• Owned a content marketing & social media marketing agency since 2009.
• Co-authored "The Owned Media Doctrine" (Archway Publishing, 2013).
• Co-authored "No Bullshit Social Media" (Pearson, 2011).
• Co-authored "Branding Yourself" (Pearson, 2010; 2nd ed., 2012).
• Helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies (Wiley, 2009).
• Professional writer with more than 1,700 published columns, articles, and reviews.
• Professional speaker with more than 250 speeches, presentations, and seminars.
• Six years of managing freelance writers.
Don't forget as you're doing your travel writing, you should be able to get certain things comped for you, like a hotel, special event or performance, or even a meal. While this doesn't necessarily pay you by the magazine, this is a type of income that can make the article much more rewarding.
I was a travel writer for the state of Indiana for a few years, and would often get to travel to different parts of the state for an overnight trip. I only ever made $25 or so from the article (state government doesn't pay much), but the value of that "vacation" was often worth a few hundred dollars.
Still, as the others have pointed out, $1 per word is a great rate, and you should take it when you get it. Otherwise, $150 - $200 for a 750 word article is not out of the question.