Getting ready to become a Travel Writer

There is a rustic tale of an innocent villager who was told to get ready to go to the city the next morning. Come next morning, and every one was searching for him, but to no avail. By evening the poor chap was back, exhausted from walking back all the way from the city. When confronted as to why he went alone, he replied that he did not know the way and wanted to find it before actually going to the city! We know this is no way to find information we do not have. But there is a valuable message in the story; never venture into unknown expeditions without proper preparations.

The first requirement for becoming a Travel Writer is that one should have a keen pair of inquisitive eyes, always on the look out for things that offer a unique perspective. How do people at the new place live? What are their eating and dressing habits? How is the climate at the place? Is it generally uniform as happens to be at many of the World’s Resort Stations? How are the lodging facilities? Are these expensive, or “Value for money”? Are there any special Tourist Seasons for this destination?

Begin by keeping a diary of all the observations. Don’t be in any hurry to write your article in jiffy. First, collect more information about the place than you might care to put in a Report.Thereafter, arrange the points in some logically meaningful sequence.After your first draft is ready, sleep over it for a day and then attempt to cut into half the present length. Do not exceed 500 words in an article, unless it is an entire Report for the whole expedition. Interest is best sustained with articles of three hundred words or another fifty. Longer pieces tend to bore the readers.