Are you travelling anytime soon? If so, where are you going on your trip? I hope the journey goes well and that you have a great time.
Did you note how I used the words? I used “travel” as a verb and the other two words as nouns. That is the first major difference and how we use them most often.
Now, let’s explore each word, beginning with “travel.”
Travel
“Travel” is a verb that means “to go to a place and especially one that is far away.” Far can mean long distances within the same country or to other countries.
For instance:
I have a friend who travels abroad a lot for work.
“Travel” can also be a noun that relates the act of going from one to another:
Travelling alone with 2 small children is not easy.
Here the verb is a gerund and therefore it can be used as a noun.
A common mistake with “travel” is confusing it with “trip,” like this:
I bought this souvenir on my travel to Japan. Here we need to use trip instead.
Trip
Now let’s look at trip:
The word “trip” is a noun that means “the act of going to another place and returning.”
For example:
I bought this souvenir on my trip to Japan.
We also often use the verbs “go on” or “take” with “trip,” like this:
I took a long trip to the South of France last year.
We also say things like “day trip,” “business trip,” and “road trip” to describe different kinds of trips.
We do not use the word as a verb for travel. When ‘trip’ is a verb it is used to mean that you stumble across an obstacle.
Now let’s look at journey:
Journey
The word “journey” is a noun that means “the act of going from one place to another.”
For example:
I hate long car journeys.
Have a safe journey!
It’s a 2 hour train journey from York to London.
Note the difference between trip and journey:
The journey to London took 3 hours by train.
Our trip to London was fantastic.
So the first is talking about going from A to B: the travelling time. If using a verb without saying how long we could say we travelled to London by train.
The second is talking about the whole holiday, period away.
Be sure to check out my YouTube live video where I explained the difference between these commonly confused 3 words: