17th July 2008
Patricia Jones

A dream of many writers is to get traveling jobs as journalists and travel for free. In this article you can learn how to write great travel articles and holiday reviews and what you should avoid.

Most journalists are naturally curious. They also tend to be restless, sociable creatures with a taste for adventure who enjoy exploring new places, meeting new people and finding out more about unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles. It should come as no surprise that journalists who love to travel want to share their experiences in print wherever possible.

Travel writing is an extremely competitive market. There is no destination that hasn’t been written about a million times, so it is vitally important to get the right angle to make your article stand out above the rest.

For thousands of writers, writing for a top travel magazine would be the dream job. However your professional credentials must be impeccable. This will mean you will have a sound track record and be regularly printed, ideally in a range of publications. You will also be reasonably traveled and have the ability to gather enough suitable material for new articles that will stand out.

Newspaper and magazine travel articles will often be more geared towards the consumer. In other words, the readers want to find out what aspects of the destination would appeal to them, rather than the chronological ins and outs of the writers own experiences. Getting to know your market is the most important factor when writing travel articles.

Don’t let all this put you off. Be persistent and try to get yourself published by any means you can in order to build up a good portfolio. For those new to the world of travel writing, the first step might be to submit articles to a local paper if it accepts travel articles. This won’t give you a lot of money, but offers you the much needed experience.

Getting the right angle

As with any other feature, it is important to have a clear sense of purpose about why you are writing a specific article. It’s not usually good enough to say you are going to ‘do’ an article about the Maldives as this has been done many times before. Try think about what is different, original, unusual or topical about your feature that is going to stand out. You could write about anything. For example; the pudding eating championships!

Pictures

You might be fortunate to find an editor that has a good source for pictures, but don’t count on it. It is imperative that travel articles to be accompanied by photographs. It is a sound investment for any journalist to buy a good digital camera for such a purpose. However do check with your editor ahead of time what size and format they want them to come in.

Honesty is the best policy

Even if you’ve been lucky enough to have someone else to pay for your holiday, do not be obliged to write a more positive article as a result. You will be letting your readers down if you don’t give your honest opinion.

Avoid ‘brochure speak’

Unless you’re writing a review for travel company to sell a holiday, there is no need to lace your travel articles with hype and over blown descriptions with an enthusiastic tone. For your article to sound genuine and authentic, most of it will have to rely on eyewitness accounts first hand, rather than culled from other guide books.

Most importantly you want to tell your readers what the place is really like as they can read the brochures for themselves if they want to be sold to. This isn’t always as easy as it sounds- you will need to perfect your observation skills to make your travel article original and where appropriate, humorous.