May 8th, 2008

Travel Writing Competition: Win A Trip To Costa Rica!

By Abha | Add a Comment »

Costa Rica Pages has just launched a travel-writing competition where you can get a trip valued at $3000 to Costa Rica.

Simple drill: Write a 300-word-minimum description of your most memorable vacation or travel moment and how it changed or affected you.

Deadline: Friday, August 1.

Unfortunately the prize doesn’t include air tickets to Costa Rica — but they will take care of you there, and for the moment it’s only valid till September 2008.

Read full application guidelines here.

May 7th, 2008

Viva Travel Guide’s Travel-Writing Boot Camp Schedule

By Abha | Add a Comment »

Viva Travel Guides (a new guidebook company focused primarily on Latin America that offers all of their content for free online) will be holding a few guidebook/travel writing crash courses over the next couple of months.

Viva’s Boot Camps are week-long courses that teach students how to hit the ground running with assignments. The course offers hands-on instruction from experienced travel writers, and writers have the opportunity to have their work critiqued by seasoned professionals.

Upon successful completion of the course, Boot Camp graduates have the opportunity to stay on assignment as field writers and be compensated. Work will be published in upcoming travel guidebooks for Chile, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

The upcoming courses all take place on location and are scheduled as follows:

Santiago, Chile: May 26th through May 30th, 2008.
La Paz, Bolivia: June 8th through June 13th, 2008.
Nicaragua: August 18th through August 22nd, 2008.
Honduras will also be covered in the Nicaragua Boot Camp.

Cost: The cost of the course is $250, but Viva offers a per diem to writers selected to write for the upcoming guidebooks. Dedicated writers who stay on assignment and produce over 200 paid reviews will also have their course fee refunded.

To apply: Visit Viva’s Boot Camp web page.

May 2nd, 2008

Matador Launches 8 Million New Websites

By Nicholas | 1 Comment »

I mean 8. Still, in the online travel website medium that’s muchissimo. This is good news for budding travel writers that want a entry level market to break in and earn enough for a few drinks. They now have 9 total sites:

MatadorTravel: Social network with blogs, photos, forums, paid travel writing.

MatadorTrips: Offers detailed destination guides and trip ideas for travelers.

MatadorStudy: Features information and resources about studying and teaching abroad.

MatadorNights: The world’s hottest nightlife.

Matador.org: Explores volunteer opportunities worldwide.

TheTravelersNotebook: Practical tips for travelers.

BraveNewTraveler: Thoughtful essays that explore the nature of travel.

MatadorGoods: The latest and greatest in travel gear, gadgets, clothing, and travel related media like books, music and DVDs.

MatadorPulse: Brings you news from the Matador Community and travel news from across the Web.

April 30th, 2008

Job Lead: Ghost Writer For Travel Book

By Abha | 1 Comment »

Pat and Cat Patterson have traveled 23,000 miles on bicycle, across 57 countries, over 4-years, and are currently looking for a ghost-writer to help them put together their travelogues for a book proposal.

The book is to have special focus towards Boomers as they hope to encourage (from their own example) “senior” people “get off their duffs and out breathing fresh air and exercising” and make them realize that they are capable of doing much more than they think they can at their age. Through their book they also want to reinforce to aging athletes and even those with health problems, that cycling is a great replacement for running, tennis and other knee and leg wear and tear exercise.

They have already written 700 pages, and have even signed with a book agent. They would need help editing, compressing, expanding/expounding on important parts and finding a path to the best target market.

To apply, you need to:
- Demonstrate keen interest in their story and cause
- Send them samples of your published work
- Relevant work experience is a plus

If interested and for any further queries, you can email Catherine Patterson at: worldriders2[at]yahoo[dot]com

Their story is truly inspiring: you can read all about them and their travel adventures on their website: www.WorldRiders2.com and here is a recent post on them at Vagablogging.

April 22nd, 2008

Be A World Hum Intern

By Nicholas | 3 Comments »

World Hum is accepting interns in Washington D.C.

Responsibilities:
-Researching and writing blog posts.
-Reviewing submissions.
-Proofreading and formatting stories for posting on World Hum.

Requirements:
-Be passionate about travel, knowledgeable about travel on the web and, more so, familiar with World Hum.
-Have an interest in a career writing or editing.
-Journalism background is a plus, but not a requirement. Same goes for experience with audio and video on the web.

This is a great opportunity for budding writers or editors in the D.C. area looking to break into the field.

To Apply

April 17th, 2008

How Important Is Blogging For Your Career As A Travel-Writer?

By Abha | 7 Comments »

To blog or not to blog, that is the question (sorry for the awful rendition of a cliche). The upsurge and success of blogs in the online travel-publishing industry, has posed a hot question in the minds of accomplished and aspiring writers alike: what importance do we need to give to blogging (be it general blogging or travel-blogging) in building our writing careers, and why. So I thought I’d throw the question out to the experts for their opinion.

It was interesting to see the variation in responses, all of which can be broadly put into three categories: 1) Blogging is critical for building your career as a writer 2) Blogging can play an important role, but you can’t do it at the expense of traditional writing 3) It is unclear exactly how a blog can help your career, it would depend on what you blog about and how relevant it is to what you are aiming for in your career.

[*NB: This article is long. I was going to edit down the responses to give you a short, informative piece; but then I thought that everything these people are saying is varied, making it hard to generalize their opinions without losing snippets of their wisdom, so I’m going to put all of it out there*]

How can blogging be critical for your career as a travel-writer? According to Chris Mohney, former editor of urban travel guide Gridskipper, and currently at a position with Black Book Magazine, says:”The blogging format naturally suits travel writing — casual, descriptive, narrative, and easily updated and posted from anywhere. In addition to teaching you how to write about travel by letting you do so at your own pace and in your own voice, blogging provides a readily accessible “clip file” of sorts for the aspiring novice. And it also teaches one of the most important lessons for anyone seriously attempting this kind of career: write constantly, about everything.”

Michael Yessis, co-founder and editor at World Hum gives us his take from the perspective of an editor who assigns/buys stories: “If you’re blogging about travel, I’d emphasize that you’re writing about travel. That’s just the form your writing has taken. So if your blogging is your writing, it’s therefore a big part of your travel-writing career. You shouldn’t be sloppy because it’s just blogging. Editors you pitch can see everything you write online, and many will look to your blog as a representation of what kind of work they’ll get from you.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 16th, 2008

The Tommy Kohnstamm Fallout

By Nicholas | 2 Comments »

Ok, so this LP thing is everywhere now. There are AP articles on the Yahoo homepage. Polls being given about the trustfullness of guidebooks. Boycotts of Do Travel Writers Go To Hell: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism . An interview with Kohnstamm at World Hum (which I have to give them credit for getting). And even a rebuttal of sorts from Lonely Planet.

So, what does it all mean and what to think? In the World Hum interview Kohnstamm clarifies that he was only writing the history, culture, food sections of the Colombia guide. So, he wasn’t expected to go there (even though he claimed it was because he wasn’t paid enough). He previously said he made opening times and mundane facts up. Now it is that he used the internet and other resources for this input. He admits he did take freebies, but not in exchange for postive coverage. So, this was all about book publicity that got blown out of proportion. Seems like it is working. It’s sad he had to throw LP and the rest of the guidebook world under the bus to do it, though. Surely there is a better way.

On a side note, Kohnstamm is giving a travel writing workshop at the 2008 Sydney Writer’s Festival entitled: Approaches to Place. Space is limited to 20.

April 14th, 2008

Someone Scratched My LP

By Nicholas | 7 Comments »

I don’t know if anyone has been following the news that has been creaping up all over the media the past few days, but guidebook publisher Lonely Planet has been hit by a renegade author, Thomas Kohnstamm, who is claiming that he sold drugs to compensate for his lousy authors salary, made up huge chunks of books, and updated the LP Colombia guide from…San Francisco. All this can be read in his book, to be released April 22, Do Travel Writers Go To Hell: A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventures, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism Reviews about the book so far have been fairly positive, although they haven’t really concentrated on the scandal part.

As a fellow guidebook author I have to stick up for LP, because this is just one guy. I know quite a few Lonely Planet authors and everyone of them is very professional and dedicated to their work. Some are saying the LP editors should have caught this, to which I say not likely. The editors are there to edit the text and they haven’t necessarily been to say, Sudan. Is it possible to fake a restaurant or hotel listing. Sure. But who does that? Most guidebook authors love to go to work. It’s not glamorous and usually more tedious than what most think, but it can be fun. If he didn’t like LP’s wages he wasn’t forced to work for them.

So what is going to be the result of this fallout? LP is going to take a hit, no doubt about it. They are already on the defensive. They are the number one guidebook publisher in the world. The one everyone loves to hate. This will be blown up in the media way too much. You probably won’t see Kohnstamm on Oprah like James Frey, but he will be interviewed everywhere over the next few months. People will begin to question all guidebooks and how reliable their authors are.

What will happen to Kohnstamm? LP may go after him. I can’t say for sure with LP, but most guidebook contracts specifically state that the author must actually visit the country they are writing about. He may have dated an intern at the Colombian Embassy as he claims, but seriously, doesn’t count. If LP doesn’t do anything, the readers of the Colombia guide will. That’s a lwasuit waiting to happen. Do you realize how many people’s lives he put in jeopardy with that guide? Thousands. I’ve spent months in Colombia and have been fine. The country is for the most part safe for tourists, but there are outlying regions with constantly changing security issues that do change quite often, which is why what he did was extremely dangerous. (Update: Now I hear that Kohnstamm was only commisioned to update the history section of the Colombia book! He really wouldn’t need to visit for that, so why he is even acting like he did something naughty here is beyond me. Ideas?)

There’s been a huge response on the blogosphere already:
-5 Reasons to Be Outraged By the Lonely Planet Fraud
-Do Lonely Planet Writers Go to Hell. Thomas Kohnstamm might.
-The Kohnstamm Affair: A Long Rant on What It’s Really Like to Be a Guidebook Author

April 14th, 2008

Live Blogging Session: What Do Readers Want From A Travel Blog?

By Abha | 1 Comment »

An eternal question for those getting into travel-blogging. Folks over at Europe A La Carte blog will have a live-blogging session on this topic. A group of travel-bloggers (list not yet disclosed) will talk about their blogs and there will be an open forum for you to interact with them — questions, comments, what you think etc etc. Of course, the value of the live-blogging session will depend on who is on the panel. Nevertheless, since it’s hosted by Karen Byran who runs a business offering tips to travel Europe on a modest budget, and also blogs at UK travel blog Wandalust, we can expect a decent blogger panel and active forum.

Date: Wednesday, April 23
Time: 20:00 British Summer Time
Place: Just show up at http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/

Any questions, comments can be directed to Karen at: karen(at)europealacarte.co.uk

April 11th, 2008

Wend Magazine Goes Digital; free issue

By Nicholas | Add a Comment »

Wend Magazine, an Oregon based adventure sports print magazine has recently launched a digital version. Not only that they are giving away the first issue free. They still have the print version if you prefer, but actually a digital subscription is almost half as much.