*If you own your own website. Travel writing has never been a lucrative business. The glamorous view which people had of the profession ensured that there were always more people who wanted to do it than there were jobs available. Nonetheless, it was possible several decades ago to make a decent living as a travel [...]
There’s plenty of advice floating around on the Internet about what prerequisites you need to be a travel writer. I’ve certainly contributed to this pool of information. For this post, I’d like to toss out a few more pearls of wisdom about what it takes to get your travel stories published and get paid for [...]
Freelance travel writing is definitely not for people who expect the freelance world to conform to them. A willingness to be flexible by adjusting our approaches, writing styles, topics, and sales and marketing techniques, is absolutely essential if we want to see our work published in print, and be paid for it. We must adapt [...]
If you’re contemplating taking up freelance travel writing as a career, and hoping to make a regular and stable income right from the start… … understand that it could take you a long time to make your dream come true. As advanced sentient beings, we crave stability and consistency. I get this. This is a [...]
Over the past several years of working with novice travel writers, I’ve noticed they tend to make a lot of incorrect assumptions about how things work in freelance writing. These assumptions cost them assignments with paying magazines and newspapers. One prevalent assumption is that some paying magazines will not be interested in their stories. I [...]
As a travel writer for print media, I’m often asked by other freelancers how digital media has affected the print travel magazine business. That’s a fair question. DEFINITIONS Print travel media consists primarily of travel magazines, travel memoir books, & travel guidebooks. Digital travel media includes travel websites, travel blogs, travel service websites like TripAdvisor.com, [...]
Over the past couple of years, I’ve received several desperate requests from novice travel writers, …. ….asking me to help them round up some last-minute assignments, so they can request complimentary accommodations, meals, entry to tourist attractions, rounds of golf, fishing trips, boat cruises, and a host of other freebies, at their destinations. There’s only [...]
Do you envision yourself on a distant shore, documenting your daily adventures, while at the same time, funding your dream lifestyle? Many people are finding that becoming a travel writer is an attainable goal. But a few missteps can shatter those dreams in record time. Some of the suggestions below are applicable to all who [...]
Some travel writers seem to forget that we’re travel writers first and foremost, and not critics. Our job, as travel journalists, is to show and describe our destinations to our readers. We should be painting a picture of the places, showing our subscribers the people, the culture, the food, and all those other neat things [...]
Wouldn’t it be great if we had the power of foresight? We could gaze into the future and learn from our mistakes. Well, I may not have the superpower of foresight, but I’ve learned a lot—and gained a lot of valuable experience—in my ten years in the rough-and-tumble freelance travel writing game. Looking back on [...]
