A question we travel editors are often asked:
“What sort of stories are you looking for?”
And an answer: “Good ones.”
All right, that’s not very useful to aspiring freelances, so here are some genuine pitches from freelance writers that should make it clearer what is and isn’t likely to win approval. I said no to Writers 1 and 2 and yes to Writers 3 and 4 (though the piece I commissioned from Writer 3 was, in the end, on a different subject).
On reading them, I think you’ll see why. In case you’re still in doubt, note that Writer 1 didn’t care enough to check her spelling and that Writer 2, though claiming to be long established in travel, hasn’t noticed that “city of contrasts” is no longer regarded as fresh language in these parts. Note that Writers 3 and 4, though they have written for the Telegraph before, put as much effort into the pitch as they will put into the piece.

Writer 1

I am a freelance travel writer who has just visited Romania over the New Year celebrations. One of the things I have discovered is the lack of recent and applicable tourist information available. I have written a travel guide to the city and would like to get this published in either your newspaper or web travel sections. I believe that with the Romanian introduction to the EU on January 1 this would be a pertitent time to publish a travel guide to the city.
Briefly, I have extensivley travelled and have worked as a researcher on popular guide to Europe. I would like to continue to raise my profile in the travel writing field and I believe that your newspaper would allow me to do this.
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions that you may have, I look forward to hearing from you

Writer 2 sent a piece already written, of which this is the opening paragraph:

Combining one of the coolest live music scenes in the US with a brash Texas pride that makes some visitors roll their eyes, Austin is a colourful city of contrasts. But while the Lone Star flags and war-cry bumper stickers are ubiquitous, peeking behind the swaggering bravado uncovers a large helping of southern charm, a clutch of unlikely alternative attractions, and a sly, unexpected sense of humour.

Writer 3:

A Cyber Café in Kalimpong… Four hours of hairpin bends from Darjeeling, it was the trading crossroads between Tibet, Nepal & Bhutan. It had a British dimension — including a Cotswoldy church packed every Sunday — but the atmosphere is powerfully exotic, with prayer flags at every turn. It has the … Himalayan, where most Everest climbers, including Hillary & Tenzing, have stayed. Porridge & boiled eggs for breakfast, hot water bottles, “bed tea” on the balcony with a panoramic view of Kanchenjunga, tales of the Russian princess who entertained local lads by standing naked at her bedroom window with her pet parrot, which she trained to imitate the bells of Tibetan mule trains. As you do. And, between the food stalls, cyber-cafes, where young Buddhist monks surf the net & plug into chatlines.

Writer 4

We are going [to Bolivia] to take Christmas cheer to my son Martin, doing his doctorate fieldwork on the vectors of Chagas disease, scourge of the Amazon basin…
We’ll be there early Dec-mid Jan, writing and researching a new novel and doing a spot of travelling. We have various plans. I wonder if you’d be interested in a riveting narrative that has as a backbone a sort of ecotouristic overview? In my mind, it is called Floating Up to Titicaca.
We start up an Amazonian tree trapping small but vicious animals with Martin and his hired hunters. Proceed to ecolodges in Saimapata. Then to a humane sloth & anteater hunt and stay in ecolodges in Parque Amboro. Thence we proceed to the Chapare, tropical in the Tintin manner, where we will climb onto a little-used river boat on a little-navigated tributary of the Amazon, keeping a weather eye open for the lost tribes with which this part of Bolivia is allegedly infested. By New Year we will be on Lake Titicaca, where we plan to go sailing (difficult, but we will find a way) and fishing (much easier), and hunt for a giant frog once observed by Jacques Cousteau. We all speak Spanish and play guitars, and a sort of Bolivian double bass Martin has bought, and another instrument made from the shell of an armadillo. We shall be staying and playing in more ecolodges on the Isla de la Luna and the Isla del Sol on Titicaca. Then we shall return via a long (but mercifully downhill) Inca trail for chilling, delousing and debriefing to a sinfully luxurious hotel near Santa Cruz.
I think there will be a stimulating, amusing and inspiring story in this, full of anecdote and atmosphere but also full of practical non-guidebook suggestions.
Tell me what you think.

I think he had a pretty good idea what I would think.