This paper examines the approaches to travel writing in Isabella L. Bird’s The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither. There are various approaches adapted by travel writers, such as nature, ideas on home, notions of space, ethnography and others. This paper studies the historical factors as well as the cultural or ethnographical factors evident in The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither. Extracts and instances in the travel writing shall be explicated to strengthen the view on the approaches in the work. The two main approaches in travel writing that shall be explained in the light of the literature are the notion of space, or discovering of places not known to the European world and representing the ethnography of the Malay Peninsula.