[ID:7092]EDITOR'S NOTES: Find out how journalism and travel can be combined for those who take risks and are persistent. Learn about the skills and the equipment required. Author Jason Motlagh uses his own personal experiences as a freelancer to illuminate the path.

An Alternative Lifestyle

If you seek adventure with purpose, are curious to a fault, want your work to be physical as well as mental and can never resist a challenge, consider becoming a freelance foreign correspondent. The journalism profession has fallen on hard times, and for the foreseeable future, the market will grow leaner. A shrinking US appetite for international news, loss of online advertising, and the proliferation of Web-based and cable news outlets have forced news agencies to cut staff and close foreign bureaus. The upshot of this evolution is that opportunities for young, hungry, and enterprising would-be journalists have expanded. Regardless of whether one wants to make a career change or is a listless beat reporter hoping to make a quantum leap from covering dump truck spills to breaking news...