’re missing everything about the community that doesn’t fit that image.

These phrases can also make the past sound more romantic than it actually was, especially when we don’t include the history behind what we’re looking at.

I’ve been trying instead to explain what gave me that impression. If I’m looking at buildings from the 1800s, I can say that and learn why they’ve been preserved. 

If a tradition has been practiced for generations, I can explain its history and how people continue to practice it today. That gives readers a much clearer picture than suggesting that nothing has changed.

Travel Language That Can Other or Romanticize Cultures

Some travel clichés are less about whether a place is supposedly “hidden” or “undiscovered,” and more about how we describe cultures that are unfamiliar to us.

This connects back to the history of travel writing I mentioned earlier, where places and people were often described through a European or Western lens. I think traces of that perspective still show up in modern travel content, especially in words like “exotic” and “authentic,” or when we use Western places as the benchmark for describing somewhere else.

That doesn’t mean these words are automatically problematic every time they appear. I just think they’re worth questioning, especially when they position the traveler’s perspective as the default.

5. “Exotic”

I avoid “exotic” when describing people, cultures, food or places because the word is entirely dependent on the perspective of the person using it. Something is only “exotic” because it feels unfamiliar to us.

In travel writing, that can reinforce the idea that the traveler’s own culture is the baseline for what’s normal, while cultures that feel unfamiliar are unusual or foreign. 

The word also has a long history of being used through a Western and colonial lens to describe people and places outside Europe.

There’s also something strange about calling everyday life “exotic.” A dish might seem unusual to me because I’ve never eaten it before, but it could be something people in that community eat all the time. 

The same applies to clothing, architecture, markets, celebrations and traditions. So when I’m tempted to use “exotic,” I try to figure out what actually caught my attention. 

I can name the dish and describe its ingredients, explain what I learned about a tradition, or talk about why a particular style of architecture was unfamiliar to me. That tells the reader much more while acknowledging that I’m seeing it from my own perspective.

6. “Authentic”

This is probably one of the travel words I’ve thought about most. Travelers are constantly encouraged to seek “authentic experiences,” eat “authentic food” and get away from tourist areas to find the “real” version of a place.

But authenticity gets complicated very quickly. 

Who gets to decide which restaurant represents the real cuisine of a city? Is a centuries-old market authentic but a modern shopping centre isn’t? What happens when residents enjoy restaurants, neighbourhoods or activities that travelers have decided are too modern or too popular to be authentic?

I think this can create a pretty narrow idea of what a culture is supposed to look like. It can also put the traveler in the position of deciding which parts of everyday life count as “real,” often based on what matches our expectations before we arrive.

Rather than appointing myself the judge of what is authentic, I try to describe what I actually experienced and give readers the context I have. If I took a cooking class with someone who told me the recipes came from their grandmother, I can share that. If a guide explained the history of a tradition, I can name the guide and explain what they told me.

That gives the reader much more useful information than me simply declaring something  is “authentic,” and it leaves room for the reality that cultures aren’t fixed.

7. “Colonial Charm”

I don’t use “colonial charm” to describe architecture, hotels or historic districts because the phrase turns colonialism into an aesthetic.

I understand why this phrase shows up in travel writing. 

Many places have historic buildings that were constructed during periods of colonial rule, and that architecture can absolutely be interesting to visit and learn about. I love seeing and visiting historic buildings myself.

The issue for me is describing the colonial part of that history as “charming.” Colonial rule involved things like displacement, exploitation, violence and the loss of political control for the people who were colonized. 

Using “colonial” as shorthand for an attractive architectural style can gloss over that history and make the colonial period sound nostalgic.

So what I try to do is be more specific about what I’m seeing. Instead of describing something as “colonial,” I name the architectural style, explain when the building was constructed and share some of its history. 

This gives readers more context while still leaving plenty of room to appreciate the architecture itself.

8. “Paris of the North,” “Venice of the East” and Similar Comparisons

I’ve been seeing phrases like “Paris of the North,” “Venice of the East” and “the Switzerland of Asia” more and more in travel content, and I’m not a fan of them.

One of my biggest issues with these comparisons is that they often position Western, and particularly European, places as the benchmark. Paris becomes the standard for beautiful architecture, Venice for canals, and Switzerland for mountain scenery. A place elsewhere in the world is then explained according to how much it resembles that Western reference point.

That framing can reinforce a Western gaze. It suggests that the easiest way to communicate why somewhere is interesting or beautiful is to compare it to a place Western travelers already recognize.

More generally, I don’t love comparing places this way. Every place has its own history and identity, and I think we lose some of that when we describe it as another version of somewhere else.

Like with many of the other examples in this list, I have found you can avoid using this cliché by writing with more detail and context. 

For example, if a city has an extensive canal network, I’ll explain why those canals are there and how they’re used. If its architecture stands out, I want to understand what shaped it. 

Travel Clichés That Generalize People

Some of the phrases I’m trying hardest to remove from my writing are the ones that make sweeping claims about people or entire communities.

These generalizations can sometimes sound positive, which can make them seem harmless. But even a compliment can reinforce stereotypes when we take a handful of interactions and use them to describe thousands or even millions of people. 

Saying “the people are so friendly,” for example, turns my personal experience into a statement about an entire population.

I’ve been trying to pay closer attention to when I’m doing this and stick to what I actually experienced. Usually, the specific interaction that made me feel a certain way is much more interesting to write about anyway.

9. “The Locals”

I still use the word “local.” I write about local businesses, local guides, and sometimes I’ll mention that a restaurant is popular with local residents. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the word.

What I’m more careful about is turning people into a tourism category called “the locals.” You’ll see phrases like “live like a local,” “hang out with the locals,” or “get off the tourist trail and meet the locals” all the time in travel content.

I think this language can make the people who live somewhere sound like they’re part of the experience we’re there to consume. It can also lump together a whole community of people who may have very different lives, backgrounds and perspectives.

Usually, I can just be more specific. If I met a shop owner, I can tell you about that person and our conversation. If I spend the afternoon with a guide and their family, I will name them when I have permission to do so and share what I learned from them. 

For me, it’s mostly about remembering that the people I meet while traveling have lives that have nothing to do with my trip.

10. “The People Are So Friendly”

This is a sentiment I’ve seen in blog content, social media content, and even heard in conversation. And I completely understand the instinct behind it. 

You have several really warm interactions while traveling, people help you out or make you feel welcome, and you come home remembering that.

The problem is that when we travel, we typically only interact with a tiny fraction of the people who live there. A few friendly conversations aren’t really enough for anyone to decide that an entire city, region or country shares the same personality.

And even though “friendly” is obviously meant as a compliment, it’s still a generalization. Repeating these kinds of sweeping descriptions can contribute to simplified ideas about what people from a particular place are supposedly like.

I’ve found that writing about the actual interaction works much better. Instead of saying everyone was welcoming, I can tell you that our guesthouse owner sat with us over breakfast and answered our questions for an hour. 

Sharing personal experiences explain why I felt welcomed without turning my experience into a claim about everyone who lives there.

11. “They Have So Little, but They’re So Happy”

This is one I feel particularly uncomfortable with because there are so many assumptions packed into one sentence.

First, I’m deciding that someone “has so little,” usually by comparing their home, possessions or lifestyle with what I’m accustomed to. Then I’m deciding that they’re happy, possibly because they smiled at me or seemed friendly during a brief interaction.

I don’t actually know either of those things.

I also think this kind of language can romanticize poverty. There may be real issues around income, housing, healthcare or access to services that aren’t visible to me as someone passing through a place. Describing people as happy despite having “so little” can overlook those realities and turn someone’s circumstances into a lesson for the traveler.

I’ve been trying to question my own definitions of wealth and quality of life instead. If I’m writing about socioeconomic conditions, I want to research them and provide actual context. 

And if someone tells me about their own life or how they feel about it, I can share their perspective when it’s appropriate and I have permission.

12. “A Simple Life” or “A Slower Way of Life”

I see phrases like “a simple life” and “a slower way of life” used a lot when writing about rural communities, islands and fishing villages. I’ve caught myself thinking in these terms too, especially when I’m somewhere that feels quieter than my home city, Toronto.

But I’ve started asking myself whether the community is actually moving at a slower pace, or whether it’s just that I’m moving at a slower pace because I’m there on a trip.

Someone might be heading out on a fishing boat early in the morning, running a business, caring for family or working multiple jobs. 

There can also be complicated economic and political issues affecting a small community that I would know very little about after spending a couple of days there. Calling life “simple” can overlook all of that.

There’s also a tendency in travel content to romanticize rural life because it looks different from urban life. A lack of traffic or high-rise buildings doesn’t necessarily tell me anything about how busy, difficult or complicated someone’s day is.

So I try to describe what I actually learned instead. What industries support the community? How has the community changed over time? 

If what I really mean is that my experience felt slower because I spent my mornings walking and drinking coffee instead of rushing to work, I can say that too.

That feels much more accurate than deciding that everyone who lives there has a “slower way of life.”

Travel Clichés That Can Turn Travel Into Something to Collect

The last two phrases don’t carry the same colonial undertones as some of the language above, and they aren’t making generalizations about people or cultures. But I still think they’re worth talking about because the way we frame travel matters.

Travel content can easily encourage us to think about places and experiences as things to collect, complete or cross off a list. 

I’ve been trying to move away from that framing in my own writing, especially when it creates travel FOMO (fear of missing out), pressure to see more, fit more into a trip, or treat visiting somewhere as something to accomplish.

13. “Must-See” or “Must-Do”

I used to use “must-see” and “must-do” constantly in my travel guides, and to be honest, I’m sure you could still find that phrasing in some of my older content.

It’s hard not to use the phrases because they signal that I really enjoyed something and think it’s worth considering.

But travel isn’t one-size-fits-all. Something I loved might be completely skippable for someone else. A person who loves museums may have no interest in the hike that was my favourite part of a trip. 

Someone else might have limited mobility, be traveling with kids, or simply want a less packed itinerary.

I also think all the “musts” in travel content can contribute to travel FOMO. When every attraction is described as something you absolutely have to see, it’s easy to feel like you’re doing a trip wrong if you skip something or don’t fit enough into your itinerary.

So in my writing, I’ve been trying to explain why I recommend something instead. I can tell you what I enjoyed, how much time I spent there, what the experience involves, and anything else that might help you decide if it interests you.

14. “Bucket List”

I’ve gradually stopped using “bucket list” because I don’t love the way it can frame travel as a collection of places and experiences to complete.

You visit somewhere, cross it off the list, and start thinking about what’s next. That mindset can also show up when we talk about having “done” a country after spending a few days there, or count how many countries we’ve visited as a measure of how well-traveled we are.

To be fair, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with keeping a list of places you’d like to visit. I have plenty of places I’m excited to visit myself. For me, it’s more about questioning the idea that travel needs to be completed or collected.

I’ve found that visiting somewhere often does the opposite anyway. I leave realizing how much I didn’t see, or learn about another region I’d like to visit.

When I’m planning trips, I often find that I want to return to a place I’ve already been rather than going somewhere new.

So these days, I tend to talk about places I’m interested in visiting and explain what’s drawing me there. It feels closer to how I actually think about travel than treating each trip as another item to cross off a list.

How to Avoid Travel Clichés in Your Writing

When I started thinking more critically about travel clichés, it was easy to approach the issue like an editing exercise. I would find the problematic word, delete it, and try to replace it with a different one.

But I quickly learned that it’s often not that simple. The word itself might only be part of the problem. If I replace “untouched” with another adjective but still write about a landscape as though people have never lived there or cared for that land, I haven’t really changed much. 

The same goes for swapping “the locals” for “residents” if I’m still making a generalization about an entire community based on a few interactions.

So instead of focusing only on a list of words I should or shouldn’t use, I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the thinking behind my writing. 

When I catch myself reaching for a cliché, I ask what I’m actually trying to communicate, whether I have enough context to make the claim, and where my interpretation is coming from.

These are some of the practices that have helped me do that.

Write With Specificity

Vague travel writing is where stereotypes can creep in easily. If I write that a place is “wild and remote,” I’ve communicated very little.

Maybe what I actually mean is that the nearest major town is a three-hour drive away. Maybe there are no paved roads. Perhaps I spent two days hiking through the forest without seeing another group.

Those details give the reader something concrete.

The same principle applies when writing about culture. Name the tradition you’re discussing. Explain where the information came from. Be precise about which community you’re referring to rather than turning one observation into a statement about an entire country.

Ground Your Writing in Your Own Experience

I’ve become much more intentional about writing from what I actually saw, heard and experienced.

That means saying “I felt welcomed” rather than declaring an entire population welcoming. If someone teaches me something, I try to explain who I learned it from.

When I’m sharing my interpretation, I want the reader to know that it is my interpretation.

I don’t think that this weakens travel writing. I think it makes the writing more credible because the reader understands where the information came from.

Replace Clichés With Context

Whenever I catch myself typing something like “authentic” or “hidden gem,” I ask what I’m actually trying to communicate.

There’s usually a more interesting answer hiding underneath the cliché.

Maybe the historic district contains buildings dating to a particular period that have been preserved through a conservation program. Or perhaps the hiking area receives relatively few visitors because there is no public transportation.

Context gives the reader concrete information, which the cliché can’t.

Think About Whose Perspective You’re Centring

This has probably been the biggest shift in how I think about travel writing. Travel content tends to centre us, the travelers. I try to notice when I’m describing a community mainly according to what it gave me.

Sometimes that framing makes sense because I am writing information for other travelers. But when I’m writing about someone’s culture or community, I think there’s value in widening the frame.

For example, I might describe a town as “remote” because it took me several hours to get there. But that’s describing the town in relation to where I came from. The people who live there may not think of their home as remote at all.

I also think about this when I’m writing about affordability, food, traditions, or everyday life. 

Am I deciding something is cheap because it’s cheap compared to what I pay in Canada? Am I describing a tradition as unusual simply because it’s unfamiliar to me? Am I focusing on the parts of a community that were most interesting or photogenic to me while overlooking what matters to the people who actually live there?

I still write from my own perspective, and I think that’s an important part of my work. I just try to be clear about when something is my experience or interpretation, rather than presenting my perspective as the definitive story of a place.

Question Your Assumptions

Travel constantly puts us in situations where things work differently than we’re used to. When something feels strange, inefficient or unusual to me, I try to remember that I’m interpreting it through my own cultural norms.

That doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions about my experiences. It just means I should try to understand what I’m looking at before deciding what it says about an entire culture.

Sometimes I need to ask someone, like a guide. Other times, I need to do more research. I might learn that something I initially thought was inconvenient makes sense once I understand the history or context behind it.

I also try to notice when I’m treating the way things work at home as the default. What feels unusual to me might be completely ordinary to someone who lives there. That distinction seems obvious, but I think it’s surprisingly easy to forget when we’re traveling.

And sometimes, after asking questions and doing the research, I realize I simply don’t have enough context to make the observation I was planning to make. In those cases, I think it’s best to leave it out.

A Quick Framework I Use When Editing Travel Content

Instead of asking “what word should I use instead?”, I find these questions more helpful:

• What am I actually trying to describe?
• Is this something I observed personally, or am I making a broader claim?
• Where did I learn this information?
• Whose perspective does this sentence centre?
• Am I treating my cultural norms as the default?
• Have I generalized a community based on a small number of interactions?
• Am I overlooking the people or history connected to this place?
• Would more specific information make the cliché unnecessary?

I don’t run through every question every time I write a sentence, these are just things I’ve become more aware of with practice, as I write (and talk) about travel.

I’m Still Learning How to Write About Travel Responsibly

I don’t have a perfect vocabulary for writing about travel, and I don’t think one exists. I’ve used many of the travel clichés in this article myself. If you go back far enough through Pina Travels, I’m sure you’ll find old articles where some of them still appear.

My approach has changed as I’ve learned more. I’ve also become much more aware of the influence travel writers and content creators can have on how people understand a place, especially when our content might be someone’s first introduction to it.

For me, writing about travel more responsibly isn’t about getting every word exactly right. We all make mistakes. I’m more interested in questioning the framing behind what I’m saying and being willing to change how I write when I learn something new.

I’m sure five years from now I’ll look back at some of the things I’m writing today and find things I would write differently. That’s just part of the process!

I hope that this list is helpful in understanding travel clichés and why they should be avoided. And if you have a cliché you’ve noticed yourself, and want to share it with me, email me at erin@pinatravels.org! 

Want to learn more? On my podcast Curious Tourism, I interviewed Vincie Ho, a linguist, educator, social justice advocate, and the founder of RISE Travel Institute, about how to responsibly share your travels. You can listen to the episode, right here.

If you enjoyed this blog, you’ll love my newsletter, as well as my Facebook group. You’re welcome to join these communities – would love to see you there!

More from Pina Travels on responsible tourism:

• What is Economic Leakage in Tourism (& How to Prevent It)
• Why is Sustainable Tourism Important?
• 10 Helpful Tips For Responsible Wildlife Tourism