There's a lot of latitude in the way that a good trip report can be written, but there's a huge percentage of people that write poor trip reports (ISG is particularly bad for this). Mostly that's because people forget what brought them to the website in question in the first place, or because a lack of breadth of experience hasn't yet taught them what the priorities should be or what content is the most valuable in a trip report. Every single person on this and every other monger forum in existence first came to said forum for a reason. The reason was to get more information about a destination, whatever that destination might be, and to find out what they needed to know to successfully navigate the geographical, logistical, financial and criminal/mental/emotional obstacles of each place in order to have a richer experience. I'm gonna talk about it a bit, and it may be long winded, so I apologize in advance. What I'm writing about applies to all monger venues, and all monger boards, not just to this board, and not just to the DR, where especially in Sosua the focus can be narrower. If you already know everything then you can skip right over this. If you're like me and you continue to try to learn stuff all the time then benefit from my experience, in much the same way that I continue to benefit from guys who know more than I do. There's lots of beginners here, so hopefully the investment of a few minutes will help all of us.
In life, there are certain priorities. You must breathe and your heart must beat, you must have air and water, then food, then shelter. Once you have those things then you can concentrate on padding out your life with luxuries and filling the spaces with the non-essential things that turn pure survival into a pleasant life. Mongering is the same way. Every single monger I know has had the following experience, without exception: You're interested in going to a monger destination, you go to a new site, and you start looking for information. You find out the site is full of guys who know each other, banter about stuff, make jokes etc, but you don't care about that. You want information. They use local abbreviations you don't understand. They make references to things that you have to read entire sites to understand. They post things that don't help you with even the most basic enquiries you have, or because they're so basic no one has bothered to update information for years. In short, you're looking for air and water but the site members are talking about silk throw cushions. Information is scattered and hard to find, because there's so much more commentary then there is information, which is what you came looking for in the first place. It's frustrating and incredibly time consuming
OK, so many people incorrectly assume that a trip report is about sharing the story of your trip with your brother mongers. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't really matter what you did or whether you had fun or not. We all hope you had fun, but it's irrelevant to our primary (air and water) goals. Bear with me, a minute. I'm not really as fun hating as I sound here.
The main purpose of a trip report is to share actionable information with your brothers, things that they can take and use on their own trips. Every monger leverages their information onto the information of others and creates a greater and clearer picture of the venue with every report posted. The purpose of a monger board is to provide a gathering site where that information can be centralized and shared. If you're not doing that then you're not doing it right. Now, lest you all think I'm taking all of the fun out of this let me carry on and say that the artistry of writing a good trip report is to make it entertaining as well as informative. Your air & water purpose in writing a trip report is to share what you learned on your latest trip, be it prices, locations, how-to's, things to be aware of, dangers, benefits etc. Once you've got the air and water out of the way then you have room for silk throw pillows like photos, details of sexual encounters, general impressions, reviews of girls (in compounds this might be air and water information) etc etc. A great many reports go straight to the silk throw pillows without first providing the necessities of mongering life.
OK, so you got the info out of the way, does that mean you can't have fun too? Of course not! Tell stories, glorify a fat ass, share your pics and flesh out the report so that it's not just a chore either to write or to read. Good trip reports are hard work, so there should be a reward at the end for everyone involved.
Ok, so having said all of this, here's some pointers (Call it Shadow's 10 pointers) to writing a good trip report:
1) Don't be embarassed about mistakes. We've all made tons of them and everyone will admit to (at least some) of them. Be honest, be frank, and you will both help newbies avoid the same mistakes and allow the more experienced people an opportunity to provide input that will ultimately be helpful to everyone who reads the report in preventing them from making the same mistakes. Small mistakes are inevitable, but hopefully newbies can be saved from the world shattering ones that are trip ending, marriage ending, or end up with the monger in jail or the hospital, for example. Small ones avoided boost the relative level of expertise too.Think of it like golf. People that shoot 120 have no problem dropping 10 strokes off their game if they take a couple of lessons. Guys who shoot 70's struggle to make incremental improvements of a stroke or two, but it's all an advancement in learning. Learning from mistakes is much more important than celebrating the triumphs. Don't be afraid to share, and if we snicker occasionally it's only because we've made that same mistake ourselves.
2) Assume that the person reading your report knows nothing. This is extremely hard to do, because some things just flow automatically and it's hard to take a step back and read your own material that way, but try. The people with the biggest incremental learning jumps are the beginners who know nothing. Let's make it as easy as we can for them. Bear in mind that when I say beginners I don't just mean new mongers, but might also mean an experienced monger entering a new destination. Mongering cultures vary as widely as the number of places there are to visit.
3) Think about your trip in segments, and then think about what you did and what you learned in each segment. Many useful bits of information that you take for granted are nuggets of gold for the reader. Methods of finding a taxi, costs of transport or food, Club entry costs, little short cuts, opportunities and dangers etc,etc.. What did you get? What did you spend? How does something work? What did you learn that could be useful to someone that has never been there or done that? Write that down
4) Be careful to distinguish between what you know and what you've heard. Hearsay and rumour are rampant in the mongering world. If you don't know it for sure then say so, and identify it as rumour. Everybody hates to cross town to get to a venue only to find out that it's been closed for three months or hasn't even opened yet, as an example. Trafficking in rumours about girls or fellow mongers is a sure way to trouble as well. If it's not fact verifiable by you as fact then don't pass it off as fact.
5) A trip report is not one continuous unbroken paragraph. Nothing is less pleasant to read than a rambling paragraph with no end. Separate your ideas. We'll all thank you.
6) Organize your thoughts. If you have trouble doing this then take notes as you go along on your trip. Some guys keep short diaries or notes just to remind them what they did day to day.Too much back and forth can make following a report difficult and can make the context of the information you share difficult to understand or even contradictory. I do this sometimes because my nights can tend to blur sometimes. Details can be lost and I like to drink, so... Whatever helps you.
7) Photos. This is a contentious subject, insofar as whether certain girls should be posted or not, promises kept, etc. I won't get into that. What I will say is post whatever you feel comfortable posting in the way of girls photos, BUT, photos of girls are the silk throw pillows again, unless you're doing a girl review. We all love to see photos of good looking girls, but often people omit photos of things that would be more useful to more mongers over the long run. In Latin America things can be hard to find and identify. Massage parlours may just be an open doorway with no signage, for example. Referring back to #3, consider whether a photo of something in that segment might be useful to someone who has never been there and done that before. This could be showing what an MP looks like, what different hotel rooms look like, what bar owners/managers look like, or even what girls look like under certain circumstances. People new to a venue or city are most grateful for these kinds of photos above all others. If you have this covered then add whatever else you want to that you think is fun or interesting or tasty looking (for the food photographers) and that you want to include to flesh out your report

Prices. If you haven't already gathered it from your reading, everybody wants to know what the prices for P4P are, or the cost of hotels, or meals, taxis or transfers, basic services, etc. Prices change all the time, so you can keep updating prices all the time, and it will continue to be useful, even if someone else has already done so. You'll be confirming prices, comparing prices, or exposing gringo pricing or great deals. Pricing info is always useful.
9) Share impressions and opinions. We all realize this is subjective, but it helps paint a picture if you talk about atmosphere, service, comfort or lack of, potential time needed to do things, etc.
10) Make a note of services, like ATMs, cash changers, pharmacies, chica friendly hotels, taxis, bus stops, restaurants, supermarkets. Where useful provide addresses and phone numbers if you have them. To the best of your ability explain not just what things are, but how they work. This is incredibly useful for people in a new culture trying to learn a new system. Public transportation is often the trickiest aspect of arriving at a new destination, so pay particular attention to this.
If I'm making this sound like you need to write a book then let me say to you that that's not the case. I'm suggesting things in each area that if you have access to then you can add. I wouldn't expect everyone to put everything in all the time. I'm suggesting only that you be aware of what can be helpful to others, and I'm leaving the artistry you use to put it all together up to you, as well as what level of detail you want to go into. What I am saying is that if all you're doing is writing a diary of how you picked up this chick and screwed her, and she came, and then the next noght you picked up another chick, and you fucked her, and came on her face, then you're basically wasting everyone's time. While there is a value in adding entertainment to a trip report, and all trip reports should be fun, remember the prime directive! Air and water before silk throw pillows. Be a brother, and help your brothers out.
Happy mongering!
Linkback: https://ifoundthechicas.com/general-discussion-members-just-shooting-the-breeze/1/shadows-guide-to-writing-a-good-trip-report/6867/