BootsnAll Travel Community

I am a working freelance journalist in the fishing trade mags.
Been doing it for 10 years now. But I'm getting a little sick of writing about salmon, tuna, herring, crabs, nets, hooks, engines, radars, sonars, international regulaitons and fish egg markets.

I know how to write tight and pitch stories, but as I plan a trip to Europe next month, I'm thinking of maybe taking more notes than usual, taking photos and trying to spin a few travel articles out of it. Previous trips to Europe have been obliatory family visits. My mother in law lives in a quaint village in the Black forest an I have toyed with theidea of spinning a yarn aout the place, but every time I get back I get absorbed by my fish world.

But guess what? I don't know the market at all, nor have I ever written a travel article. (well, one for RV world 9 years ago)

I know the local daily here in Vancouver runs travel articles on the weekend, the weekly entertaiment rag the Straight does, as does a monthly from the auto club.But that's it. I don;t read travel magazines, so I wouldn't know where to start itching.

Is there a feel-good genealogy magazine out there?

Part of my trip is a pilgrimage to my ancestral village in Normandy were my great, great, geat, great etc. grandfather was born and baptised before imigrating to New France in 1634.
there must be a place I can pitch a 'finding your roots" yarn along with descriptions of the countryside, villages, calvados,cider, boudin and Percheron horses.

Any tips?

It sounds like you are in a very strong position to transition to travel writing. You should already have a lot of great clips.

I think one of the easiest ways you could break in would be to write a travel/fish story. Try to do an article about fishing in Vancouver or fishing somewhere else in the world. That's a definite cross over market between travel and sporting.