Advice for those looking to start travel writing:

1. Your article should have a beginning, a middle and an end – do not just tail off. Make the opening paragraph one of your strongest, in order to pull the reader in. You do not have to tell a story in chronological order – you can open with a tense situation and then flashback to how it began.
2. Ensure that your piece has a strong central theme that moves the reader forward and provides a point to it all.
3. Do not try to cover too much in one article – there may be several different articles hiding inside one large piece. You should be able to sum up the contents of your article in a single sentence.
4. Show the good and bad side. Disasters and tricky situations often make for a more entertaining read than harmonious, straightforward trips.
5. Present an honest account. If you hated a place, then say so (and why).
6. Feature articles should have personality – though often not yours; dialogue and comment from local people add colour to a story.
7. Think about how you can avoid blandness in your descriptions of a destination – recounting a seemingly unimportant incident can bring a place to life more than a detailed adjectival description of its physical appearance. And don’t forget smells, sounds, flavours and even temperature or air quality as well as sights and emotions.
8. Be aware of the political, environmental and social background to the places you describe – they may not be pertinent to your story, but be sure of this, especially if you are going to allude to them.
9. Be aware of the consequences of what you write – for example, ecological issues such as the damaging effect that snorkellers may have on a coral reef. Be wary of endangering the subjects of your article if describing an illegal activity or political views.
10. Avoid Americanisms (unless you are recounting speech or quotations from an American!), jargon, foreign terms that are not generally understood, and the numerous travel clichés that many writers fall back on – snow-capped mountains, lands of contrast, kaleidoscopes of colour and seething masses of humanity will all get the chop.
11. If a publication has recently run an article on a particular destination or topic then it will probably be some time (perhaps several years) before they cover that area again.
12. Check your facts and be wary of making generalisations that you cannot be sure of.
13. Be careful of patronising the peoples you describe and making generalisations about characteristics that could be deemed insulting.
14. Never Give Up.

Thanks to Wanderlust for this helpful list.