Good advice for writing about your travels

"The well-worn adage to "write what you know" remains true, at least in the sense of knowing what interests you. When neophytes travel, they have this idea that they must write something very broad, describing every aspect of a place like Paris or Bangkok or Canyonlands. Far more interesting would be a piece about the men or women who collect the bits of tile used to cover certain Thai temples, or the story of how Brancusi's beautiful sculpting studio ended up outside the Pompidou Center. If you're a firefighter, write a story about the firefighters of Paris, and how quirky and unusual it is to fight fires in Paris. When was the first major fire in Paris? People should write about what fascinates them, rather than try to do a general story that covers all the bases."
--Jeff Greenwald, in Michael Shapiro's A Sense of Place (2004)