Describe a long journey where the travelling itself was the best part.
A card about a road trip, train ride, ferry crossing or long bus journey where the hours in transit mattered more than the place you reached. Keep the destination in the background; the card is about everything in between.
The task card
Describe a long journey where the travelling itself was the best part.
You should say:
- where you were going and why
- how you travelled and who with
- what happened along the way
and explain why the journey meant more to you than arriving.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Give the purpose and route in a sentence or two — 'an overnight ferry to an island where a friend had found summer work' — and then leave the destination alone. Candidates often drift into describing the place they arrived at, which answers a different card.
For 'how you travelled and who with', add one practical detail that sets the scene: the sleeper berth, the bus with a window that would not close, the ferry deck in the wind. The company matters too, because it is often the real reason the time felt well spent.
'What happened along the way' works best as a sequence of two or three moments: the landscape changing, a conversation with a stranger, a stop for food. Use time markers — 'by mid-afternoon', 'somewhere after midnight' — so the listener can feel the journey moving.
The final bullet asks you to compare the travelling with the arrival, so be concrete: the time to talk, the feeling of distance being real, the things a quicker route would have skipped. One honest discomfort — the cramped seat, the heat — makes the enjoyment more believable.
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
I'd like to describe a journey I made last spring, when I helped my older brother move to a new city for his job. It was about eleven hundred kilometres, and instead of flying and sending his things separately, we decided, slightly foolishly, to drive everything there ourselves in a borrowed van. We left at five in the morning with the van packed to the roof — his bed, boxes of books and, for some reason, three pot plants he refused to leave behind. The radio lost its signal every half an hour, so for most of the way it was simply the two of us talking. The landscape changed slowly over the day: flat wheat fields in the morning, dry, rocky hills by the afternoon, and then, just as the sun was going down, our first glimpse of the sea. We ate at roadside dhabas, those simple truck-stop restaurants, and the best food was always in the least impressive places. At one stop a lorry driver struck up a conversation with us and insisted on drawing a shortcut on a paper napkin. We didn't take it, but I've still got the napkin. The van was uncomfortable, and my back hurt for two days afterwards, but that hardly mattered. My brother and I hadn't spent that much time together since we were kids. With no screens and nothing to do but drive, we talked about everything — our parents, his worries about the new job, things we'd never really said to each other. A flight would have got us there in two hours and skipped all of it. When we finally pulled up outside his building, a little before midnight, I remember feeling almost disappointed that it was over.
Why this works: The destination is mentioned once and then deliberately left alone, exactly as the card requires. Time markers ('in the morning', 'by the afternoon', 'just as the sun was going down') move the journey forward, and the napkin map is a memorable concrete detail. The final bullet is answered without a set-piece question: the sore back makes the claim credible, and the comparison with a two-hour flight shows what the slow route gave them.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- the landscape gradually changed
Good for showing time passing during a long journey.
- to strike up a conversation
To start talking to someone you do not know.
- to stretch our legs
To walk around after sitting for a long time.
- a roadside stop
A simple place to eat or rest beside a main road.
- to lose track of time
To stop noticing how much time has passed.
- the journey was half the fun
Natural phrase for enjoying the travelling, not only the arrival.
- to watch the world go by
To relax and observe without needing to do anything.
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
- 1Why do some people prefer to travel slowly, by road or rail, rather than fly?
- 2How has cheap air travel changed the way people go on holiday?
- 3Should governments invest more in long-distance trains?
- 4What can travellers do to reduce the environmental impact of their journeys?
- 5Do people notice less on journeys now because of their phones?
- 6Will long-distance travel become more or less common in the future?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Places. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.