How to be a travel writer

No other form of journalism is possibly so underestimated as travel writing, and probably no other profession so glamourised. As both a travel writer and editor, I am constantly surprised at how poorly even accomplished journalists and authors write about travel, how lazily they pitch their stories and how difficult they find it to file copy once a trip has been taken. Too many travel pieces, even published ones, are laced with clichés, devoid of any meaningful context, historical or otherwise. Criticism suddenly becomes a lost art form.

In this interview I gave a few thoughts on the matter to help to debunk these myths: https://archive.chrisguillebea... And, for anyone wanting more detailed advice, there is a book I can recommend, the brilliantly practical How to be a Travel Writer, by Lonely Planet. “Ninety-five per cent of the job involves a lot of hard work," it states. “It's gathering minute details on hotels, bus timetables, restaurants and walking tours. It's researching which god did what, which ruler took over from whom when, and what is signified by the curious ceremony that's performed every third Friday in May. It's waiting for planes and trains, buses and ferries, tuk-tuks and trishaws. It's swatting mosquitoes and squatting over hole-in-the-floor toilets." And that's still the easy part.

After first looking at the qualities needed (they include stamina, tenacity, flexibility, curiosity and an ability to live modestly), it moves swiftly on to journalistic skills and exercises on the “how-tos” of writing a travel story – the importance of research, focus, interviews, structure and self-editing. One of the most crucial is “descriptive accuracy”, because it is only through this that your trip becomes interesting, relevant and useful to others. If everything is “awesome”, “breathtaking” and “stunning”, it is just a letter to your mum, and a bad one at that. One of my personal tips to beginners starting out is to take a lot of photographs, as if you find yourself struggling to remember the specifics, you can simply describe exactly what your camera has recorded (you'll also find that the visual stimulus jogs your memory, too).

Next in Don George and Janine Eberle's book the realities of getting published – where, when and how, from newspapers and magazines to blogs – are looked at, along with pitching to editors.

While travel writing is extremely competitive and it is hard to make a living out of it, (in my full time editing job I used to say no to about 90 per cent of pitches because they are either irrelevant to our readers, a repetition of stories we had already run or pitched at completely the wrong time of year), I was always looking for experienced writers who had researched angles that worked with our publications' locations (the UK or UAE), offered an imaginative update on an already popular destination or a look at a completely new one, such as that offered by a new flight route. It was always a joy to be able to say “yes" to great writers who knew their stuff and would file on time and in the right style and tone, and with facts checked. Unfortunately, this also meant relying on a relatively small group of individuals: those who are at the top of the game in this field reap most of the benefits, while those who weren't as good fell behind; Darwinism writ large.

Despite the difficulties involved, this is a wonderfully can-do book packed with tips that are useful even to seasoned travel writers. I wish every journalist who really wants to learn to write about travel, rather than just have a free holiday with a piece as the pay-off, would read this book.