No travel site is only "great"!

Many years back, about noon, I received a rather frantic call from a woman editor of a regional weekly travel insert section who had shockingly (and artfully) avoided buying any of the many gems I had sent her.

"Gordon," she almost pleaded, "can you go to Morro Bay this afternoon (about 35 miles away) and get me a balanced 700-word piece and call it in (this was before faxes or emails) by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning? We go to press at noon! I have some superb photography but the person used so many superlatives about everything her copy is unbelievable."

The end of the vignette first, then the moral: We laughed a bit, she told me the four photos she'd like to use, plus three more she could also pick from; we phone-wrestled a fee, and I was en route--to the library first to see what other travel writers had also favored, then to the seaside protrusion. (More about the process in the Travel Writer's Guide.) At 8 the next morning I was dictating, newspaper fashion, the words, commas, and paragraph breaks. $350 and four copies arrived within a week--and a steady customer while the insert lasted.      

The point: no site has "five of the greatest restaurants to be found," extraordinary, exceptional, superb, unbeatable, world-best. Not even Rio or Evora! Every superlative must be sternly challenged; too many and heads shake. In fact, two very good seafood restaurants were to be found, the golf course had both an exceptional view in almost every direction and breath-seizing hills, the "Morro" (giant boulder by the sea, remnants of a volcano) was eye-grabbing, and it was a fun place to be, with its human-sized chess board, beach, peregrine falcons, and hiking crannies.

Readers want to be verbally entertained with the truth, word views painted with steady, measured strokes. Let the photography show the magic. Help them enjoy the locale. Sort through the many choices and highlight the best, things they might also consider, and what is a waste of time. Not an editorial but a 700-word view of a village vying for visitation near San Luis Obispo among many other attractions. Be honest, praise as earned, and avoid the big superlatives unless one thing absolutely demands the accolade. But two? Or six? Really.