Online Class: Travel Writing 101

Travel writing is a fun, interesting and fulfilling career. If your goal is to become a full-time travel writer who is able to live off your income from writing alone, it is important to understand that travel writing, like any other career, requires you to develop specific skills and to have perseverance in order to succeed. 

There is a lot of competition in the field of travel writing. Some highly successful writers in this genre have compared their climb to success with those who aspire to become actors, songwriters or musicians. In other words, most aspiring writers work at other jobs while they build a reputation strong enough to financially support themselves on payment for their writing alone.  How long it takes you to achieve that goal is dependent upon how ambitious you are and how well you write, but the average is between three and six years. Alternatively, you may only wish to earn extra money as a travel writer and continue working in the field you are already in; perhaps you travel frequently for your current job and feel you have a lot to share with others about the places you visit. You can create a great additional source of income as a travel writer this way. 

Courses Frequently Bought Together:

Nonfiction Writing 101

Novel Writing 101

Freelance Writing 101

Course Motivation

Writing Skills

First and foremost, you must have a better-than-average grasp of the rules of proper English grammar. Many people who aspire to write for a living underestimate the importance of this skill and skip it, thinking they can acquire it as they go. This thinking is wrong. You will not get your work accepted and published by any editor if you lack basic and essential grammatical skills.

In addition to having good grammatical skills, you should have the ability to edit your work properly. You should edit until your work is as near to perfect as you can get it. With large pieces (1000 words or more) this will require several readings on your own, plus the assistance of another editor. It is advisable that you have a friend or paid editor double-check your work before submitting it for publication. The reason for this is that writers become "immune" to their own errors. Sounds strange, but it's true. If you have been working on a piece for days or weeks, sometimes you are so busy working on the content that you miss simple mistakes, or, you've read the work over so many times that you get bleary-eyed. It's always nice to find another aspiring writer to reciprocate editing duties.  The three most important things you should focus on when editing are as follows: 

1. Punctuation: Use your style guides to make sure your punctuation is correct. Pay special attention to the use of colons, semi-colons, exclamation points, quotation marks, and commas. Commas are of particular concern for many new writers. Be sure that you have a very good understanding of the use of commas by reading your style guides carefully!
2. Spelling: You have spell check, so use it, but don't completely rely on it to catch every error. Read your work over carefully after you've run spell check.
3. Typos: Spell check will not catch typos such as this, "I wander if I should use a question mark in this sentence?" or this, "It was uncle good advice that I read my work oven for typographical errors." 

All publishers have in-house copy editors who check your writing before it goes to print. They may be kind and "suggest" changes or they may just go ahead and make the changes without your permission or knowledge. Publishers and editors usually reserve the right to do this.  Although you may be initially insulted at the changes, the wisest thing to do is to accept them and realize that this is probably a great learning experience for you. Use their seasoned knowledge to make your future writing better. The only time you should argue is if the editor has added words or ideas that you object to morally or ethically (this is very rare). After you have gained some footing in the field, you can push harder to keep your writing closer to the original, or to request all changes are by approval only. Luckily, most editors are very good at their jobs and they will enhance the overall tone of your writing rather than detract from it. This does not give you the luxury of being lazy. As the writer Stephen King mentions in his book, On Writing, do not leave errors in your work thinking that the editor will "fix" them for you. Do most of the heavy lifting yourself if you want to advance your writing career. 

Writing Style

Unfortunately, great writing style is not something that you can learn. It is something that must be developed over time (or comes naturally for a lucky few). However, there are certain tips you can employ that will increase the readability of your work and thus, increase your chances of getting published.  Below are some standard "rules" of travel writing that are timeless: 

1. Don't use clichés. Phrases such as "The salty breeze blew gently off the azure ocean. . ." or "The tropical sun will warm your soul and rejuvenate your mind," may sound romantic and original, but travel editors have read phrases like this hundreds, if not thousands, of times. To be original, you have to work hard.
2. Read, read, read!  The best way to develop your own writing technique and develop an ear for what good travel writing sounds like, is to read travel writing. Read magazines, guides, books, and newspaper articles that focus on travel. Follow the writing of one or several travel writers and notice how they have their own unique, recognizable writing style.
3. Practice, practice, practice! Although it violates the laws of rule number one, the clichéd joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Answer: Practice, practice, practice," applies with travel writing or anything else in life. Write, write, and write some more. Write a small travel piece every day, even if the only place you are traveling to is the grocery store! As you write, your own style will develop and shine through over time.   

Perseverance

Perseverance is a topic that will come up repeatedly throughout this course. It is a quality you will need to have or develop if you want to break into the world of travel writing. If you truly want to make a success of yourself in this arena, then you must keep trying, even when you feel like giving up. Many successful writers will admit that they were not necessarily the most talented or creative among their peers when they started writing, but they wanted it enough to keep working at it. So, perseverance counts for a lot when discussing what it takes to be a travel writer. If you're the type who keeps at something, even when others have given up, then you will succeed.

Ability to Travel and Share Travel Information

If you don't already travel often, whether for your job, as part of your lifestyle, or for pleasure, then you need to start doing so. If money is an issue, find a way to travel on a shoestring, and then write about how you did it. If you already travel for work, start looking at these trips as opportunities to tell a story or provide information to other travelers.  

You don't need to go very far to start travel writing. Start with destinations close to your home first. Take a good look around and think about interesting attractions that others might want to know more about. No matter where you live, your home state will have something to offer travelers. You simply need to look at things through the perspective of a visitor. Do you go to a special festival, fair, event, or music venue in your hometown every year that is very enjoyable? These events may seem unsophisticated to you, but people traveling to your area want to know about these venues. Do you live near another state that has interesting attractions? A great trip worth writing about may only be a short drive away. It isn't important how near or far you travel, but how you perceive the view and relay it to others.