A Day in the Life of a...Travel Guidebook Writer.

Remember travel writer Jeremy Head?

Write to Travel interviewed him last month.

He's the author of Frommer's Seville Day by Day Guide and he's posted a video on YouTube highlighting what life was like on the road while writing the Seville guidebook...



If you want to find out what Jeremy is up to these days, head over to his travelblatherer blog.

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Travel Writers talk...

Rolf Potts interviewed Gary Shteyngart.

Gadling has been talking travel with 'Wanderlust and Lipstick' author Beth Whitman and Patricia Schultz, author of "1000 Places to See" part one (plus part two and three)

World Hum talks with Bryan Mealer.

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Travel Writer interviews...

I seem to have run out of travel writer interviews at present. 'Fraid I haven't had any time lately to search any out. But if you know of anyone who wants to be interviewed, drop me an email.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of interviews from around the net...

Conde Nast's Daily Traveler recently posted After Iran: A Chat with Rick Steves

and

The Tokyo Traveler interviewed Matthew Firestone, one of the authors to The Lonely Planet Guide to Japan and the writer of Gadling’s Big in Japan

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Authors@Google: Photographer Joe McNally.

Photographer Joe McNally discusses his book "The Moment It Clicks."

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Jeremy Head.

Today we talk with travel writer Jeremy Head, author of the recently released Frommer's Seville Day by Day

You can find some of his travel articles at Times Online, Wanderlust The Guardian, and Travel Weekly. Jeremy has also been active in television, recently presenting undercover reports for ITV's Holidays Undercover (prime time TV on a Tuesday evening in the UK) and also as a guidebook 'expert' on Channel 5's the Hotel Inspector (due for transmission early autumn 2008)

And of course, like all travel writers now, Jeremy maintains a travel blog - travelblather - where he writes about travel and travel writing.

Hi Jeremy and welcome to Write to Travel.

1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

Yes. I was always good at writing at school. I won a couple of diary writing competitions as a kid and dreamed about being a writer. Oddly I ended up working in Marketing for 5 years out of Uni and it took a year out travelling for me to take the plunge and go for writing as a career.


2. What do you consider your first 'break' as a travel writer?

I don't believe in breaks. I did work experience at a magazine company in London and asked the editor if I could try writing a few travel pieces. He said 'yes'. It's about getting yourself in the right place at the right time and that's about persistence and research.


3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into travel writing?

Don’t do it. Seriously. The pay is lousy. (I earn at best around £20,000 a year and doubt I'll ever do any better as a freelance.) The competition is fierce too. But what's worse is that after a few years even travelling loses its appeal. If you love travelling, then travel. Don't make a job out of it and ruin it for yourself. Travel writing is damn hard work – most of the time you are so busy when you are somewhere you don't have time to really appreciate it properly.


4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online ?

Bleak. The net is providing so much content for free people no longer value it. Decent travel content takes time. It needs careful research and quality writing. But because there's so much for free out there now people have forgotten this. My latest guidebook Frommer's Seville Day by Day is for sale on Amazon right now for £3.

That's less than the cost of a beer. That's plainly not sustainable. Publishers are running scared – both books and magazines. Ad revenue is declining and their profit margins are under siege. Instead of going on the offensive and saying 'If you want decent quality, accurate, trustworthy travel features and guides you need to pay a decent amount for them' and keeping prices at a sensible level they are continually cutting costs. That means writers are getting paid less and less. I recently heard someone was offered £1000 to write a 40,000 word guidebook with pics. Ridiculous. To do that job justice would take at least three months. You do the maths! Pay peanuts… get monkeys. You pay your writer that kind of amount how good a research job do you think they will do? It's a downward spiral and it's awful to watch, particularly when you're part of it.


5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

AA Gill is Away Just brilliant. AA Gill's first collection of travel pieces written for the Times. His introduction on how he goes about writing a travel piece is excellent and thought provoking too. I loved Bill Bryson's books as a kid, but now I find them a bit clichéd to be honest.


6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

Sleeping. The longer I've done this job, the more beds I've slept in, the more I find I can't sleep in strange beds. Weird.


7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

Brighton. My home town. It's the best – it's on the doorstep, it's by the sea and it has some great pubs. You should try it!

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Robert Todd Felton.

Today we talk with travel writer Robert Todd Felton. Since deciding to take a break from teaching four years ago, Robert has published three books and is having too much fun to return to the classroom. His writing has been published in National Geographic, Backpacker, and Automotive Traveler. Having just finished writing his latest book, Walking Boston, which is due to released in the coming months, Robert is now contemplating co-authoring a book on the best ice cream shops in New England with his two kids. You can read more about his plans at his his Red Room blog.

Hi Robert and welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for stopping by...


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

Yes, I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote stories as a child, poetry as a teenager, and fiction as an adult. I was an English teacher for nearly a decade and kept trying to make time to write but never managed it. There are those people who can write successfully with a full-time job. I am not one of those people. I wish I were.


2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

About the time my wife finished graduate school and wanted to return to working more, I was beginning to burn out on teaching. What I really wanted to do was make a go of it as a freelance writer. So we agreed I would take a year off from teaching to be there for our kids and try to land some writing assignments. A week later, a friend emailed me to ask if I knew any writers. A friend of his was starting up a publishing company and they were looking for a writer in New England to write a literary travel guide to the Transcendentalists. It was unbelievably lucky – a perfect match. I am passionate about both travel and literature; it was exactly the type of book I would buy.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

Take courses. Not only does it introduce you to the both the craft and business of writing (and it is a business), but the best ones help create a network of other writers you can lean on. In addition, read. I know that is a bit obvious, but I can’t overstate the importance of reading article after article in the magazines you are targeting. Not only do you get the tone and scope of what their authors are writing, but you get a better sense of the types of subjects.


4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online ?

I think it is an exciting time for writers. With the web, there are so many places to put your words and pictures that you should never be at a lack of places to send your work. Granted, many of them are not paying, but they do offer a way of building a platform and honing skills. At the high end of paying markets, there is so much competition that you really have to be on top of your game to get a shot. And then, there is a fair amount of luck – sending the right pitch to the right editor at just the right time. I came back from Sayulita, Mexico with a great story. I pitched it to National Geographic Traveler only to find out she had just signed a contract for a story on Sayulita the week before.


5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

Although he is not often considered a “travel writer” as such, and there are a whole host of other problematic issues with him and his work, Ernest Hemingway captures the tactile, sensual details of place and travel better than anyone else I’ve read…except perhaps Annie Dillard. She is also not considered a travel writer, but her books explode with the details of place. Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, William Shakespeare, Henry David Thoreau – the list is long as it is apparently male-centric.

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

For my books, I have always done the photography as well as the writing, so when I am out traveling, I definitely feel torn between the two. You really can’t photograph and write about a place simultaneously. Sometimes, like on my recent trip to Cuba, I will have time enough to concentrate on first one, than the other. But usually, I am trying to stuff a day’s worth of photography and a day’s worth of writing into a single day.


7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

My family has owned a small cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California for close to thirty years. Although I have lived across the country and in Europe, that lakeside cabin has always felt like home. It is both peaceful and joyous, relaxing and exciting. There’s lots to do or places to just do nothing.

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Photographer Pep Bonet talks...

Video featuring award-winning photographer Pep Bonet who talks about his photographic experiences in Darfur, Sierra Leone, and Somalia.

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Interview with a Travel Writer...David Stanley.

Today we talk with guidebook writer David Stanley. David is the author of Moon Handbooks South Pacific, Moon Fiji, and Moon Tahiti, published by Avalon Travel Publishing of Berkeley, California. He also researched and wrote the first three editions of Eastern Europe on a Shoestring, the first two editions of Lonely Planet Cuba, and the first edition of Lonely Planet Canada's Maritime Provinces.

You can find out more about David's publications at his South Pacific Organizer website and South Pacific Travel blog.

Hi David. Welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for stopping by and chatting.


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

I studied literature at university, but it was travel that got me into writing. In the late 1970s I was working as a destination representative at a Caribbean resort. In the off season I'd make trips to Asia. There weren't many practical travel guidebooks in those days, and in Indonesia I used a slim volume titled "Indonesia, A Traveler's Notes" by Bill Dalton. I kept notes of my own as I went along, and upon returning to my resort the next winter I sent Bill a long list of corrections and additions to his book. We began corresponding, and when Bill heard that I was planning a visit to the South Pacific islands the following year, he suggested we co-author a guide to the region. I was doubtful, but when Bill offered to do the donkey work of turning my rough notes into a publishable book, I agreed. The first edition of South Pacific Handbook was published by Moon Publications in June 1979 with Bill and I as co-authors. Bill withdrew from the second edition to concentrate on Indonesia and I wrote the following seven editions single-handed.

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

I was able to cover my traveling expenses from my South Pacific writings, but little more. My first real break came in April, 1989, when the first edition of Eastern Europe on a Shoestring was published by Lonely Planet. I'd researched and written the book myself, and Lonely Planet allowed my to retain the copyright and even paid me royalties, things they won't do for anyone these days. The Berlin Wall fell in November, 1989, and for well over a year my guide was the only one on the market as western tourists poured into the area for the first time. I did two more editions of Eastern Europe before being turned off by the masses of tourists I'd helped invite into the area. Lonely Planet bought my copyright and gave me a contract to cover Cuba for them.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

Writing for Lonely Planet these days is a learning experience with no future. You'll have a sign away all your rights to get a contract and you'll never earn more than your flat fee. It's worth doing once or twice when you're starting out, but think about your really want to do with your life. If travel writing is your choice, consider writing about your own local area where your travel and accommodations costs will be lower. If your hometown hasn't much to offer, consider moving to somewhere that does.

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online ?

Guidebook publishers pay their researchers very little these days and the writers have no rights. Self-publishing is an option, although the chain bookstores usually don't order self-published books. If you self-publish a guidebook, make sure it's one that fills a niche and one that you can distribute yourself in your own area. Self-publishing online is easier but obtaining a high ranking on the search engines is more of a challenge. There are many simpler ways of making a living, though not as much fun.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

I was most influenced by the house style of Lonely Planet. Everything a guidebook writer produces must fit into the publisher's template, otherwise it will be rejected by the editor. Self-publishers must create their own templates. In 1988 Bill Weir and I created the first template for Moon Publications as none existed before that time and the authors did their own thing, leading to uneven quality. The guidebook writers who influenced me most were Bill Dalton and Tony Wheeler who edited the first editions of South Pacific and Eastern Europe respectively. I don't write travel books. Guidebooks are a completely different genre.

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

My biggest challenge on the road is obtaining the information I need while remaining anonymous. I've learned to ask questions carefully and to write my notes when I'm out sight of the restaurant and resort owners. If someone guesses who I am, I deny it. On a small Pacific island, if one person knows who you are, everyone soon knows and it becomes impossible to obtain the information you need. I don't solicit or accept freebies, so I feel I have a right to my privacy. The restaurant and resort owners have fewer rights in this regard as they're marketing their services to the general public. The honest guidebook writer has few friends on the road.

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

I have different favorite places for different reasons. I guess Vancouver Island where I live is my favorite place for the security and convenience it offers. As for travel destinations, Fiji and Cuba are about tied for their friendly people and wealth of things to see and do. I'll go anywhere once but I never return to a place where the people were unfriendly to me as a visitor or the local officialdom was corrupt or threatening. I could name a few of those, but I won't.

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Carolyn McCarthy.

Today we talk with travel writer Carolyn McCarthy. Specializing in wilderness travel and all things Latin America, Carolyn’s articles have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Salt Lake Tribune, Toronto Sun and the Boston Globe. She has also written about Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador and Yellowstone National Park for Lonely Planet.

Carolyn blogs at Wild Blue Yonder and recently wrote an interesting guest post for Perceptive Travel Blog about why A Guidebook is not a Guru.

Hi Carolyn. Welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for taking to time to chat.


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

I recognized early that I wanted to be a writer but didn't know how to get from point A to point B. After a series of random jobs after college I realized that, though comfortable with my daily latte, good friends and nice surroundings (Boulder, Co), I was on the wrong track. I backpacked through Mexico through South America, eventually getting hourly work as a teacher in order to have free time to write. It was my first solo journey and the discoveries of the road lit a fire under me. I wrote, wrote, wrote and kept with it.


2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

South American Explorer magazine published a piece I wrote chronicling some pathetic dating experiences in Buenos Aires called "Isn't it Romantic". That encouraged me to continue.


3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

It's hard work. Write about what intrigues, puzzles or fascinates you so you have the drive to stick with it. Rejection becomes a big part of your reality, so you can’t become too attached to one idea or commercial success.

I would also recommend that new writers knock on doors. When I was first starting out I mostly eavesdropped. I don't like disturbing people. I didn't realize that being a writer was a credential I could use.

Then I went to check out a famous Panama hat factory in an Ecuadorian village. Closed! But there were people inside. It was so out of the way that I didn't want to turn around, so I convinced the guard to let me look around. I was crashing a farewell party for management. The weavers--all women--were decked in their Sunday best, prodding their German boss to dance with them in the courtyard. The scene gave me a real sense of who they were and how they worked together.

Of course, not everyone on your path is welcoming, but it still amazes me how willing people can be to let you drop in on their existence for a few hours or days.


4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online ?

I think we live in a tricky time. On one hand, there are fascinating contradictions that we see when we travel---with the modern world interacting with old cultures and great landscapes getting gobbled up by development. There is plenty to write about. But newspapers and magazines have gotten more focused on service pieces, forsaking, I think, great stories for vacation fodder (like Top Tens). As a guidebook writer, I've obviously covered this material, but think there's room to explore the complexity of travel, to talk more honestly about travel's contradictions and its discoveries. Right now, the Internet (through travel websites and blogs) is where these kinds of stories are ending up.


5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

I was born in Jack Kerouac's hometown of Lowell and have to say, On the Road was the first book that made me want to chuck it all, write breathless run-ons and inhale life.

Travel writing favorites include Bruce Chatwin's Songlines, Redmond O'Hanlon's In Trouble Again and the essays of Pico Iyer and Susan Orlean.

But rather than scoping the travel shelf at bookstores, I tend toward literature that gives a strong sense of place. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a certain version of Colombia, there's also Edward Abbey's Utah and Lucas Bridges' portrait of early Tierra del Fuego.


6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

After five straight years of travel, mobility and trusting my instincts are not a problem. But it is hard to have a sense of community when your surroundings change so often, so there's a difficult balance to strike between stoking the home fires and being present and living in the present.

Another challenge is to stay open to spontaneous opportunities--no matter how tired you are, or prone to cop out for an easier plan. There is always one big one which ends up being the best eye-opener and somehow defines your trip.


7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

Chile's Puelo River valley. I spent over a year there on grant writing about Patagonia's fading pioneer culture. It's remote, wild and taught me a lot about the independent human spirit.

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Kim Wildman.

Today’s interview is with travel writer Kim Wildman, an Australian with itchy feet. Her writing has been published in a numerous magazines and online publications as well as enjoying the wandering lifestyle of a guidebook author for publications such as Lonely Planet and more recently Bradt Travel Guides. Kim is currently on a ten week round the world trip.

Kim also blogs about her travel and writing experiences at Wild About Travel+Writing.

Hi Kim. Welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for stopping by...

1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. Though, I was
originally interested in writing fiction, not travel. My mother always said
I had a very vivid imagination! The first piece I had published was a short
story about treasure hunting in the Mediterranean which appeared in the
Brisbane Sunday Sun when I was 12 years old for which they paid me a paltry
$5. Then, when I was 16 years old, I became very influenced by SE Hilton
(the young author of The Outsiders first published in 1967) and imagined
that I would become the writing world’s next big teenage discovery and so
wrote my first novel.

Unfortunately, I made a very common mistake many writers make when starting out and tried to mimic her style (hence why my book was never published and why it today remains boxed away in storage in my brothers’ attic!). Somehow though I managed to get lost on my way to pulp fiction super stardom and ended up working as an account executive for a uniform company. That was until I travelled to South Africa for the first time in 1996 and was inspired to combine my three loves: travel, writing and
photography. Travel writing wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be though.
My articles were rejected numerous times. Instead of giving up my dream, I
decided to quit my job and went back to university to study journalism full-time, telling my friends that I was going to get a job working as a travel writer for Lonely Planet. Naturally, they all scoffed at me and assumed I would never do it.


2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

My ‘break’ as such was part tenacity in knowing what I wanted and going for
it and also the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time.
As part of my journalism degree I had to do a two week internship with a print media publication. While most of the students in my class simply applied to do their internships with the local newspaper (the good old Toowoomba Chronicle), I‘d already gotten myself a job there as a casual writing advertorials and was still determined to work for Lonely Planet.

So I called up LP’s head office in Melbourne and asked if they would take me
on, and to my great surprise they said yes. It was then while I was in the
Melbourne office doing my internship that I was informed that the company
was actively looking for younger, female writers (at the time, most of their
authors were men over the age of 40) and was asked if I wanted to apply.

Naturally I jumped at the chance. So within three months of completing a sample chapter and two months after finishing my university degree I was off on my first assignment to cover Romania and Moldova in Eastern Europe.


3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

Quite obviously, I’d say never give up. We’ve all been rejected. JK Rowling
was rejected nine times before some wise editor glimpsed the magic of Harry Potter. So follow your passion and hold on to your dreams no matter what. It should go without saying, but in order to become a better writer you must practice your craft. Write daily if you can, or in the very lest set aside an hour or two each week to devote to your writing. Take a class, do a workshop, keep a journal or write a blog, but whatever you do; write. Also it pays to find your niche and to write about what you know and love. Once you do that, it is much easier to find your voice and write from your heart.


4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and
online?

I believe it will be some time (if ever) before the e-revolution completely overtakes print media. Like many other readers out there I still love my books - I love the look of them; I love the feel of them; and, I love the smell of them. That said, while I still do plenty of work for traditional publishers such as the guidebook I’m about to update for Bradt Travel Guides, about 90 percent of my income these days is derived from writing for online publishers. So personally I believe the internet has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for travel writers. However, it seems there is a common misperception that to write for an internet website or online travel ezine you either have to write for free or earn a pittance.

Bear in mind that all major media outlets and publications now have their own websites for which they continually require fresh content . Even traditional guidebook publishers like Lonely Planet and Rough Guide have seen the benefit of making their content available through the internet. So there are plenty of reputable online publishers out there that do pay, and pay well, for good quality writing. Granted online readers have a shorter attention span, so the articles you write are usually shorter and pithier. But this also means that they are quicker and easier to write which leaves you plenty of time to devote to that heart-felt, in-depth travel article which you can pitch to a glossy magazine.


5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

As I mentioned previously, the writer who had the most influence on me was
SE Hilton. When it comes to travel writers, though, while I’ve read the greats -Theroux, Chatwin, Hemmingway - I often find their style of writing somewhat dry and tedious. I prefer to be entertained. I want the author to take me on the journey with them, put me in their shoes no matter where they are and have me rolling around the floor laughing at their [mis]adventures.

So my two favourite travel books are Bill Bryson’s Down Under and Irish comedian, Tony Hawks’ Playing the Moldovans at Tennis. Funnily enough, after I read Hawks’ book I ended up travelling to Moldova for Lonely Planet and consequently met almost everyone he mentioned in the book - I even stayed with the same family and had the same interpreter/guide. My only regret is that I didn’t take the book with me so that they could all sign it!

The book I am currently reading is Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. While it is much more academic, I love that he looks at the psychology behind our desire to travel. His main argument is that, more often than not, there is a huge difference between the everyday reality of travelling and what we imagine the experience will bring us. That in the end what we are looking for when we travel is what we are lacking at home. As a travel writer I think it is very important to keep this in mind.


6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road? How do you maintain a travel blog on the road?

For me the biggest challenge I face is knowing when to stop and smell the roses. I usually become so obsessed with trying to get all the information I need for whichever guide I am working on or whatever article I am writing that I often have to remind myself to stop and take a moment to relax and enjoy the sites and sounds of wherever I am. Thankfully, I seem to be getting better at this as I get older. Perhaps that just comes with experience though.

As to blogging while on the road, I only started my personal blog this year and so far have only been moving around within Australia, so haven’t encountered any problems as yet. My upcoming trip, however, which will take in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Jamaica and Cuba, will be the first real test for me. Once I am on the road researching I am sure that keeping up my blog might prove a little challenging, especially in some parts of Africa that I will be travelling to.


7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why?

Without a doubt, my favourite place is Cape Town. After living there for three years while I completed my Masters degree in African Studies at the city’s university, it has become home away form home. In fact, I feel more at home there than I do anywhere in Australia these days! Apart from being the most beautifully positioned, picture-perfect city, for me it is a place full of wonderful memories and fabulous friends. Just some of the amazing experiences I’ll remember forever include climbing Lion‘s Head at sunrise on Sunday mornings, watching the clouds froth over Table Mountain from the deck of my apartment in Rondebosch, learning about ‘the struggle’ on a tour of Robben Island, seeing Nelson Mandela deliver the inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Town, dancing under the stars at the first 4664 concert at Green Point Stadium, watching the Rugby World Cup and drinking Windhoeks with the boys at The River Club, rummaging through the antique shops and second-hand book stores at Kalk Bay, braaing on the beach with friends at Laguna, and having sundowners at Camps Bay. I can‘t gush about the city enough. Fortunately for me I will be back there next week!

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Travel Writer Christopher P. Baker talks....

Christopher P. Baker talks is interviewed on CBS TV's "Eye on the Desert."



In case you missed it, Write to Travel interviewed Christopher in November 2007.

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Authors@Google...Jeff Greenwald

Jeff Greenwald of "Shopping for Buddhas" and "The Size of the World" fame talks about traveling and writing.

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Elizabeth L. Blair.

Today we talk with travel writer Elizabeth L. Blair, also known as Desert Mama of Traveling Mamas fame. Her writing has appeared in a variety of online and print publications - Christian Science Monitor, GoNomad, USATourist News Magazine, Baby Zone, and Long Island Mothers Journal - as well as numerous anthologies such as Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul (2004) and Haunted Encounters from Around the World (2004).

Hi Elizabeth and welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for stopping by...

1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

I'll admit I was one of those kids who said, "I'm going to be a writer when I grow up." I would sit in my "office" (my walk-in closet) and write stories.

I also said I was going to have a job that allowed me to travel. As life would have it, I ended up becoming a flight attendant. I spent most of my twenties in the sky, exploring cities far from home, and I loved every moment of it.

In my mid-twenties I returned to college on my days off from flying and ended up thriving in my writing classes. In fact, the first story I wrote for my first writing class ended up being published, and I received a check for it. When I realized I could make a little extra cash writing, I bought the Writer's Market book, began submitting, and ended up with several published clips.

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

I answered an ad for USATourist.com. They were looking for some writers to help with the content pages. I had lived in several of the cities they were looking to cover, so I pitched an outline for a city and they accepted.

In the meantime, they were in need of someone to write the monthly USATourist News Magazine. I was asked to take over for a couple of months and ended up taking it on permanently. It's been over three years and it has been such fun watching the site and newsletter evolve. USATourist.com is geared towards international travelers visiting the U.S. and is translated into five languages, so I get to correspond with readers from around the world. I just adore that aspect of it. (Thank goodness for Google Translate.)

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

Write about your interests, hobbies, and most importantly, what excites you. It's fun to look back and see how my articles and even my bios have followed my life.

For those wishing to break into travel writing I strongly suggest becoming a tourist in your own city. While it is fun to go to an exotic location and write about it when you're first starting out, it's easier to get your work accepted if you're an "expert" at something. Writing about the city where you live (or have lived) makes you just that. I wish I had realized that early on.

My other advice is to meet other writers. I enjoy chatting with people who have been writing for years. They have wonderful stories and advice (and make me grateful typewriters are a thing of the past).

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online?

The convenience of the web is unsurpassed when it comes to needing immediate, up-to-date information and that can only benefit writers since websites wishing to stay current will always need to be updated. Combine that with the fact anyone can have their own website or blog, there's no argument this is an exciting time for writers.

I also believe books and magazines will always be in vogue. There's nothing like reading a book or flipping the pages of a magazine, especially when flying or hanging out on the beach.

The good news is that many websites are starting to offer rates competitive with glossies and that's promising.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

I have been an avid reader since I was a child but I can't name a particular writer who has influenced me. Usually it's whomever I'm reading at the time. Right now I have Natalie MacLean's book Red White and Drunk All Over on my bedside table. She's a terrific writer and I'm learning quite a bit about the international wine world.


6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road?

Overall, I am very at home on the road. I lived out of a suitcase for so long traveling is just second nature for me.

As a parent of two preschoolers I thought being away from them would be very hard, but it ends up they're extremely resilient (my husband is great with them and a firm supporter of my writing). They're also getting a fabulous geography education. I do wish I had more time at the destinations I visit, as I often leave saying, "I'm not done yet." I would love to write every article in the moment.

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why?

I have so many wonderful travel memories and appreciation for every place I visit, it's hard to choose only one destination. I was recently in New Orleans which has always been one my favorite cities. (I grew up in Baton Rouge.) I have to say that for a city that has been through such a catastrophe, the soul of the city is as vibrant as ever.

I spent a few years in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There is something very special about that town. It's so laid back and there's so much to do, especially if you love the outdoors. The town has a waterfall, hot springs, and the town locals have an extremely friendly demeanor. My dream is to spend my summers there then live the rest of the year here in Tucson where the sunsets are absolutely spectacular. That would be in between traveling, of course.

......

Elizabeth has upcoming articles in May issues of AirTran Airways GO Magazine and Draft Magazine.

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Travel Writer Pico Iyer talks…

About ‘living for a week in LAX Airport’…




About the mobile village and reads from his book Global Soul…

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Lara Dunston.

Today we talk with Australian travel writer Lara Dunston who, with her husband and co-writer Terry Carter, have been on the road for the last two and a half years. And they have no plans at this stage to stop traveling. So far they have been to over 60 countries and have had their travel writing published in magazines and newspapers all over the globe, including National Geographic Traveler, Lifestyle+Travel, Get Lost, Paperplane, USA Today, and The Independent, as well as an array of in-flights and hotel magazines. Together they have also written, contributed to, and updated around 30 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, Dorling Kindersley, AA Guides, and Thomas Cook, and this year will add Footprints and Rough Guides to their ever-expanding list of publishers.

Lara also maintains the Cool Travel Guide Blog and with Terry also blogs at Grantourismo.

Hi Lara. Welcome to Write to Travel. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts on travel writing.

1.Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

When I was a teenager I dreamt of writing a sweeping melodramatic epic like Dr Zhivago or Anna Karenina (one side of the family is Russian!) but thought a career as a journalist was more practical. My main passion was film, however, so after a year of an arts degree I switched to a communications degree and majored in film and writing, so I ended up making films and wrote film criticism for Australia's most respected film publication, the now-defunct FilmNews.

While at uni, I had also written for the student newspapers, first at Sydney University, then UTS (University of Technology Sydney) - mainly film reviews, but also on arts, culture, comedy, book reviews – and that taught me a lot. My day jobs all involved writing in some form or another – I worked in PR/media relations in government, I was a publicist for a band, I did PR for a photographic gallery – and in all of those jobs I was writing. I wrote press releases, letters, articles, did interviews with photographers, and so on – all of those experiences were value in learning about language and how to create narratives.

My first feature film (and my last, I might add!), a low budget road movie, attracted a bit of attention and I was invited to teach film, so then I found myself trying to write educational yet entertaining lectures for all the different courses I taught. My film (Come By Chance) was two years in the making and it nearly killed me as we travelled all over New South Wales and Queensland in Australia making it, so after I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I found myself retreating to anything except film. I did a Masters degree, I wrote a teenage romance novel for HarperCollins, and after doing a short course in travel writing and photography with a friend, I got into travel writing.

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

My husband Terry, who I co-write with, was working as a publishing manager at Universal Press in Australia. They published travel guides, street directories, camping and caravanning books, travel and incentives magazines, and so on. Terry had actually started with them as a writer before moving into graphic design, book design and desktop publishing. I was freelancing then – teaching film, writing my teen novel, doing some PR etc – and they needed some bits and pieces of travel writing for their magazines, which you could call my first ‘break’. They then gave Terry and I the opportunity to write The Sydneyside Guide, which was probably one of the first compact guides in Australia then – that was before Lonely Planet’s ‘Best Of…’ series – it was a mini-guide to Sydney’s best sights, restaurants, bars, cafes, etc, and it’s still published as part of their funky little Compact Street Directory.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into travel writing?

Aspiring travel writers need to focus on a few key areas.

Firstly, they need to know travel: they need to do a lot of it; they need to get to know a wide variety of destinations and develop specialization in one or two; they need to get experience in travelling by different means and on different budgets (for example, they need to have experienced both low-cost airlines and business class, to have stayed in youth hostels and five star luxury resorts, and so on, and to be able to appreciate why a traveller would choose one or the other); they need to develop their knowledge of geography, ethnography, anthropology, architecture, art, culture, cuisines, languages and so on.

Secondly, they need to learn the craft of travel writing; they need to studying everything there is out there; read widely; understanding different genres and audiences and markets; and develop not only their own style of writing but the ability to move between different styles.

And lastly, they need to get to know the business side of the travel industry and travel media and publishing in particular: how it works; the impact of advertising and marketing; how to trust your instinct and identify trends; the publishing process; the production process; how commissioning editors, editors, art directors, photo editors, designers, and cartographers work, and how to work with them; they need to learn how to pitch, and then begin to network and pitch ideas for stories or guidebooks.

Most of all they need to treat it like a profession, and if they’re operating as freelancers, treat it like a business.

Forget this idea of travel writing being such a dream job that they’re lucky to get a project that takes them to some wonderful place they never imagined going. Whatever job they get offered they need to sit down and create an itinerary and a schedule and figure out the daily/hourly fee and expenses and whether they’re going to make money out of it or not. They need to learn the value of their work and never work for anything less than what they’re worth. There are too many publishers out there and a wealth of opportunities - travel writers shouldn’t consider themselves ‘lucky’ to be working for a particular publisher, no matter what ‘name’ the publisher might have, and they shouldn’t let themselves be exploited.

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online?

I think traditional publishing still has a future, alongside web content and digital publishing, I just think some of these people who run some of these publishing companies are clueless when it comes to technology and have panicked and in the process given away far too much content than they should have thereby exploiting their authors and giving away the very thing that represents value for their company. Other publishers have been a lot more smart about it, giving away a certain amount of content, just enough to entice the reader to go and buy the book, or created innovative products, such as DK’s custom guides where you can create your own covers – they’re very cool.

So, unlike some travel writers, I don’t think traditional travel publishing is dead but in the future people will have a lot more choices as to how they get their travel information and use it. I also think there’ll be a return to and desire for quality travel writing written by writers who actually travel and who have solid industry knowledge and destination expertise, and the skills of discernment that an ordinary traveller who vacations a few times a year and contributes to Trip Advisor or writes up their journal on a blogging site just doesn’t have. We saw recently with the whole Max controversy at the Guardian, which attracted hundreds of comments from irate readers, that readers are fed up with reading content produced by other travellers and want a return to quality travel journalism.

There are a lot of publishers out there and some pay extremely well, others pay fairly and some very pay poorly. And they each work very differently. Take guidebooks for instance: some publishers will provide letters of recommendations to help you secure media rates (like corporate rates but for travel journalists) or set up contra arrangements so you can trade ads for services, a tour for example, thereby allowing you to make much more money than the fee they pay. One I can think of, but which I won’t name, insists its writers pay for everything and doesn’t allow them to accept media rates, yet by the same token doesn’t pay fees large enough to cover all their expenses and then some so that writers who play by the rules might not make any money on some books and those who don’t follow the rules (and get away with it) can make a packet.

What aspiring travel writers need to appreciate is that there are a lot of publishers out there and they should cast their net wide. Business advisors always recommend investors don’t put all their eggs in one basket – that’s my advice too – develop relationships with guidebook publishers, magazine and newspaper editors, PR professionals who often oversee the writing of corporate travel publications, companies that produce in-flight and hotel magazines. Write for an array of publications and you can make a good living if you’re good.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

Paul Theroux is both one of the most evocative and perceptive of writers and one of the wittiest and it’s rare that you find writers who can do both of these things well – make you imagine and feel like you’re in a place as well as laugh at the people, culture and places and situations he himself gets in. A couple of books that really inspired me when I was younger were Katie Hickman’s A Trip to the Light Fantastic: Travels with a Mexican Circus, and Henry Shukman’s Sons of the Moon. Both books really took me to those places, to Mexico and the Andes respectively and showed me how you could develop innovative angles to hang universal stories off. Robert D Kaplan is another writer I love because he doesn’t separate the history, culture and politics from the place and its people – his Mediterranean Winter is a must-read if you want to be a travel writer. And then I love reading the old 18th and 19th century travel writers – a lot of them available for free on the Project Gutenburg site. Contemporary writers have a lot to learn from the old travellers – they really new how to write descriptively and evocatively about a place and capture a mood. They were just so adventurous and audacious too.

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road?

My partner and I don’t write about war zones, we haven’t been to Afghanistan and we don’t write about sub-Saharan Africa, although I’m not ruling any of that out for the future, so our challenges are few and trivial really. We seem to be most focused on: avoiding excess baggage fees and the weight of our luggage (because we’ve been on the road for over two years now so we’re very weighed down with research materials, clothes for different seaons, and lots of technology); making sure we have internet access in hotel rooms (I’ve found that the commissions I mostly get are the ones I respond to immediately – first in first served) and there’s nothing worse than missing a deadline and having to blame it on not having net access (it sounds like the dog ate my homework but sometimes there’s just nothing you can do); getting the kind of hire cars we want (why is it that even though you pick a car out on the website you never get the one you book?!); and coordinating travel arrangements (we’re writing outlines for three first edition guidebooks at the moment and planning itineraries for research trips and making plans for all three at the same time – it can get very tricky!)

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

I don’t have one favourite place. I like different places for different reasons and at different times of the year or when I’m in a particular frame of mind. In the Middle East I love Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut, Dubai and Abu Dhabi and I feel a real connection to all of those cities – Damascus and Aleppo are so atmospheric and full of life, they’re the quintessential 1001 Nights cities with labyrinthine alleys you can easily get lost in but they’re living breathing cities at the same time; poor Beirut despite its troubles is incredibly vibrant and the Beirutis are the region’s party animals; Dubai is this dynamic dazzling city that’s forever changing, both steeped in tradition (Bedouin) yet open and tolerant and forward-thinking, as is Abu Dhabi; both cities are worth getting to know – it’s their Arabian heritage and traditional culture that I really find appealing. In North Africa I love Essaouira and Alexandria, white cities on the sea. In Europe, San Sebastian, Madrid and Barcelona, are my favourites – like the Arabs the Spanish know how to live – I love their late night culture, and focus on food and socialising. But then I also love St Petersburg, Venice (off-season!), and Zurich – once again all cities on water. I find ‘second cities’ really appealing – for instance I prefer Lyon to Paris – it’s more Parisian in some ways! I’m very fond of Thailand generally – mainly for the gentleness of the people, the general serenity of the place (chaotic Bangkok aside) and the spicy complex cuisine, but ask me to name a favourite town or beach and I couldn’t. I find most of the beaches very disappointing, but that’s because I’m Australian and we have the best beaches in the world. I’m drawn to landscapes too – deserts are favourites, the Australian outback, the Arabian desert, the arid landscapes of Morocco and Syria – but then I’m also drawn to the Mediterranean, and because we’ve worked on so many books in the Med, it’s a landscape I’m very familiar and am fond of, the wildflowers, olive groves, Aleppan pines and eucalyptus trees, a landscape that’s very easy to write about.

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Sean McLachlan.

Today we talk with travel writer Sean McLachlan whose articles have appeared in Yoga Journal, The World and I, Ancient Egypt Magazine, Global Journalist, and Reuters Wire Service.

Sean is the author of Byzantium: An Illustrated History, Moon Handbooks London, It Happened in Missouri, and co-authored update of Insider's Guide to Phoenix.

Currently living in Madrid, Sean also maintains two blogs - Grizzled Old Traveler and Midlist Writer


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

Actually no. As a kid I wanted to be either an astronaut or a spy, but I ended up working as an archaeologist for ten years. Excavating in Israel, Cyprus, and all over the United States sustained my love of travel. Eventually I realized I didn't want to go into academia and I looked around for what else to do. During the Nineties I got caught up in the zine movement, publishing my own travel/archaeology zine titled Ichthyoelectroanalgesia and writing about my travels for other zines. Eventually I decided, "Hey, why not try to do this for a living?"

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

Getting to co-update the third edition of The Insiders' Guide to Phoenix for Globe Pequot. I got that through contacts and sheer luck. One of the people who was supposed to do the update bailed at the last minute, and a friend of mine, who lived too far away to take the job herself, tipped me off. I had been living in Arizona for many years and had accrued some journalism clips, so I got hired! I paid back my friend by helping her out on her own guidebook a couple of years later.

Guidebooks are great for freelancers because they keep needing to be updated. I did another edition of the Phoenix guide before I moved away, and the experience on that book helped me land the contract to do Moon Handbooks London.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into travel writing?

As always, start small and write what you know. Try to break into local markets like newspapers and magazines and do unusual takes on local sites. Smaller local and regional publications are usually hungry for decent copy. Of course, I didn't start this way, I started by being in the right place at the right time, but you can't really plan for that! Well, actually you can. Be visible, be social, and be professional.

If you want to break into local publications, you might want to look at an article I did for The Writer, later syndicated on Written Road - Ten Tips for Landing Great Features in Your Home Area.

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online?

Travel is a huge industry and that's not going to change anytime soon. What is already changing, however, is how people get their travel information. Travel blogs are very popular now, as are forums like Lonely Planet's Thorntree, and while ebooks and portable ereaders haven't made the major strides that their proponents predicted ten years ago, I can't think of a genre more appropriate for the medium than travel books. Imagine having a library of guidebooks and other works on the local area on an ereader. If someone isn't working on putting guidebooks on mobile phones yet, they should be! These changes are inevitable, so in the next few years writers who are tech savvy are going to be way ahead.

Of course, some things never change. Accurate information, clear and engaging writing, and a unique take on an area will always be important ingredients for successful travel writing.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

As a teenager I had eclectic and rather odd reading tastes. One genre I loved was Victorian travelogues. Yes, they were always biased, occasionally clueless, and described a world that no longer exists, but their writers were true adventurers. My favorite was Sir Richard Francis Burton, who was remarkably open-minded for his time, but a real cad otherwise.

Oh, and I agree with Lola Akinmade about Kerouac. For sheer forward momentum and complex yet flowing prose, you can't beat him. Hi Lola, if you're ever in Madrid, I'll show you the sights. You'd love it here!

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

Never having enough time! There is not a single country in this world I don't want to go to, but there aren't enough years in a lifetime to see all I want to see, especially since I like to spend at least a month or two in each country or major city. I've been to more than twenty countries, but will I get to the more than hundred others before I shuffle off this mortal coil? Probably not. Of course, trying to go to them all would make a great book, but I'm not sure anyone would give me a big enough advance to cover the expenses. Any takers?

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

India. No question. I've spent more than a year there on three different trips, and briefly worked for the New Delhi bureau of Reuters covering Kumbh Mela, a giant Hindu pilgrimage, but I always hunger to go back. Give me a free ticket anywhere in the world and I'll pick India over all the places I want to go but have never been. The people are wonderful, the food is awesome, and the depths of culture and history are truly bottomless. I'm sure the same is true about China, but I've never been there. I'm actually a bit afraid to go to China because I know it will probably hypnotize me the same way India has, and I don't have the time for two cultures so vast and complex!

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Interview with a Travel Writer...Lola Akinmade.

Today we talk with travel writer Lola Akinmade who's work has appeared in Brave New Traveler, Matador Travel, The Traveler's Notebook, Transitions Abroad, and Black Travel. Lola also volunteers as a photojournalist for World Hope International.

Hi Lola and welcome to Write To Travel. Thanks for stopping by for a chat.


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

Actually, I thought I’d end up a geologist. My love for the geosciences ultimately fueled an undying love of travel and global curiosity at a very young age. By fifteen, I’d written about 25 fictional stories shared only with those within my sphere. Those stories explored relationships, marriages and travel experiences well beyond my years. My young mind had been left to fully create and explore. Alas! ending up in very scientific field as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultant meant my travel writing became more technical in its delivery.

Somewhere in the fifteen years since then, creative writing slipped beneath technical writing. Some may see technicality as a limitation when it comes to writing. I see it as a sweet double-pot of expertise (creativity and technicality) I can pull from as needed.

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

In 2002, reading the line “Congratulations!” in a letter I’d received from Eco-Challenge – the World’s premier expedition racing event at that time kicked off my foray into travel writing. Chosen as one of a few volunteers to work the event for three weeks in Fiji, my main task involved reporting as a field/web journalist. We tracked the teams through jungle and on high seas, wrote up press releases and team spotlight articles, conducted interviews as well as wrote up travel narratives about beautiful Fiji which were published on a daily basis. Ever since, I’d written sporadically about experiences from Pamplona to Poland.

Until one day, I stumbled across a budding community called Matador Travel….

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into writing?

The breadth and depth of superb travel writing out there can both inspire and discourage you. Know your limitations and be confident in what you do know. As a consultant during the day, networking is crucial to my career. This crossover trait into travel writing has proven to be exceedingly beneficial in a short time span. And yes!.many successful travel writers do keep their day jobs.

Be realistic in your expectations. Millions of people who just got back from that great trip and blogged about it want to try travel writing. Millions of people with great DSLR cameras want to be travel photographers. Everyone wants to get paid to do what they love.

How do you stand apart from the crowd? That is your challenge.

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online?

For aspiring travel writers, online publishing is helping them stand apart from the crowd. I think it’s wonderful that great writers can beat the Catch-22 need-experience-before-we-publish-you vibe that a lot of established print magazines effervesce out there. Travel writing is no longer becoming this exclusive club for the privileged few.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

My well of inspirational sources is bottomless. From the established like Theroux, Leffel, Potts, Watson, Halliday, etc to the up-and-coming like Tim Patterson, Eva Holland, and Julie Schwietert inspire me. No, I wasn’t paid to plug their names.

Jack Kerouac will always have a place in my heart for keeping my attention span with every single line.

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road?

I love travelling as a minority. Being able to seamlessly move because people automatically assume I’m a local impoverished immigrant allows me to observe and immerse without sticking out like a sore thumb in some places. I get to experience the true attitudes of locals towards others very different from them – both great and bad.

I have experienced everything from utmost rejection to gawks of fascination that a lot of bright-eyed backpackers could never endure. It is at the low times I question the purpose of travel and then Mark Twain’s quote always comes to mind….“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."…… Mark Twain

By the way, check out The 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes of All Time.

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why?

Having explored over thirty (30) countries and counting, the madness, intensity, audacity, traffic jams and the unexpected of Lagos, Nigeria makes it my favorite place in the world – home.

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Video: Meet Al Argueta - Travel Photographer and Guidebook Writer.

A video from the Docubloggers series on KLRU-TV, Austin's PBS.

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