Writing Nuts & Bolts: Anatomy of a Trip Page

1. Place

In most cases you'll want to use the proper name of a business or commonly known point of interest. For example, a hotel (e.g., Hotel Triton), a park (e.g., Samuel P. Taylor State Park), a market (e.g., Khan el-Khalili Market), or a place (e.g., Mont Saint Michel, France). If you feel like you want to include multiple places in one trip (e.g., Almodóvar’s Kitschy Madrid), go for it, but be warned: it's harder to get published this way.

2. Location

Include a complete address. If you're not sure, look it up Yahoo or Google Maps. If a complete address does not come back on Yahoo or Google, or you're having trouble getting an address into our system, round up. For example, you may have to enter "P.O. Box 191, San Pedro Ambergris, Caye Belize" as "Ambergris Caye, Belize" or just "Belize."

Include the URL to the official website of the place you're writing about. If the place doesn't have an official site, link to the most authoritative website about the place that you can find. For example, a Wikipedia entry is a good fall-back link.

4. Title

All trip titles start with a gerund for a simple reason: we want trazzlers to actively place themselves in the moment (being, doing, feeling…). The title should set the scene for the copy in 68 characters or less. In some cases, the title will stand alone, so the more intriguing, clever, or profound, the more likely someone will read your trip page. Browse through some trips for more examples.

5. Descriptive Paragraph

Here’s the beauty of writing for Trazzler: you don’t have to explain everything or provide intricate logistical information. We don’t want reworded travel site writing. What you need to do is activate the reader’s imagination, evoking the unique experience of the trip in question. Most trip descriptions are between 65-100 words. (We rarely publish anything over 140.) Make sure you read our writing guide if you still have questions or want to know more about our publishing criteria.

You may include a link in your paragraph to the place you're writing about. In rare cases, more than one link may be appropriate. Italics and dashes are okay too.

  LINK  Making a hyperlink
  ITALICS   Italicizing text
  M-DASH (—)   & #8212; (without the space between the ampersand and "#8212")

6. Tags

Tags are just a series words or short phrases you add to a trip to describe it. For example, "luxury, boutique hotel, romantic, balcony, fireplace." Choose a few keywords that define the trip, place, and the type of traveler to whom it might appeal. There's no need to add the city and country, we'll take care of that.

7. Photo

If you took one that is copyright-friendly (if you didn't take the photo, don't upload it), cropped to 498 pixels wide by 332 pixels high (check both dimensions), and fits your title and copy, by all means send it on. Please keep the size of the file under 300kb. If you have a larger photo that needs editing visit the Picnik website where they provide free tools for cropping and resizing.