Commonsense Tips for Newbie Travel Writers (like me)

The day I decided to become a travel writer, I immediately sought out ways on how to accomplish this goal. Since I'm new to this field (I came from a technical field in science), I knew I had to be strategic about it. I allowed my logic and intuition to guide me.

Someone once said "Before we set out to do things which we have not attempted before, we should do things that we have not done before". In my case, this is gaining leverage by gaining all the knowledge and experience I can get in this field.

Here's how I plan to become a travel writer:

Reads how-to books on travel writing

My boyfriend gave me a travel writing book (Travel Writing (Teach Yourself Educational)) when he learned that I was into travel writing. This is his way of supporting me in my career change. Although it did not give me all that I needed to be a travel writer (because I still have to experience being one), it gave me the essential knowledge on the ins and outs of travel writing.

With my own money, I plan to buy Lonely Planet's Travel Writing (How to) (I know I won't go wrong with this one). I think reading books written by successful travel writers (Bill Bryson, Rolf Potts, Tim Leffel) can inspire me and help me find my own writing voice.

Enroll in a travel writing workshop or take up a distance learning e-course on travel writing.

I think everyone can be benefited by a formal (or semi-formal) education especially if you really have no idea how to start. I joined my first e-learning course one month after I decided to be serious about travel writing. The course gave me another perspective on how to become a travel writer. It boosted my confidence knowing that I have gained "expert" knowledge in the field.



Join travel writing contests

Joining contests can pump up your drive to produce great ideas and stories. It puts you in a competitive mood and this sometimes bring out the best in your writing. If you don't win, it will still be a good learning experience. Know which entries won and learn from them. As of now, I am still finding contests where I can submit my work.

Set-up a blog or join a traveler's network

I also realized I need to have a venue to showcase my initial work as a travel writer and the best way to do that is on the world wide web. You can get a free blog on a travel network (Matador, Bootsnall, etc.) or you can get a free blogger blog like this one. Being a member of a network is like having a support group that will help you in your journey of becoming a travel writer. This makes the journey more fun!

You can even earn from your blog if you know how to do it. Matt from nomadicmatt.com earns $3,000 per month from his travel blog. From this money, he has now the means to continue going around the world and blog about it. How cool is that?

Do you want to know how Matt makes money from his blog? Let him tell you about it, click here to go to his blog.

So far, these are my initial ideas on how to become a travel writer. Can you share your ideas?

4 Ways to Make Money as a Travel Writer

Author: Money For Traveling

Have you ever wanted to travel the world and make money for writing about what you see? It’s not as hard as you may imagine. Using a few underground techniques, you can be making a healthy income in no-time flat for writing about traveling the world!

Here are the ways you can make money as a travel writer:

1) Traditional Method: Selling Your Stories To Travel Magazines and Newspapers.

This is the most common and most well-known method. Ironically, it also pays the least of all the methods.

You can take two paths when selling your article to a magazine. First you can query a magazine on their interest about a particular subject. If interested, they will agree to buy your article if it meets their standards. The second method is to write the article, then try and sell it.

To find magazines and periodicals that purchase travel stories, go to the library and check out the most recent Writers Market and you’ll have over a dozen periodicals that pay anywhere from a few hundred bucks to a few thousand dollars for an article.

The risky side to this is that there are no guarantees of payment, and you must either have a great story or be a great writer to make this work. Not impossible, just tough.

2) Writing For Other People’s Blogs.

If you can write a 400-1500 word post on any given subject, you can sell the post to a blog at a set price. Heres why: Blogs constantly need new content. It’s how they stay fresh with their readers and how they stay well-ranked in the search engines.

However, writing a new post every few days is a difficult task! If you take over that task for a blog owner, you’re going to be saving them a TON of time and effort, providing their readers with great value, and making an income for a project that is relatively easy for you to complete.

You can get paid anywhere from 20 bucks to a few hundred dollars for this kind of writing… and it’s a LOT easier to do that writing for a magazine.

Think of it: You spend a day writing 5 articles and sell the articles for $30 dollars each. Now you’ve made $150 dollars for a couple of hours of work and everyone is happy.

3) Writing for Your Own Blog.

Another option is to write your own blog and use your travel stories to drive traffic to it. You’d be surprised at the number of bored, lifeless people who want to live vicariously through someone traveling the world. You can then monetize your blog by selling adspace or selling products related to your blog. This sounds basic, but it has made many-a-traveler tens and even 100’s of thousands of dollars per year.

4) Completing Writing Projects on ‘Project’ Sites.

There are literally hundreds of writing projects posted every single day on Elance, Guru, DoMyStuff, and other ‘project’ posting websites.

All you have to do is set up a free account as a content provider, then answer people’s requests for writing projects. Once you’re done, the funds will be electronically deposited into your bank account, and you can withdraw the money from any ATM in the world. You can then pick up another project… or complete several projects all at once!

Many projects go for $1000+ dollars, so it doesn’t take a lot of these to be able to travel well and travel often. You can even do the work on the airplane ride to your next destination!

If you have any writing skill at all, you will be able to pick one of these methods and become a well-paid traveler.

**Attention Readers**

To get your copy of our free step-by-step guide showing you how to make money as you travel without ever holding a ‘job,’ visit http://www.moneyfortraveling.com. The expert authors at www.MoneyForTraveling.com
have all made a substantial internet income while traveling or they have been hired and paid well to travel the world and will show you how to do the same.

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