Creative Writers – Learn Travel Writing

Creative writers have perfect opportunities for travel writing, and usually don’t take advantage of it. Why? Perhaps because it takes extra time. Perhaps because they have never done it before and they feel a bit intimidated. Perhaps it is none of the above. Perhaps it is just laziness.
What about you? Travel writing is available to everyone – even those who do not travel. The trick is to look at commonplace locations as though you are seeing them for the first time. Determine to let the reader see it through your eyes.
Start reading travel magazines and pay close attention to how the articles are written. Choose the magazine that uses articles similar to your writing. Do they use a lot of interviews? Pictures? Quotes?
One of the first things you will find is that little “hole-in-the-wall” places make good articles. If you’re going to write about a restaurant, you will want to tell more than how it got started. Also tell what is on the menu and at what price. Give your own review of how the food tastes and interview some of the clientele.
Always be armed with a camera, a notepad, pen and a tape recorder. Get in touch with the owner or manager and take a few pictures. Magazines pay extra for pictures and they add a lot of human interest to any story.
The field of traveling is wide open. You can write an article on a park, a museum, a gas station, antique shop, taxidermy studio, an old-fashioned drugstore, a lake – almost anything can become a travel story.
Tell how long it took to travel to that destination. What unusual things do you see there? What do other tourists think of the place? What other places can you compare it to? You can write virtually dozens of articles off one trip.
Most writers don’t get their articles published because they don’t do the proper market research and because they don’t take the proper steps to sell their work.
Always get publishers guidelines from every market you are interested in. Don’t bother with query letters. Just send the article and the pictures. Keep a new article in the mail every week.
Search Writers Market on the Internet and get their online edition. It is about $40. The online edition will be updated every month, whereas the book will be updated yearly. You will be able to search for the markets that suit your material best. You will also be able to file your prospects in folders and keep track of your submissions as you make them. All of this comes with your initial purchase. Note the time your articles were submitted, and if you don’t hear from the magazine in a few weeks, resubmit them.
The main thing you need for this job is patience. Patience to search out the proper person who will give you all the background information; patience to take good pictures; patience to submit your articles, and patience to find the right market.