Question on a travel niche?

[floridaguy]

hello everyone,

I hope I'm posting to the right section of the forum. I have a general question regarding selecting a niche / topic for your book.

I'm in the process of writing a travel-related guide to a popular destination like Spain, Germany, Greece, etc.

All other things being equal, would it be wise to target first-time travelers or should I make it more generalized for first-time and seasoned travelers?

Any advice would be welcome.

As a novice, it's tough to figure out if your niche is too small or too big. If it's not right, you could be wasting a lot of time.

Thanks

[polymath]

Travel guides appeal to audiences for different reasons. Back before Internet, travel guides were the next best thing to actually going somewhere, for example. Some travelers play "what's wrong with this," validating or invalidating a travel guide. I was tasked to validate a highway ferry travel guide for a region with plentiful ferries, for example. I'd ridden every one and my commentary was mostly what was out of date or missing.

If the travel guide's inherent purpose is actually as a travel guide, an underlying principle spans both new and savvy travelers, beyond the obvious advance preparations and actual onsite guidance: a desire to experience exotic sites as exclusively as practical.

However, travel guides have caught the creative reporting bug. The subjective opinion of the travel reporter in the form of New Journalism or Gonzo-like journalism is as essential for travel guide entertainments as faithful reporting. Well-established narrator identity for close narrative distance purposes is a key to avoiding the dread droll burnt toast political geography flavored tedium of travel guides.

[guichizango]

This is not exactly in answer to your question, but I actually love to read travel guides. I love to get an idea of a place, but one of the things that I always look for is pictures. I want to have an idea of what I'm looking for and how to get there. My husband is Bolivian, and I have yet to find a travel guide for Bolivia with pictures, which is a shame, since I've never been there.

Other than that, I would say give a general for beginner and seasoned, I don't think that they're necessarily looking for anything that different. Someone new to a country might want to see the lesser known areas as well, depending on distance, time, etc.