It also helps if you like to travel. Horror stories are fun, but the people who read travel magazines usually don't want to hear your complaints about airline food. Travel writing is about selling the experience. Bring the reader along as your friendly companion.

You need to evoke the experience - the sights, sounds and smells. Unless you become engaged with what's happening around you, your reader won't either. Don't just watch it pass you by from a tour bus window.

Editors Want:

• Above all else, they want a good read with a strong voice that hooks the reader from the beginning and compels them to keep reading until the end. Vivid reporting that's alive with details.
• Give the reader specific practical information. Give up the goodies - the names, places and specifics.
• It helps if the subject is out-of-the-ordinary but it is more important to make any subject new, interesting and relevant to the reader.
• Show the reader, don't tell. Use dialogue. It puts the reader into the scene. Describe the area through anecdotes, character and scene setting.
• Use an active rather than passive voice.
• Have a fun tone.
• Focus on the experience of being there, not the landmarks.
• Don't forget to include the comedy of being a stranger in a strange land. The humor of watching tourists abroad gives the reader a sense of your personality and voice.
• Almost any emotion is good (humor, anger, frustration) as long as it propels the reader further along in the story. 

Taking a photography class to learn the basics can increase your marketability as a writer and add an additional source of revenue. Look at the types of photos that are used in magazines. Look at how they are composed and try to emulate those shots until you develop your own visual style.

Don'ts:

• Don't be redundant.
• Don't have spelling or grammar mistakes.
• Don't write too long or too short, you're making extra work for the editor. Write the length you were assigned.
• Don't be late. Deliver your pieces on time. Beat each deadline.
• Don't write standard advertising and tourism fluff.
• Don't tell your readers something they already know.
• Don't try to squeeze everything about the country into the story.
• Don't make fact errors. There will be fact checkers to verify everything you write. If you make a mistake, they will find it.
• Don't use clichés when writing about the landscape.