Dont Underestimate the Value of Your Own Town

Dont Underestimate the Value of Your Own Town Used to be, when I thought about travel writers, while longing to be one myself, I thought only of those lucky few fortunate enough to land all-expenses-paid assignments to produce articles in places like Burma or Bhutan. I never considered the possibilities my own city had to offer in the way of travel-related articles.    My thinking changed, however, when I subscribed to a travel newsletter. Every month the newsletter spotlighted a city, either foreign or domestic, giving a full logistics report. As I lived in Lexington, Kentucky, at the time, I queried the editor of the newsletter and asked would she be interested in a logistics article on Lexington. She said yes.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Even though I’d lived there for several years, I’d been too busy raising four sons and working full time to get around and actually see what Lexington had to offer. Too, Lexington was simply where I lived and worked; as such, I never considered it newsworthy enough to write about. When I received the assignment, however, I saw it in a whole new light.   Endless opportunities for travel articles abounded, not only for the assignment I already had, but for a string of other articlesthe bourbon distilleries, the wineries, the racetracks, the nightlife, the culture, the sports.    From my initial article I was able to pitch other variations to different magazines. I found travel-writing opportunities in Lexington’s surrounding communities also. In Keene, Kentucky, only 15 miles outside of Lexington, for example, I saw the possibility of a travel essay in a rambling wood-frame hotel, once a popular summer resort and place of safety during a cholera panic in the mid-l800s. As a portion of the hotel also currently housed a down-home-type restaurant that featured the best Southern cooking I’d ever tasted, that also became an article. The Wisconsin town I now reside in is so isolated and pitiably small that it really doesn’t offer enough to bring that traffic jam of eager tourists to its city limits. But, Green Bay, home of the Green Bay Packers and historic Lambeau Field Stadium, is only a mere 30 miles away, and I’m already putting together a list of possible travel articles on that city.    If you’re a beginning travel writer, live in a small town and have limited travel money, consider checking out near Also, even though your city or town IS small, perhaps it’s connected to other small towns (Door County in Wisconsin, for example, a string of very small towns, runs along both sides of the peninsula and attracts hundreds of tourists each year). If your town is part of such a string of towns, and barring it has at least one notable attraction, include it as part of a driving-trip travel piece of a larger whole. To get an idea on how to write a travel piece on your city or town, decide on the format you wish to useshort getaway, essay/story, historic place, driving trip, little-known or undiscovered place, etc.   Then, using an example article from the publication you wish to write for, follow the example.