In this article, Borm surveys the differences between the terms 'travel book', 'travel narrative', journey work', 'travel memoir', 'travel story', 'travelogue', 'metatravelogue', 'travellers' tales', 'travel journal', or simply 'travels', 'travel writing' and 'travel literature', 'the literature of travel', and 'the travel genre' (p. 13).

The present paper uses an interdisciplinary approach between genre analysis, comparative philology, and historical pragmatics to highlight the early modern travel genres (1400-1700). The paper adopts a cross-cultural and a cross-linguistic perspective on the English travel journal and the Arabic rihla genres. These travel genres are problematic texts. They are hybrid genres. They have been, traditionally, studied either as an ethnographic record or as a historical document. However, the aim of this paper is to pinpoint the English and Arabic travel genres as autobiographical texts, self-narratives, or egodocuments. (1)