• Use short words in preference to long words (likewise for sentences and paragraphs).
• Focus on what's interesting and different about the spot. Find details that are significant in some way - they might be unusual, colourful or humorous - just look for something that makes the place special. Usually this will be a combination of the place and the people. Look around for someone or something that catches your eye and use this as the focus for your piece. Maybe there's an unusual colour scheme in shop windows or buildings; a pedestrian that causes you to stop and look, or an absence of something that you'd expect to find in the area.
• Give concrete details. Don't tell us that "food was dirt-cheap"; do a bit of that maths that your teacher told you would come in useful in later life and convert the price of the meal to your own currency. Tell us - specifically - what was in the meal; elaborate on the service, the setting and so on. Describe not just the big things - the buildings and bridges, but also the little things - the street signs, the road surfaces, the seats, the grass and the smells.
• Keep all your senses open for those little things that evoke atmosphere - aromas of food cooking, perfumed plants, seaside smells (salt air, seaweed, marine fuel), newly cut timber; bird sounds, night sounds - frogs, crickets, cars, fog horns ... Atmosphere is all around you ... you just have to learn how to recognise it.
• Structure your piece logically - it doesn't really matter whether you go from the general to the specific or vice versa, as long as there's some method involved.
• Don't be afraid to incorporate interesting information about the history of the place - if it's relevant and accurate (but don't rely on what the bus driver told you on the way ...) Check your facts and make it obvious why you've referred to past events.
• Make use of the tried and true devices of comparison and contrast - you may have visited a similar place and can clearly describe why the two are so much alike. Maybe you've been somewhere that is a complete contrast and can offer suggestions about the reasons for the differences (climate, geography, history, economic considerations etc). It doesn't matter how obvious the differences are - a South Sea Island is naturally going to be very different from a Scandinavian city - but reading about them is still interesting.
• Check your spelling, punctuation and expression.
• Read your work - aloud - to yourself; this enables you to check for any clumsy constructions, any repetition etc. Get an editing program to do this for you. Click for your free trial now!
• Check for the interest factor. Once you're happy with your piece of writing, read it again and see if it's interesting. If you hadn't been to this place, would reading your article make you want to go there? Or not?

Jennifer Stewart is a professional writer who offers copy writing, proof reading and editing services for businesses and individuals from her site at http://www.write101.com You can subscribe to free Writing Tips to improve your writing http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/WritingTips