Travel writing involves finding publishable stories while traveling to different destinations. Types include guidebook production, reviewing resorts, and finding hidden stories. Starting a blog can showcase a writer’s style and expertise. Magazine articles require a unique angle and may require the writer to pay their own expenses.
Travel writing, sometimes also known as tourism writing, is when an individual travels to various destinations around the world and finds a publishable story to tell about that area. There are many different types of travel writing; producing guides on a certain area, for example, is a type. Reviewing resorts or hotels is yet another. Other travel writers will simply travel to different destinations, trying to find hidden stories or a new perspective that hasn’t been covered yet; Generally, these types of articles are published in travel magazines or online, although newspapers have been known to publish these types of articles as well. Becoming a travel writer is a long and challenging process, as there is no shortage of professional writers who want to get paid to travel to exotic places.
A common way to start travel writing now is to start a blog. You can start a blog for free or at a very low cost and start publishing travel stories on your own. Instead of a collection of published clips, which most editors will want to see before giving a writer an assignment or accepting a pitch, a blog can help show editors an individual’s writing style and expertise. In some ways, a blog may even be a better source for writing examples than published clips, because it shows the editor what the writer is capable of producing on their own, without the benefit of an editorial team cleaning it up.
Guidebook production is another common type of travel writing. This takes more time and effort than producing a single piece for a magazine, but often requires less expense because writers are often hired to produce guidebooks for the areas they live in. It will be the responsibility of the writer to identify the best restaurants, hotels and attractions in any given area and to write concise and accurate descriptions of each. However, such jobs tend to be very competitive and usually require a proven track record.
The type of travel writing that most people want to do involves traveling to certain locations and writing magazine articles about them. In general, people who want to do this will need to find a unique angle from which to approach the story; simply traveling to a certain place is rarely attraction enough for most magazines. It’s also important to keep in mind that while some journals will pay for the travel expenses, in many cases it is up to the writer to pay their own expenses. Travel writing in general, at least for the first few years, isn’t a particularly lucrative career.
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