IELTS Speaking Part 3: Travelling, rest
4 Part 3 discussion questions on travelling, rest, with developed sample answers of the kind Part 3 expects.
Why do some people prefer to travel in their own country rather than going abroad?
For a great many people it boils down to cost, because a domestic trip strips away the priciest elements of travelling altogether. You're not shelling out for international flights, visa fees or the hidden losses that come with every currency exchange, so the same budget stretches into a considerably longer holiday. Someone from Baku can spend a week in Gabala for what two nights in a European capital would cost, and still come home feeling thoroughly refreshed. The other major draw is how effortless it feels, since travelling at home strips out almost all the friction that makes foreign trips so wearing. There's no language barrier, no unfamiliar transport system to decode, and no nagging anxiety about whether your documents are in order at the border. That matters enormously to families with young children, who'd far rather channel their energy into enjoying the place than wrestling with logistics.
Some people don't like to travel abroad. Why?
A fair number of people simply can't stomach the mechanics of getting somewhere far away. Long-haul flights, transfers at three in the morning and days lost to jet lag turn what should be a relaxing break into an endurance test, and by the time you've recovered, the trip is half over. I've got a colleague who flew to Southeast Asia once, spent four days feeling wretched and swore he'd never do it again. The deeper reason, though, is that being abroad strips away the sense of control people rely on to unwind. You can't decipher the signs, you're never quite sure what you're ordering, and small hiccups like a missed bus become genuinely stressful when you can't explain yourself. For someone whose idea of rest is a familiar routine and food they actually enjoy, that constant low-level alertness is the very opposite of a holiday. They'd rather stay somewhere they can genuinely switch off, even if that means seeing far less of the world than they otherwise might.
Why do people choose to travel or live abroad?
Most of it comes down to opportunity, because relocating abroad is often the fastest route to things that simply aren't on offer at home. Salaries, research funding and university programmes vary enormously between countries, so a young engineer can multiply their local earnings while receiving far superior training at the same time. That's why so many students here head to Turkey or Germany for a master's degree and end up staying for the job market rather than the diploma itself. The second pull is far more personal, and it's about wanting to be reshaped by somewhere unfamiliar. Living inside another culture, rather than merely visiting it, forces you to question habits you'd never even noticed were choices, from how you argue to how you spend a Sunday. People come back considerably more adaptable, usually with a second language and a far broader sense of what a normal life can look like.
How has the way people travel changed over the past few decades?
The biggest shift is that travel has stopped being a rare luxury and become something ordinary people do as a matter of course. Budget airlines and open borders have driven prices down so sharply that a weekend abroad can cost less than a decent dinner out, and destinations once considered exotic now draw millions of visitors a year. My parents' generation scrimped for years towards one trip abroad, whereas people my age take three or four short breaks without giving it much thought. What's changed just as dramatically is that travellers now arrange everything themselves rather than handing it over to an agency. You book the flight, the flat and the airport transfer from your phone in twenty minutes, trawl through strangers' reviews before picking a restaurant, and navigate a foreign city with a map that talks you through it. That independence has made trips far more personal, though it's also why everyone ends up converging on the same photogenic spots.
Reading a model answer is not the same as saying one. The sample above shows what a strong Part 3 answer sounds like. What it cannot tell you is how yours sounds — whether you hesitate, repeat the question back, or run out of things to say at forty seconds.
You can record an answer to this exact question and get it marked on fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and pronunciation — the same four criteria the examiner uses.
Common questions
How is Part 3 different from Part 1?
Part 1 is about you; Part 3 is about people in general. The questions move to society, causes and consequences, and the answers are expected to be longer and more developed — an opinion plus a reason plus an example, rather than two sentences.
What if I have no opinion on the question?
You are not marked on the opinion, so pick one and support it. Saying you have never thought about it and stopping there leaves the examiner nothing to assess.
How long does Part 3 last?
Four to five minutes. The topics develop out of your Part 2 card, so the discussion is usually connected to what you just described.
Model answers written and reviewed by The English All-in-One IELTS team. They are teaching models showing what each band looks like, not real candidate scripts.