How do I start in travel writing?

January 11, 2005 3:15 PM

OK. Jessamyn (about 3 posts down) asks a similar question BUT . . . I too, am employed as a librarian who makes occasional (shitty) money on the side writing feature articles or whatever comes my way. In May I am moving to Argentina. I plan on returning for grad school in Journalism in 2006 and want to bolster my writing resume. Question: How difficult is it to do correspondence writing if I don't already have an in? Any travel writers out there? What's the secret?
posted by punkbitch to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Travel writing is one of the more difficult areas of freelance journalism to get into, since just about everyone wants to do it. It's is possible, though, especially if you have good clips.

There's no real secret that I've found except tons of sweat equity. Pitch good stories, pitch a lot of stories, and pitch to a variety of markets. I keep a Word doc of submission guidelines for various markets, including travel pubs: e-mail me if you're interested, and I'll send it to you.
posted by jeffmshaw at 4:54 PM on January 11, 2005

Mastering the art of the query letter through a book like this one is the most important pitch skill. Don't listen to people who say you have to know someone to break into the business. Quality is always in demand. And journalism school isn't always the answer.
posted by inksyndicate at 5:10 PM on January 11, 2005

A few links to travel writing sites from my del.icio.us thingy.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:59 PM on January 11, 2005