IELTS travel and tourism vocabulary

Travel and tourism are friendly IELTS topics that appear often in Speaking Part 1 and Part 2: describe a memorable journey, a place you would like to visit, or a souvenir you bought. In Writing Task 2, the questions become more serious, asking whether mass tourism harms local communities or whether international travel is still necessary in a digital age.

This deck groups vocabulary for planning, making and talking about trips. For the basics, learn travel, trip, journey, tour, holiday, vacation and destination. These are not interchangeable: a journey is the act of travelling from one place to another, a trip is a short visit somewhere and back, and holiday is the usual British word for time off, where Americans say vacation. For flights, you have passenger, flight, airline, airport, luggage, passport and visa.

To describe places, use landmark, monument, heritage, resort, sightseeing and exotic. Heritage is particularly useful in essays about protecting historic sites: "Tourism can fund the protection of heritage sites, but too many visitors may damage them." For experiences, learn explore, adventure, backpacker, itinerary, guide, local and cuisine, the style of cooking of a particular place.

Notice useful collocations: you go abroad (without "to"), book a flight, check in at the airport, go sightseeing and try the local cuisine. Abroad is an adverb, so "I studied abroad" is correct, while "I went to abroad" is a common mistake that examiners notice.

In Writing Task 2, balance is important. Tourism brings jobs and income to local communities, but it can also raise prices, create noise and damage fragile places. Practise linking advantages and disadvantages in one sentence: "Although tourism creates jobs, it can damage heritage sites if visitor numbers are not controlled."