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Travel Tips: How to be a Travel Writer

A question I get asked a lot is 'How can I become a travel writer?' Well, becoming a travel writer is pretty easy – you just need to travel and write – but becoming a paid travel writer is another matter altogether. Here are some tips on developing your travel writing skills, as well as some general advice on how to turn your skill into cold, hard cash.

Developing your Travel Writing Skills

I reckon the best way to become a travel writer is to become one. As with all jobs, people are only going to pay you to write if you are already writing and being published, so it's the good old chicken and egg story again. It all boils down to contacts, hard work, and a healthy dose of luck.

Making Money from Travel Writing

To be completely honest, I'm not the best person to ask about making money1 from travel writing, but here are a few words of advice that I've been given by those who have.

And Finally...

Finally, here's a quote that I think sums up my approach to travel writing rather well. I thought I'd share it with you.

'Are you retired?'

'I'm a writer,' he said.

'What do you write about?'

'Travelling mostly, I guess,' he said. 'I go places and see things and think about what I see and then I write about that. There are lots of writers who do that.'

'You mean you would write about what we're seeing right now?'

'Sure.'

'Why would anyone want to write about this? Nothing is happening.'

'There's always something happening,' he said.

Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals by Robert M Pirsig


1 OK, I make a tiny profit from my Land's End to John o'Groats book on the Kindle store, but once the costs are deducted, it's only enough to buy me a couple of pints every now and then, so it's not exactly a steady income. I've made a reasonable amount from selling articles that I've written while travelling, but they've all been of a technical nature, rather than travel writing, which is an important distinction. Instead, I earn my keep from more traditional means (which pay much more handsomely than writing ever could), and I leave the travel writing as a hobby – and I actually prefer it that way. I can write whatever I like, whenever I like, and to me that's more important than cash. I tend to give away my content to publishers rather than charge for it, as I'm more interested in seeing the results than the money, so I'm really not the right person to ask about getting rich from travel writing... but I am the right person to ask about enjoying it.