Welcome to the wonderful world of travel writing! The beginning of this article has certainly been a challenge for me because I really didn’t know where to start, but as it started to unfold the clearer my thoughts became! Thank God for hacking and deleting on my computer!

In this new era of laptops, digital cameras, and not knowing what other gadgets are on the market today, travel writing remains what it is! It is a real and vivid documentary of the things you saw, heard and did while on vacation or just traveling through some town or place in the woods! It is your view or your reaction to the environment around you. When putting it all together for a travel article, it’s up to you to bring your readers into the picture and let them feel their reaction as if they were right next to you. That’s why it’s so important to go beyond simply documenting your travels. Live them, feel them and let your readers feel your reaction through your words.

The next time you’re on assignment or just on a weekend getaway, don’t forget your digital camera, an ample supply of rechargeable batteries, extra memory cards for taking pictures, and a bag full of pens and pencils. spiral to take notes.

When you’re really where you want to be and start taking photos, write everything down: write down your reaction to the old lady in the window who looked like a witch and kept looking at you as you walked to the restaurant. Who was she? Why did she look at you as if she had seen a ghost? Why was she startled when your eyes met hers?

Be observant of your surroundings and the people you meet. Write down anything that might be important to your next story; don’t trust anything to memory. Too much information is much better than not enough.

Visit local resorts and ask for brochures and travel guides. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about the locals. Find out if there is any history in the area that is worth mentioning for a destination travel article. Suppose Jesse James stayed at the historic hotel across the street and they had a room full of memorabilia (his boots, his gun, and his belt) and other things he may have forgotten. There’s an angle to his journey story, but dig deeper: what if that hotel is said to be haunted by someone other than Jesse James? Jesse James really isn’t enough for people to travel that far across any country to a dilapidated little hotel just to see a small room half full of Jesse James memorabilia. You have to dig deep and find something that can excite your readers.

Request a room, stay there, listen to the creaking and banging in the night, listen to the ghost haunting the hallway late into the night, did you see anything? Did the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when the gust of cold air out of nowhere blew you as you stood in the hallway?

Write down the things you saw and heard. How did you feel? Let your readers feel the fear she felt when she was alone on the top floor of that haunted hotel. Where was everyone else? Why were you alone? Was it really haunted? Or was it just your imagination from the stories you had heard? Write it down and let your readers help you decide if the haunting was real or not. Did anyone else hear the noises you heard? Who was the shadow that slipped through your door just before you closed the door? Who was crying in the hallway after you walked in and closed the door? When you opened the door, the sound stopped: no one was there.

What about that blurry image that kept showing up in some of the photos you took? What was it? Who was? You didn’t see anyone when you were shooting. Creepy, huh?

Write them an article that entices them to come to that particular place, an old dilapidated hotel with a creepy past ninety miles from nowhere, let them feel your excitement and fear as you get into bed, don’t just talk about the noises that you heard coming from the hallway late at night; let them hear the fear as you write, especially when you heard the woman screaming in the next room and you were too scared to get out of bed to go check.

It may scare some people and they may never want to visit the haunted hotel, but its story is likely to draw many people to that little hotel located in no country just to see for themselves if it was haunted or not. That’s what your travel article needs to do: go beyond documenting the things you learned, the things you saw or heard: your readers need to feel the same emotion you feel about a place or all the documentation in the world will never draw them in. this place. especially if it’s ninety miles from nowhere!

In essence, you need to present a travel story that goes beyond documentation – it needs to have real feelings that amaze the reader and make them want to visit the place of interest. Leave the boring documentation for travel brochures and the like.

It brings out the reality and life of a place and people will be drawn to visit it again and again.