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Not long ago, a fellow travel blogger emailed me with the following query about pitching story ideas to travel magazines:
There are several travel magazines that I’m interested in sending a query to, but I’m having a hard time translating what I know into something that’s “pitchable.” I feel like I’m usually on the cutting-edge as far as travel news, gadgets, tools, and websites go, but I’m not quite sure the best way to use this to my advantage.
What’s the best way to “look ahead” and pitch story ideas to travel magazines? How much lead-time should I give?
This is what I told him:
The fact that you have expertise in travel news, gadgets, tools, and websites is a huge plus. Magazines love that stuff, because they need to fill the front of the magazine with short items. That’s a great way to break in anywhere and establish editorial relationships (i.e. an editor who will assign you again and again) that will be your bread and butter in the long run.
One problem is that magazine lead-time is pretty big — often as much as six months — so you have to be predictive with your “hooks”. If you already do a lot of research regarding travel and travel issues, you should get into the habit of cross-referencing research on future media events. For instance, check IMDb.com or Variety to see which movies are coming up in the next 6-8 months — especially the ones with name stars. Where are they being shot? What is their subject matter? How might there be a travel angle? Look for any excuse to roll movie releases and related “pseudo-events” (a wonderful phrase coined by Daniel Boorstin in the 1960s) into a practical travel hook.
The same can be said with anniversaries of all sorts. I didn’t sell my Allen Ginsberg “Wichita Vortex Sutra” essay to The Believer entirely on its objective merit, but because it was the 50th anniversary of “Howl” (and in fact I pitched that idea fruitlessly for three years before finding a home for it). So just be creative with those tie-ins — sometimes you will think of an angle that never occurred to the editor, and that will make the editor feel smart when he pitches it to his superior.
But whatever you do, just get started pitching. It’s a trial and error process, and you’ll learn a lot by just doing it. A lot of pitches will be turned down (or, more likely, unanswered), but eventually this will begin to bear fruit. Good luck!
One thing is leaving everything and vagabonding, another is choosing a career that allows you to travel frequently, a valid option for people who love to work and travel.
A recent article on a Sydney Morning Herald blog talks about the different types of jobs with which you can make a living traveling. The article is nothing new as it lists the good and bad of 5 most standard travel-jobs that are: travel-writer, flight-attendant, travel-television crew, tour-guide and travel-agent. However, what is interesting is the 45-comment thread the article generated. People have responded giving reference to their jobs that permit them to travel, alongside the odd commenter who has given advantages and disadvantages of his/her respective travel-job.
Some of the jobs with which people travel a lot as listed in the comment thread are interesting career options and not obvious choices. They include a large variety of both high and low paid jobs, as well as high and low profile jobs — here are some of the rarer options:
Being a diplomat, foreign correspondent, working in the logistics industry, in the international business sector, and as a trainer in an international company were other common responses.
Any inspiring others?
When I suggest to people that they don’t bring their iPod on a long trip, they often react as if I’ve told them not to bring any underwear. But it’s a perfectly sane suggestion, even for the tech-savvy, music-loving vagabond. Here’s five reasons why:
1. Start Conversations. When people in, say, Nepal see you listening to an iPod, here’s what they might actually see: A person who really doesn’t want to talk to them. In my view, it’s already awkward and difficult enough to start conversations with complete strangers without the iPod. Listening to an iPod at a restaurant while eating alone, for example, just discourages conversation further.
2. If you don’t bring it, it can’t get stolen. This, sadly, I know from experience.
3. Do more reading. If I’m carrying both an iPod and a book, and I’m stuck on a long bus ride, chances are I’ll usually reach for the iPod. I suspect I’m not alone in that regard either. On my last trip, by eliminating the option of listening to music, I read more than I ever have, and became a lot more smarter as a result!
4. Bridge the gap. The gap between relatively wealthy backpackers and their third-world hosts is impossible to bridge completely. Even if you go to Jamaica and grow dreadlocks. But one thing that widens the gap even further is when travelers display their fancy gadgets like iPods. What might seem to the traveler to be an innocent hour listening to music might appear to someone else like an ostentatious display of wealth.
5. Most places already have a built-in soundtrack. Bangkok isn’t Bangkok without its distinct sounds. This holds true for most cities, and rural areas as well. Honking horns, screeching tires, the white noise of people chattering in a foreign language– failing to experience these is failing to experience a place at all.
For more on the joys of traveling “unplugged,” check out this recent article on Brave New Traveler.
Following on from my post last week about things you might like to consider if you’re planning to set up a business that allows you to travel permanently, I had a couple of emails from people who wanted to know what sort of skills I’d recommend they learn if they want to do this.
It’s a good question and particularly so, if you consider that the skills you learn to enable a life of permanent vagabonding are also likely to stand you in good stead if you ever decide to settle down and run your own business.
Here are the top 5 skills I believe are vital if you want to run a successful (profitable) business that enables you to travel the world as much as you want:
1. Online marketing skills - crucial to generate business, attract customers and get the word out about what you do. If you’re going to be location independent, then marketing yourself online is going to be one of the primary methods to generate new business.
2. Writing and copywriting skills - much of your marketing will require effective and compelling copywriting skills and if you’re going for freelance writing gigs to supplement your income, the ability to write is obviously a prerequisite.
3. Web/blog design - even if you don’t plan to sell your services as a web/blog designer being able to set up your own websites to market what you do will save you from having to pay someone else to do it for you and is always a useful skill to have.
4. Networking - a subset of marketing, the ability to network both online and offline is important, not only for your nomadic social life but also to help promote your business.
5. IT/computing skills - this may seem a given in today’s society but I’m constantly surprised by the number of people I hear cursing the computers in an internet cafe because they can’t figure out how to do what they need to do. I’m not saying you have to be the techiest geek imaginable, but it doesn’t hurt to be able to find your way around a computer and use the software you’re likely to need for your business without having to call a friend for help every 10 seconds.
For any of you thinking about how to set up a business that will enable you to travel the world and work from anywhere, investing the time and energy to develop these skills will be time well spent and I can almost guarantee that they’ll pay you back in spades.
The Three Month Visa San Francisco Book Club will be meeting and discussing Rolf’s Vagabonding; An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel next week.
According to their purpose statement, “This group is to connect travel enthusiasts from around the Bay Area so that we can all share resources, contacts and ideas in support of each others’ travel aspirations.”
Meetings are generally held the first Wednesday of each month. Check out their Meetup.com page for more information or check Meetup.com for a group in your area (or start one!)
Future Three Month Visa book club discussion topics include: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman, and One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children by David Elliot Cohen.
Architecture fans take note—Conde Nast Traveler selects the “new seven wonders of the architecture world” in its April issue.
The magazine introduces its picks with:
“This year’s class of wondrous structures are responsible, variously, for transforming a neighborhood…revitalizing a landmark…and breaking all limits of what a building can be. Collectively, they’re proof not only of the golden age of architectural ingenuity in which we currently find ourselves but also of our desire to be dazzled, to be made to look again at a place we thought we knew.”
You might want to reroute your next trip to include a visit to see:
• Cumulus (Nordborg, Denmark)
Exhibit hall at Danfoss Universe (a science and technology museum)—designed by Berlin-based architect Jürgen Mayer H.
• Burj Dubai (Dubai)
World’s tallest building, still under construction—designed by Chicago-based architect Adrian Smith
• Wembley Stadium (London)
Sports stadium—designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster
• New Museum (New York City)
Contemporary art museum—designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA)
• Kogod Courtyard (Washington DC)
Canopy of glass and steel above the Old Patent Office Building courtyard—again designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster
• Red Ribbon (Qinhuangdao, China)
Steel bench that runs through a riverbank garden—designed by Beijing-based architectural firm Turenscape
• The Crystal (Toronto)
New entryway and exhibit space at the Royal Ontario Museum—designed by American architect Daniel Libeskind
Before you give up on European travel because of the weak dollar, consider camping. Arthur Frommer’s recent blog reminds us about the cheaper—and oft overlooked—cousin to hotels and hostels.
Some of the perks:
* It’s inexpensive: prices range from about $17-40 per couple.
* You have two options for bunking: tent-wise, you can bring your own or often rent one there. Or else, many Euro campgrounds have bungalows for rent.
* You’re not roughing it too much: many campgrounds have a swimming pool, an on-site grocery, hot showers, washing machines, picnic tables, and often a restaurant.
* The camaraderie: there’s good potential for a laugh around the campfire with fellow travelers or vacationing Europeans.
True, you’ll have to plan ahead and pack a few essentials: tent, sleeping bag, cooking equipment. But gear like this seems to be getting smaller and more compact every year, so it may not be as cumbersome as you first imagined.
And while campsites are usually more remote than the hostel in the city center, they’re often still accessible by bus or subway for those without a car. A few gems are more central—along the Seine in Paris or on a hillside overlooking Florence.
To find a European campground, check with the individual country’s national tourist office, or one of these websites:
www.eurocampings.net
www.eurocamps.net
www.europe-camping-guide.com
www.interhike.com
If you’re a biker you are probably always looking out for motorbike routes to do. Planning them is fun and the unforeseen feeds adventure, however I think you need to be a bit more careful planning them than if you were driving a car — you don’t want to be stranded on a highway with nothing around you and only stones to sleep on; any information on the route, before you’ve taken it, is useful.
A recent piece on the Guardian gives a list of 10 highways to bike across Europe by author of Uneasy Rider, Mike Carter. In his book, Carter writes about motorbiking 20,000 miles over 6-months to the corners of Europe, up to the Iran-Turkey border in search of love, life and answers. The article has excerpts from the recently published book on 10 of the routes he took, which are:
Worth reading should you want a ride across Europe.
Hey there! We took a week off from the Vagabonding resource updates, but we’re back today with a new chapter. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me give you a quick recap:
A few weeks ago I announced that Rolf’s book, Vagabonding, will be going into a second edition within the year, complete with a fully updated resources section. We put a call out for you to help us update that resource section for the second edition, and this is the second week in a 10-week-long series asking for those website links, books, and other resources that fit into the various categories found in the book.
This week we’ll be working on chapter 9:
* Publications: Overseas work and volunteering
* Volunteer agencies
* Overseas work and volunteering resources online
To see what resources were included in the first edition of the book, click the category above.
Do you know of any website links, books, or other resources that need to be included in the second edition of Vagabonding? Tell us in the comment section of this post.
When I read a recent story on CNN that talks about how the age at which people (in the West) get bitten by the travel-bug is decreasing, I felt both good and envious.
I’ve been lucky to have parents who moved around a lot, so I have lived in more places than many since a very young age; but it was purely a coincidence, the benefits of which I’m only comprehending now. A conscious effort to travel and explore the world only happened for me when I moved to Australia for university where I was surrounded by adventurous people; my lust for travel, funnily enough, started with weekend hikes!
My parents have always encouraged travel and totally support my vagabonding life; but I sometimes do wish that I spent more of my childhood holidays traveling purely to travel, rather than travel to visit family members. But, as an Indian girl brought up mostly in India, that’s what you do. I think this is changing now, but it’s nothing like how it works in the United States or Europe where things like independent travel and gap years are commonplace — which brings me back to the article I was referring to.
If you are parents who want to inject your children with the travel-bug and help them explore the world outside them while not having to worry about their safety, this article is filled with information and links to organizations that will sort it out for you. Here are some of them:
It’s a good place to start, you can read the full feature here.
