Ramp up your travel writing output with an actionable one-month plan. Photo by: Andreanna Moya.
It’s a great time to launch, or grow, your travel writing career! Travel writers today have more tools to take creative control of their content.
The rise of self-publishing and role of social media provide writers more opportunities to showcase their work, and the online marketplace is ripe with opportunities.
Editors are increasingly looking to hire local authors, and its never been easier to build and run a travel site focused on your beats.
To get started, here’s a four week blueprint for launching your travel writer career. By taking these actionable steps, you’ll be well on your way toward establishing yourself in the travel media space.
Week One
- Assess your beats. What places can you write about? Which activities do you know best? Consider the unique perspectives or experiences could you bring to your travel content, and identify some core beats.
- Study up on travel magazines, regional publications and crossover categories like food and the outdoors.
- Start building your brand through social media sites like Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
- Think about potential niche travel site topics and start doing keyword research on URLs.
- List 12 local travel activities to experience, once a month over the course of the next year.
- Write at least a little bit every day.
Week Two
- Brainstorm 30 story ideas in 30 minutes to identify your beats and start grouping story ideas.
- Register your URL with a web hosting site. Install WordPress and start tinkering with themes and blog posts.
- Network with friends and colleagues about your travel writing and start going to travel networking events like Travel Massive.
- Get writers guidelines directly from your target markets and find new ones at Writer’s Market.
- Explore the travel blog landscape at travel.alltop.com, for travel trend inspiration and writing opportunities.
- Take a local road trip to write about a new travel experience.
- Keep writing every day.
Week Three
- Post a story from your local road trip to your travel site and think about your overall site content architecture.
- Pitch a local travel story with a specific focus, like culinary travel or mountain biking, to a regional publication.
- Select 5 travel story ideas from your brainstorm and target three magazines for each: A primary market, and two backups.
- Start a time pegs spreadsheet capturing key events, anniversaries, seasonal activities and evergreen reasons to visit your beat destinations.
- Dig deeper into WordPress features, and include an opt-in form for an email newsletters. Start building your email list as soon as you can.
- Buy some copies of varying Best American Travel Writing anthologies and dissect what makes the pieces great.
- Write every day!
Week Four
- Write another article about your local road trip for your blog.
- Start a quarterly pitch plan. Pitch one of your travel ideas to its primary market, and follow up over the next few weeks. If Market A doesn’t bite, pitch it to Market B next month.
- Create profiles on Fiverr and Upwork and join the online freelance marketplace.
- Start researching video and podcasting as potential next steps to expand your audience..
- Promote your site: Network, use social media, post quality comments on posts on other blog sites, with links to your URL. You’re in it to win it now, so spread the word.
- Plan a big trip to one of your beat destinations, and brainstorm story ideas both to pitch before your trip, and research on the ground.
- It should go without saying now, but just keep writing! Every little bit helps.
Week 5 – repeat!
By following this method you’ll be up and running as a travel writer by the end of the month. Remember hard work, diligence and persistence can pay off and yield wonders.
Like a great journey, a travel writing career begins with the first steps. So get started today!
