When we talk about a "travel book" we normally mean a book about somebody's travels, or a book about a particular destination or route. Asking students to write a travel book in that sense would not be much different from asking for an essay and may not inspire any bright ideas. However, what if we ask the students to help us create a different sort of travel book: a book that has really travelled?

The basic idea here is that you get a notebook, or a bunch of notebooks, and give them to students with the instruction that they must take them with them to some location (perhaps a holiday destination or a fieldcourse venue) and put something into their book actually at the place that it refers to. This could be a simple description such as " I am at the Eiffel Tower..." (so long as they and their book were actually at the Eiffel Tower when the student wrote the entry), or something more exciting such as a muddy fingerprint with a label: "mud from the flower beds beneath the Eiffel Tower", or a ticket stapled to the page... whatever the student can think of. You want to choose a small but sturdy notebook. One with an elastic strap and a pocket for scaps of paper would be ideal.

The student brings the book back after their trip and puts it back into your "library" of travel books. The next year, or semester, or week (depending on the scale of your project) you give that same book to a different student to take on another trip. It is really important that the book goes on the trip and that entries are made in situ at the locations. This is not a book that was filled in at home after the excursion. This book actually travels.

After a few trips the book - possible tattered and torn - will show the signs of having lived a traveller's life and can be used to inspire students to imagine its journeys and to think about the dfferences between travel and mere reports of travel; between experience, recording and reporting... there are a lot of different directions that you can go in with this game! For students who are not immediately inspired by the notion of "literary geographies" you could use this as a practical introduction, having them experience the landscape and record the experience, in a way that appeals to them, in this book. If it goes well students will soon be discussing the drawbacks and limitations of paper media and asking to repeat the exercise with a digital notebook... which will probably be their smartphone and something like Evernote! But I am old fashioned and I like to start them off with a paper notebook... it does have advantages.

When I start off a new book I write a short introductory explanation at the front. In the example I am looking at now, I wrote:

To the book's companions: Please take this book WITH you on your journey. Write in it only at the places you are writing about. Don't fill it in later, but write it live, in the field. The book itself must have seen what you have seen and been where you have been... This first mark is a smudge of Earth from Keele... home!"

I tell my students that when you shake a real travel book, faded steamer tickets and diamond-shaped baggage labels should slip out from between cinnamon scented pages. The book should carry the souvenirs of its travels as jewels of prose, and as incense in the aroma of the binding. The spine should have been restitched by an eskimo girl, using lengths of her own hair as thread, and you should still be able to smell the seal oil from that final night together in the igloo. They look at me as if I am nuts, but some of them do come back with very interesting notebooks.