It was the last album with founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware, as they would leave to form Heaven 17 later that year.

For Travelogue, the band worked with a new co-producer, Richard Manwaring, who in 1981 produced OMD's platinum-selling Architecture & Morality and Heaven 17's Penthouse and Pavement.

When they began to make a commercial impact the following year, Travelogue re-entered the chart in August 1981 for a further 33 weeks, and was certified Gold by the BPI in May 1982.

The sleeve repurposes a photo, "Sunset Silhouettes Trapper and Dogs Crossing Saganagons Lake, Ontario", which featured in a 1962 edition of the National Geographic magazine.

Similarly, the Australian issue also featured a different track listing, though the original sleeve and song titles were retained for this release: "Being Boiled", "The Black Hit of Space", "Only After Dark", "Life Kills", "Dreams of Leaving" b/w "Crow and a Baby", "The Touchables", "Rock 'N' Roll", "Marianne" (alternate version), "Gordon's Gin", "WXJL Tonight".