Portland travel story

Here's an example of a fresh and engaging approach to a familiar topic: a long weekend in Portland. It's not literary writing, just nuts and bolts, but it's packed with specific and useful how-to-do-it information.

This piece was written by the Seattle Times' travel staff writer (hard to believe they didn't lay her off along with the art critic, the music critic, etc). Most metro newspapers have a travel and/or outdoor rec section that buy a lot of freelance material; this would be an example of one kind of piece they'd be likely to accept. In all probability it will cost you more to research than they'll pay you ($200 if you're lucky), but that will at least be a dividend if you're going anyway. You can also sell the same piece to multiple newspapers as long as their circulation areas don't overlap.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/2011037809_nwwportland11.html