Maybe it was a book that got you started — a classic by Pico Iyer or Paul Theruex, or even Eat Pray Love (we don’t judge). You saw how words could be used to render permanent the fleeting experiences of a journey. And now, when you travel, a part of your mind is constantly taking notes, searching for narratives, and waiting for the day when you can set the story down on paper.
Becoming a travel writer is not easy. Editors (including us) receive many times more submissions than they could possibly publish. Building a personal brand takes time, patience and, yes, luck. Writing is excruciating work, and well-meaning feedback from friends and family often fails to help you meaningfully improve.
We’re here to help. At Intrepid Times, we’ve been publishing narrative travel writing since 2014. This travel writing knowledge hub contains a curation of resources — many of them free — to help you on your travel writing journey, whether you’re carving out a niche on the road to a new career, or taking your first tentative steps on the path to publication and creative expression.
It gets exponentially easier to have your works published when your name is a recognizable quantity in the travel writing world. Learn how to carve out a brand and make a name for yourself as a travel writer in this article by Intrepid Times’ founding editor Nathan James Thomas.
[Published Series] Travel Writing Tips
When it comes to travel writing, some of the best sources of advice are, well, travel writers. A while back, we asked several authors whose stories we had published on Intrepid Times to write a series of articles offering tips and advice to aspiring travel writers. In that series, you’ll find tips on everything from avoiding the overuse of “I” to making connections while traveling to how to avoid making assumptions before a story is written.
If we reject a travel writing submission, it’s almost always for one of these five reasons. Fix these mistakes, and you’ll be well on your way to hearing a “Yes.”
Don’t send your story off to a travel editor before you’ve gone over this quick checklist. Sharpen your writing, and make sure your story ticks the boxes that travel editors proactively look for.
