The Travel Writer's Handbook 5th Ed: How to Write and Sell Your Own Travel Experiences

This book has been around for a long time. My first copy (4th edition) of "The Travel Writer's Handbook, "finally fell apart so I bought this revised and updated, 6th edition copy. You can't go wrong with the information presented here. Although Louise Purwin Zobel and co-author Jacqueline Harmon Butler's book is great, I tend to feel, "Travel Writer's Guide" by Gordon Burgett is probably a better step by step guide to the "methodology" for the travel writer. Both books follow the same pre-trip research, querying, the trip, and post trip work except, Burgett uses a real life example and walks you through his trip method and logic with forms and guides that are really useful. Using either book and especially both you surely can get to where, "the check's in the mail."

I haven't finished reading it yet but i think it's great so far. Filled with important information. I got it pretty quickly too.

This book is very informative. It takes you from researching before you leave for your trip right through to submission and beyond. Its a brilliant read and most definitely the best on the market

This book provides information on all aspects of travel writing from research to pitching your story. Learned a ton.

I have the 2002 edition of the Travel Writer's Handbook (the 5th ed.). While it was updated to include the problems of post 9/11 problems it did not cover the Internet as much as one would expect. And the section on photography is still set in the pre-digital era.
That said, this is still the best all-around book on travel writing. Zobel covers different article types, how to do basic research,whether to accept freebies, what to take along on trips, keeping records for tax purposes and so forth. She spends a lot of time on interviewing techniques and different ways of capturing the sights and sounds of a travel destination.
I assume the newest edition (written with a co-author)is meant to bring this classic into the 21st century with references to pdas, laptops, digital cameras and other accoutrements that were hardly mentioned in the 2002 book. But when it comes to the basic elements of writing the travel article--whether for magazines, newspapers or the many travel websites out there--this book is still founded on solid information.