How to be a Travel Writer

Some thoughts from BGTW member Roger Norum

The myth

It's the truth: few jobs in the world are more mythologised than that of the travel writer. Debonair, adventuresome and worldly, her cubicle is the planet itself; her client meetings are chats in cafés with captivating characters; her business casual is a rugged pair of khakis and muddy hiking boots; her meeting reports are printed in the glossy magazines and weekend papers read by everyone in the country.

Sadly, though, this is all very much a myth. The realities of travel writing are much, much less glamorous: queuing, exhausted at the airport at 6am for the second time that week; monotonous tours of hotel chains; lonely dinners for one at romantic restaurants; tight deadlines with no extensions – and all this all for very, very little pay. Still interested?

Yes, it’s a great job – getting paid to travel the world and write about your experiences doing it – no argument there. And it’s far from impossible to break in and become successful; many less talented people than you have managed to do just that. But it’s important to know the realities of how the business works so that you don’t end up disappointed.

Is it for me?

It’s not enough to be discontent with your job to want to become a writer: most writers are much more discontented than you with their lives. Travel writing, like many other professions is at once a trade, an art and a skill. Some people are naturally talented at it. Others learn after years of practice, practice and more practice. Still others study it for years and years and never quite manage to make it work for them.

A great test to see if you enjoy travel writing – and if you can hack it – is to go on a writing course: an evening class, a day-long seminar or a longer learning holiday. Do you enjoy being around other writers? Do you honestly want to make your writing better? Do you enjoy being alone (much of writing is a very solitary process)? Can you handle criticism and rejection? Do others listen in intently while you read out something you’ve written? And most importantly: Do you love nothing more than sitting with a pencil and some paper and thinking about your impressions of and experiences in the world? If you’ve answered yes to a few of these, then you should think about investing some time and effort into getting your writing up to snuff and getting your stories out there for people to read.

How do I start?

If you’re truly interested in trying to become a travel writer, there is but one thing to do: write. The travelling is important too, but better first to train yourself to look for compelling story ideas, keep detailed notes and construct knock-‘em-dead sentences.

Work on honing your observation skills: you’re going to have to write about the specific (not the general) if you want to get published. When you’re at the beach with your family, note how the sand feels around your ankles and what the taste of the water reminds you of. When you’re at a veg market on a Saturday morning, close your eyes for a moment and observe only the sounds. When you’re out on a weekend walk, focus in on one single detail in the landscape – a sheep, a cabin or how the light hits the dirt – and write down what you observe. Travel writing is about taking a micro-level snapshot of a scene or situation in order to communicate something about the world on a much more macro level.

And you don’t need to be abroad to take note of things: the quotidian is just as important. Take in the peculiarities of how people speak differently as the office clock approaches 5pm, pay attention to the way the lager streams out of the tap when a pint is poured at your local, consider the din of the empty street outside your home on a laconic Sunday morning.

Remember: travel writing is different from what you read in vacation brochures and on hotel web sites. It is not about generalities and platitudes; it is about the specific, the quirky, the iconic, the incomprehensible – things that make living in this world so fascinating. No editor is going to pay you £300 to write that “the landscape was really beautiful” or that “the people I met were some of the friendliest ever” or that “after I got off the plane I went through immigration and then picked up my bags and then exited the airport and then took a taxi to my hotel and then decided to go to bed.” You’re going to have to come up with something more compelling than what any other Joe would write if you want people to read past your first sentence.

OK. I think I can write. Now what?

So you’ve figured out that you like writing, that you have a knack with words and that you think you might like to take the plunge, quit your six-figure job and head off to Kamchatka to write the next cover story for National Geographic Adventure?

Hang on, take in the reins there a bit. You don’t go from being an unknown writer to penning features for glossy magazines – it’s just not that simple. First, you need to get a collection of writing clips together. This might sound like a Catch-22 (you need clips to land commissions but to have some clips you need to have published) but it just means that you have to start small.
Begin by writing an article for your community newspaper about your neighbourhood. Find something that interests you – an interesting individual, a local historical event, some little-known nugget of information – and craft a newsy story around it. Send it to the local paper or newsletter and tell the editor you have a great idea for a piece, then send it into them. Just because it feels small-fry doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put your all into making this the best piece of writing you’ve ever done. If you’ve done a good job in finding an angle and making the writing a good combination of reportage and engaging description, chances are they’ll put it into print. Do this a few more times and pretty soon you’ll have enough confidence to start pitching stories to some of the bigger rags (or planning out the structure of your travel novel).

Then, next time you’re away on vacation, try to find out something unique and forthcoming about where you are – a new boutique hotel opening later that season, a municipal plan to extend the corniche or local fundraising efforts to repair the crack in that bell on the corner of Chestnut and 6th. Write this up as a short, blurby 100-word “news item” that expresses the facts in an engaging way. Next, get on the web, find the phone numbers of the travel desks of newspapers and magazines (don’t be shy – they don’t know you from Adam) and ring up the editor to say that you have a great short news story that would work for the front pages of their publication. Ask for their email address, then send them what you’ve written. If no one responds (they rarely do!), it doesn’t matter – put the piece aside and write another blurb about something even more compelling. This will train you to start seeing the world in a certain way and paying attention to phenomena that might end up as “stories”. And send your ideas around to editors – their contact details are all on the web, so beef up on your Googling skills. Remember, successfully selling a piece is only a matter of time and perseverance.

How to become a Guild Member

Writing is largely a meritocracy. It doesn't matter if you're an Oxbridge PhD or an O-levels dropout, a hedge fund billionaire or an unemployed freelance writer. An editor can't tell the difference between any of these. What matters is that you can write compelling stories that people want to read.
Membership in The British Guild of Travel Writers is open to writers who already earn the majority of their income from travel journalism and creative writing (see How to Join here on our website). To get you to a point where you are eligible to apply for membership, we’ve offered a few important tips to help you along your journey:

Five Tips on the Art of Travel Writing

1. Professional travel writing is done by good writers who travel. It doesn't matter if you've sky-dived off the moon straight into a sinkhole in Oman; if you can't put together a good sentence, your experience will be lost on everyone else. Be a writer first, a traveller second.

2. Do NOT write about what you did on your summer vacation. A travel story should be a journey in and of itself: when you write, begin somewhere and end it having learned or accomplished something – that’s why we read things. The most uninteresting of stories read, "we did this, then we did this and then this happened".

3. When you write descriptions, don't gush forth with talk about how "amazing", "mind-blowing" or "beautiful" a place is. Let your descriptions themselves make this obvious.

4. Don't be sloppy with punctuation or grammar; it will turn editors and readers off. Spellcheck!

5. Learn the most common writing clichés and platitudes and then promise yourself and the world that you will never, ever use them in what you write.

Five Tips on the Business of Travel Writing

1. Do it because you love writing. Do not do it for the money because there is no money in it. Trust us.

2. Starting tomorrow, when people ask what you do, tell them you’re a travel writer. There’s no better motivation to start writing than the anticipation of the question, “So what have you written lately?” from that seductive demoiselle in the bar.

3. Don't get put off by rejection. Perseverance is 80% of getting published.

4. Enter writing competitions whenever possible. You never know.

5. Keep your day job.

Courses and Further Reading

Creative Escapes were selected by The Guardian in 2008 as one of the world’s top five learning holidays. They offer weekend and week-long travel writing (and photography) courses in spectacular destinations such as Morocco, France, Spain, Norway and Cambodia. Groups are small, offering very personalised instruction and 1-on-1 sessions with expert, professional travel writers. With great food, stunning accommodation, and a lively group ambience, there is plenty of time to relax, kick back and find inspiration for your writing. www.creative-escapes.co.uk.

The Bradt Travel-writing Seminar is an intensive day-long seminar in London that focuses on the art and craft of travel writing. Instruction covers the nuts and bolts of good writing, how to sell articles to newspapers and magazines and even a competition to win a commission to write a Bradt guide. www.bradtguides.com

Terry Marsh teaches a short weekend residential course on 'Writing about Travel' at Burton Manor College, Neston, Wirral, Cheshire in late November. The price is all-inclusive of accommodation and food. www.countrymatters.net.

Susan Grossman teaches travel journalism individually and to groups. A former contributor to The Times, The Telegraph Magazine and BBC Radio 4, she teaches journalism and features courses at various London universities, runs day-long seminars and also offers personal sessions on developing ideas, pitching editors and to individuals planning trips who hope to sell their photos or writing. www.susangrossman.co.uk.

Travellers’ Tales is the UK's leading provider of travel writing and photography courses for non-professionals, offering a range of professionally structured 2-7 day courses in London and overseas. Tutors include newspaper travel editors, award-winning authors and top photographers. It also runs the annual Travellers Tales Festival.
www.travellerstales.org.

How to Write and Sell Travel Articles by Cathy Smith (Rosiepress).
www.travelarticles.co.uk

Teach Yourself Travel Writing by Cynthia Dial (McGraw-Hill)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0071478817

The Travel Writer's Handbook: How to Write - and Sell - Your Own Travel Experiences by Louise Purwin Zobel (Surrey Books)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1572840846

Travel Writing by Don George (Lonely Planet)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0864427425

Travel Writing: See the World, Sell the Story by L. Peat O'Neil (Writer's Digest Books)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1582973814

Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. Completely revised every year, this bestselling guide to markets in all areas of the media lists newspapers and magazines, book publishers, literary agents, picture agencies and festivals. It's useful for writers, playwrights, screenwriters, artists, designers, illustrators and photographers.
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0713683716

Competitions

The Independent on Sunday/Bradt Travel-Writing Competition. Announced every April, this popular competition awards as a winner a commission to write about a far-flung destination and have it published in The Independent on Sunday. A unique feature is that a detailed critique on each entry is offered for a fee of £15. www.bradt-travelguides.com.

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition. Held in the winter, the winner of this competition wins a cash prize as well as a free place on an Arvon Foundation writing course. www.writersandartists.co.uk

Travel writer and Guild member, Roger Norum, who wrote this piece for our website, is a partner in Creative Escapes.

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