Travel journalism

Travel journalists today must combine a number of things in them: skills in writing and photography as well as ability to develop commercial strategies for securing sponsorship from carriers and tourism organizations. Even a freelance travel journalist must master the art of marketing their work profitably. However, travel writing is still perhaps the most important aspect of travel journalism.

Travel writing must always be interesting, entertaining, informative as well as relevant. Any piece of travel writing must have a particular theme and a firm focus. While it is okay to give a thorough account of your family holiday to your next door neighbor, travel writings should have a point, a story to tell its readers. A travel journalist should keep it in mind that the reader is traveling with him/her as long as he/she is reading the article; the reader, therefore, is within his/her rights to expect an interesting and charming companion in the author.

Although no one expects a travel journalist to write like a Charles Dickens or so, the article should still keep the reader interested. Highbrow intellectualism is something that should be totally avoided. Most important, the article must be relevant for the readership, with meaty, practical information and salient observations. If you want to be a successful freelance journalist, you should have an individual approach to gathering stories based on your resourcefulness, personality and preference for story types.

For writing a travel article, you have to first decide which location or activity you are going to feature. For example, you can choose London as your destination and decide to write about Indian restaurants there. In short, you must tell your readers a story. Spice your article with excellent photographs. Your article must also have an angle. In the proposed article on London’s Indian restaurants, your angle could well be how the British people are accepting them.