A fresh eye and busy feet make a travel writer: Learn to be a good hunter-gatherer and avoid the bland prose of a brochure.

This article offers a few things to consider to make good travel pieces. First and foremost it is important to travel light. A travel writer should pack a notebook—not a laptop, but the old-fashioned kind, with pages made of paper, preferably one small enough to fit in the pocket. Along with the notebook, one should bring an easy-to-operate digital camera to provide with a visual record of a particular sight. Photographs can become an integral part of an article. Travel writing gets interesting when there are characters the reader can care about. INSET: Making a scene makes for a more effective opening.