Travel Collocations ESL Lesson Plan – Teach English Through Real Adventures

Why Travel Is a Perfect Topic for ESL Learners

Ask any student what they’d do if they won the lottery, and travel is usually top of the list. It’s a topic full of excitement, stories and culture – perfect for encouraging learners to speak from real experience.

The Travel Collocations ESL lesson plan taps into this passion while helping students learn natural English phrases like book accommodation, try local cuisine, and make memories. Whether they’re beginners at exploring or seasoned globetrotters, everyone has something to say about travel – and that makes this a winning lesson.

We’ve also created a range of Travel ESL Lesson Plans that take students around the world — from Japan and South Korea to Morocco and Turkey. These lessons build language skills while immersing learners in culture, food, and real-world travel scenarios.

What’s in the Travel Collocations ESL Lesson Plan?

This intermediate (B1–B2) lesson plan from Wellbeing English is designed to build vocabulary and fluency through useful, real-world language. It includes:

• Engaging warm-up questions like “What’s your most memorable trip?”

• A definition-matching activity with travel words like itinerary, souvenir and local cuisine

• Collocation matching to build natural phrases

• Sentence transformation and gap-fill exercises

• Speaking practice to use collocations in context

• A fun tense challenge to review grammar
  

Students don’t just memorise words – they use them in meaningful ways.

If you want to expand beyond collocations, try one of our country-specific travel lessons. Students can learn about the food in Cambodia, landmarks in Laos, or exploring traditions in Singapore, Malaysia, or the Philippines. Each lesson comes with practical vocabulary, speaking activities, and cultural insights.

Why Collocations Matter in ESL Lessons

Learning vocabulary is great, but knowing how words fit together in real speech is even better. That’s where collocations come in.

This travel collocations ESL lesson plan helps learners:

• Sound more fluent and natural

• Boost their confidence in speaking and writing

• Prepare for real-world travel conversations (or daydream about them!)
  

Collocations pair beautifully with real-world contexts. For example, in our France Travel ESL Lesson, students learn to “book accommodation,” “sample local cuisine,” and “plan an itinerary” while talking about French culture. In our Sri Lanka Travel ESL Lesson, learners practise natural dialogues about exploring landmarks and tasting traditional food, making language learning feel authentic and memorable.

Bonus Speaking Prompts to Spark Travel Talk

Here are a few extra questions you can use in class (or even post in your classroom or online group) to keep the conversation flowing:

• Have you ever caught a flight at the very last minute?

• What’s the most unusual local cuisine you’ve ever tried?

• What kind of souvenirs do you usually buy?

• Do you prefer to plan an itinerary or travel spontaneously?

• Would you rather explore the street food of Malaysia or the spice markets of Morocco?

• If you had two weeks in Japan, which cities would you visit?
  

These pair perfectly with the collocations from the lesson and work well for both group and pair work.

Try the Lesson & Share Your Travel Story

🌍 Ready to bring travel and culture into your classroom? Start with our Travel Collocations ESL Lesson Plan, then explore our destination lessons: Japan, South Korea, Morocco, Turkey, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, France & Sri Lanka.

Each plan is packed with real-world language, cultural insights, and engaging speaking practice. Perfect for sparking wanderlust and fluency at the same time!