MatadorU Review: 12 Weeks to Travel Writing Success

It’s really clear that the folks behind the hugely successful MatadorNetwork have put a lot of thought and work into how they’ve structured MatadorU, their new Travel Writing Course.

Theirs is an amazing success story – Matador began with just an idea back in 2006, and it’s grown it into one of the top online travel magazines, with roughly 800,000 unique visitors each month, in just 3 years.

That’s a huge accomplishment. And they incorporated a lot of what they’ve learned about successful travel writing over the past three years into their new travel writing course.

I signed up last weekend and started their program, and I have to say I’m honestly impressed. I didn’t expect to be, because there are a lot of other travel writing courses out there, most of which are, at best, only mediocre.

MatadorU’s Travel Writing Course is a series of easily digestible chapters that lead you through the process step by step, complete with assignments.

Here’s a quote from David Miller, a Founding Editor of the Traveler’s Notebook and Senior Editor at Matador:

Basically what we’ve done at MatadorU is take the blueprint of how we’ve grown Matador (and how individuals have become successful professional travel writers), and break it down into easy to follow lessons.

The very first chapter is a really good primer on the history of travel writing and how the profession of travel writing came about, as well as how it’s evolved over time to what we know it as today (and where it may be going). There are also some really good examples of the various types of travel writing styles, and an explanation of dynamic vs. static (”evergreen”) content. The chapter ends, as each chapter does, with a writing assignment.

It’s a great education for new travel writers, and even though I’ve been writing for a long time, I really enjoyed it – it’s been many years since I focused on the basics, and I rarely have time to take an analytic look at the writing styles of others — which this chapter forced me to do (and for which I’m glad!). I have no doubt that the future chapters will be as well-presented as the first, and I’m looking forward to them.

Another thing I’m really excited about (and impressed with) is their Members-Only Forum for students of their travel writing course. In addition to the wide variety of other travel writers who are already active in the forum, it’s moderated by the same people who founded Matador and their Editorial team – you get honest feedback, advice, and insights from people who know good travel writing.

And I haven’t even yet mentioned the access to Market Leads, which provides students information about a number of paying travel writing opportunities. Even if their travel writing course WAS one of the mediocre ones, access to this kind of networking, feedback, and market leads alone is worth the price of the course.

Of course, if it was mediocre, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but this is one travel writing course that I feel good about encouraging you to check out.

As I go through this course I’m really looking forward to the lessons and to sharing my thoughts and experience with you. I hope I’ll see you in their Forum!

~Trisha

Have you checked out MatadorU? Share your thoughts and opinions!

Did you like this post? Tell your friends about it!