Speaking Part 2 · PlacesIn the May–Aug 2026 forecast
Describe a Place You Visited on Holiday
In short
“Describe a Place You Visited on Holiday” is a common IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card. You get 1 minute to prepare and should speak for 1–2 minutes, covering all four points below. This page gives you a Band 9 model answer, an idea map so you can make it your own, the Part 3 follow-up questions with answers, and the vocabulary examiners reward.
The task card
Describe a Place You Visited on Holiday. You should say:
- •Where this place is
- •When you went there
- •What you did there
- •And explain why you enjoyed it
Band 9 model answer
I'd like to describe a small hill town called Munnar, which is up in the Western Ghats in southern India. It's a few hours inland from the coast, tucked away among tea plantations, and it's the kind of place that feels a world away from the city I live in.
I went there a couple of years ago, during the monsoon season, with two close friends. That timing is a bit unusual because most people avoid the rain, but honestly it turned out to be the best part — everything was impossibly green and the whole valley kept drifting in and out of the mist.
As for what we did, we mostly took it slow. We walked for hours through the tea estates, visited a small plantation where they showed us how the leaves are processed, and spent a fair amount of time just sitting on the balcony of our little guesthouse with a cup of local tea, watching the clouds roll down the hills. One morning we hiked up to a viewpoint before sunrise, which was genuinely breathtaking.
The reason I enjoyed it so much really comes down to the contrast with my everyday life. I live in a fast, noisy city, and Munnar was the exact opposite — quiet, unhurried, and completely off the beaten track. It gave me a proper chance to unwind and recharge my batteries in a way a busy tourist trap never could.
Looking back, what stays with me isn't any single landmark but the overall feeling of calm. I think that's why I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get away from it all rather than tick sights off a list — and it's definitely a place I'd love to go back to.
Make it your own: three angles
A quiet nature spot
A hill town, lake, or national park lets you lean on scenery adjectives and the "escape from city life" angle — easy to fill two minutes.
A coastal / beach trip
Great for sensory description and relaxation vocabulary; works for "why you enjoyed it" via the unwinding angle.
A historic city
Strong for culture and landmarks, but be careful not to just list places — tie each to something you felt or did.
What the examiner is listening for
Describing a place rewards vivid, precise adjectives and confident past tenses — but don't just list features. Pick two or three details and expand them, then give the whole thing shape by ending on why it mattered to you. Sensory language ('green', 'misty', 'quiet') shows lexical range better than naming lots of sights.
Part 1 warm-up questions
- Do you like travelling?
- What kinds of places do you like to visit?
- Do you prefer the seaside or the mountains?
- Do people in your country travel a lot?
Part 3 follow-up questions & answers
Why do people like to travel?
For lots of reasons — to relax, to experience a different culture, or simply to break the routine. I think the deeper motivation is often a change of perspective; stepping outside your familiar environment makes you notice things about your own life you'd normally overlook.
Do you think tourism benefits local communities?
It can bring real benefits — jobs, investment, and pride in local heritage. But it's a double-edged sword: over-tourism can push up prices for residents and strain the environment. The key is managing the numbers so the community gains more than it loses.
Has the way people travel changed in recent years?
Enormously. Budget airlines and online booking have made travel far more accessible, and social media now heavily shapes where people go. There's also a growing awareness of the environmental cost, so some travellers are starting to choose slower, more local trips.
Is it better to travel domestically or abroad?
They serve different purposes. Domestic travel is cheaper, easier, and supports your own economy, while going abroad exposes you to genuinely different cultures and languages. Ideally people would do both, but I'd say a first-time traveller often gets more from exploring their own country first.
How does tourism affect the environment?
Often negatively — air travel produces significant emissions, and popular sites suffer from litter, erosion, and overcrowding. That said, well-managed eco-tourism can actually fund conservation and give locals a financial reason to protect natural areas, so the impact isn't uniformly bad.
Do you think young people benefit from travelling?
Definitely. Travelling young builds independence, adaptability, and confidence in unfamiliar situations, and it tends to make people more open-minded about other cultures. Those are exactly the qualities that are hard to teach in a classroom but valuable for the rest of life.
Useful vocabulary
| Word / phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| off the beaten track | away from where most tourists go |
| breathtaking | extremely beautiful or impressive |
| to get away from it all | to escape your normal, busy life |
| picturesque | pretty, like a picture |
| to unwind | to relax after stress or work |
| a tourist trap | a crowded, over-commercialised place aimed at tourists |
| a landmark | a famous or easily recognised feature of a place |
| hospitality | friendly, generous treatment of guests |
| scenery | the natural features of a landscape |
| to recharge your batteries | to rest and get your energy back |
More cue cards
Describe Something You Bought Recently
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