A profile of travel writing school Matador U

As someone who has been traveling around the globe since before I can remember, I have always dreamed of being a travel writer. While I would often blog about my trips to my friends and family, write about my trips for school papers, and create websites and content for (unpaid) internships, I never realized that travel writing was something that normal people could actually make a living out of.

Matador has always been one of my favorite travel websites, so when I saw that they were offering a MatadorU travel writing course, I became interested. I did a bit of research, read reviews and feedback from other students, contacted the instructors, and, after deciding it sounded worthwhile, signed up. Plus, I liked the fact that they allow you to try the course for a week for $10 to see if you like it, risk free.The total for the course is $350 which gives students access to various lessons, resources, and support forums. With all the course offers, I can honestly say it is the cheapest yet most worthwhile course I have ever taken. Before even get started, there is a pre-course that helps you setup your blog and learn what steps to take to get the most out of the course. After that, there are 12 weekly chapters (although, you are allowed to take as much time as you need to complete them), each with key terms, lessons, examples to make the lessons clear, and assignments that are critiqued. Unlike many of the assignments that I completed in school, what is great about MatadorU’s assignments is that each one becomes content to help build your blog. There are also assignments that help you create photo essays, podcasts, portfolios, and advertising pages to help monetize your site. Some other important lessons learned from MatadorU include:

  • creating successful pitches
  • finding and approaching editors
  • crafting compelling beginnings, middles, and ends to your story
  • creating characters and dialogue
  • writing in different tenses and using all of the five senses
  • writing different types of articles, for example, destination pieces vs. reviews
  • crafting a successful bio
  • how to apply for press trips and etiquette to abide by if you are chosen
  • tips for successful freelancing
  • tips for travel writing full time (for example, how to get insurance)
  • how to successfully use social media as a travel writer
  • how to work on the road

And much more (seriously, that isn’t even half of what they cover). Really, though, if there isn’t something covered, you are free to seek help by contacting the instructors or posting in the community forums where your peers, as well as staff, comment. The forums are not only a great place to learn and get advice about travel writing, but are also helpful in creating contacts, finding potential project leads, finding out about writing contests and jobs, and allowing you to talk to like-minded people in your niche.

By the time I had reached Chapter 3, I had not only begun contacting editors and sending pitches, I had started making money. My first article that I successfully pitched and sold was for an online adventure travel magazine about hiking in New York. While they normally didn’t pay for articles, they liked my idea so much they gave me $50 to create a mini-hiking guide for them. While this isn’t a ton of money, just starting out, I was pretty excited, especially since for years I had been writing for websites that didn’t pay me a dime. It also gave me the drive to really put all of my efforts into the MatadorU course and get the most out of it, giving me the confidence to pursue higher paying avenues (many times, successfully!).

Aside for the immense amount of information they give you and the feeling of a strong support system, there were two things about this course that really made me feel like it was worthwhile. The instructor in charge of the course, Julie, is the most helpful teacher I have ever had. I was always amazed at how much thought she put into giving me feedback on my assignments and my endless questions and e-mails. She has taken the time to Skype with me about future steps in my travel writing career and has even set me up with some networking projects. I am not sure how she finds the time to give each student so much attention, especially since she is a travel writer herself, but she does.

The other factor that has really made me a fan of MatadorU is all of the resources that I have, and always will have, access to. Just the Magazine List alone, with publication information, submission guidelines, and editor contacts for over 100 travel-related magazines, was worth the cost of the class. There are also pro-modules that are helpful to alumni, as well as a Market Blog that posts press trips, job leads (I have actually gotten paying assignments and jobs from this), and a weekly Writing Lab where you can have any piece of writing you wish to submit critiqued.

So what did I get out of the course? A lot. By taking this course I have not only helped enhance my writing, researching, note-taking, social media, and blogging skills, but have also seen that it’s actually possible to be paid to do what I love most, travel.

New online class teaches travelers how to make money on the road

On Wednesday, October 12, 2011, at 9PM EST (6PM PST), Unconventional Guides will host an online class on working from the road and how to make a living while traveling. The class promises that “if you are determined and committed, you can make this happen”.

The class will cover the following topics:

  • The truth about passive income
  • A 5-step plan that will allow you to make money on the road
  • Providing a service vs. creating a product
  • Different forms of work and various travel styles
  • How to handle taxes, mail, and health insurance
  • Non-profit and for-profit business creation
  • Volunteering abroad
  • Freelancing
  • Answers to more than 40 frequently asked questions

The class is only open to a limited number of students, so if you’re interested, click here to sign up.

Ajungo, the new social network platform just for travelers

Sick of searching through advice sites and hearing reviews from who only knows? Wish you could connect with other travelers about past or upcoming trips and events? Love social networking but wish you could interact with others in your travel niche? Then there is a brand new social media website just for travelers that brings together all of these platforms into one site.

Ajungo, created by Ben Barton and Steve Shea, is a brand new networking site that allows travelers to connect before, during, and after a trip. Here is how it works:

1) Create a profile and link all of your social networking sites. What this does is allows the site to funnel through your social networking platforms to pull information and funnel it around specific
destinations.

2) Find others who have been to your destination of choice and look through their posted trip or ask them for advice. Or, you can find others who will be in your destination of choice and plan to meet up or travel together.

3) Create your trip canvas, which consists of enabling the sites real-time travel guide feature so that the site can pull your photos and updates while you’re on your trip. This allows other travelers to learn from your experience as well as acts like a blog or trip journal by keeping your trip memories organized and sharing them with friends.

The goal of the site is to make travel more social as well as more comfortable for people going to new destinations. And, if there is any information that you do not want shared, the site will not post it without your permission.

Make connections with travelers, view their trips, find travel buddies, or just interact with others in the travel community. It is all possible on Ajungo.

Six Reasons I Broke Up With Your Travelblog

Every now and then I go through the little graveyard that is my RSS reader. It makes me sad when a travel blog I loved just… stops. I understand; you stopped traveling. Maybe you ended up totally off the grid; that’s cool for you but it’s weird that you just disappeared. Perhaps it turned out that blogging wasn’t your thing and you wanted to live in the trip instead of at the keyboard. It happens.

When I’m engaged with your blog, I get surprisingly attached to you and your adventures. I love hearing your stories about that time on the train or that time with the guy with the hair or that time in Siem Reap when all the laundry came back the most delicate shade of pale pink. (Wait, that was my story.)

So when your blog goes dark – last post, February, 2010 – I wonder what became of you. After a few months, I sigh and unsubscribe. I hope that you are well and happy and, oh, by the way, I’ve moved on to other blogs but I promise, it won’t be weird between us when you show up on my Twitter feed. We’re cool.

But sometimes, it’s not you, it’s me. It’s awkward and there are hurt feelings and I’m totally the bad guy. You’re blogging away about your travels, perfectly content. But my reader’s eye is roaming, over there, to that nice couple in camper van in New Zealand or that 20 something RTW guy who managed to keep his shirt on in his profile picture. Maybe there’s a woman in her 60s who has incredible stories of traveling solo in Thailand on the beaten path, or a journalism student in Seoul who has a wicked eye with the camera. It comes down to that same stupid conversation we all hate having. “It’s just not working out; I think we should read other people.” Then, early one morning, when I’m up because I can’t sleep, I hit unsubscribe. It’s over and you never know why.

It’s time for closure, that elusive feeling we hope for when a relationship ends. Here’s the truth. It was you. It’s time to clear the air, to go with the tough love. See, I didn’t want to break up with your blog, it’s just, well, you were driving me crazy. Here’s why.

  1. You junked up your site. I didn’t mind when you started selling text links, I really didn’t. Your call. But when you cluttered up your site with ad links in the content, or added those horrible pop-ups on the posts, it became clear you were more concerned with the ad buyers than our time together. We both know you weren’t doing me a service by adding links to cheap airport parking into a post about backpacking in the Rockies.
  2. You cheated on me. I know, we had a deal, you could write whatever you wanted and I’d read it. But our time together was supposed to be special. When I clicked on your blog and found stories that could have been lifted directly from a sales or promotional brochure, I felt like you’d let me down. The PR or visitor’s bureau hosts were first and I got the writing equivalent of plastic sushi.
  3. You took advantage of me. Instead of giving me beautiful stories or useful information, you pestered me. To buy your eBook. To follow you on Twitter. To be your Facebook friend. I was a number, a statistic, no longer a loving reader. “Does this make my assets look big?” you’d ask, as though that was all that mattered. I didn’t read you because of your size, you know.
  4. We grew apart. It’s sad when this happens, and really, there’s nothing to be done about it. You decided that travel wasn’t really your thing and turned to the burgeoning universe of artisanal meats. I’m a vegetarian. While I respect your choice, there were one too many late nights when you’d show up stinking of bacon. I couldn’t continue to support your new, uh, hobby.
  5. You shut me out. I wanted to read your post. But you blocked me with a newsletter sign up or some ridiculous navigation scheme or add-ons that take forever to load. Your tiny white text on a black background completely obscured anything you were trying to tell me by making your story physically unreadable. I wept with frustration, why would you draw me in like that and then, make it so difficult for me to read you? Why?
  6. You stopped caring. Maybe you never cared and I was initially attracted to your fly in the face of grammar rules bad boy ways. Your random use of commas was cute at first, but I hoped you’d grow out of it. Your mysterious word order and rambling sentences held my attention because I couldn’t wait to see what you were going to do next. But then, I overheard you say these fatal words, “I don’t care about writing, I’m just trying to get the blog updated five times a week.” Your disregard of all that was dear to me was intentional. That noise you heard, it was my heart breaking.

It was over.

I’m not saying we should get back together. You probably don’t want to anyways, after I’ve turned out to be so unforgiving. “Hey, that thing with the hotel property, it was just that one time, I don’t get why a little experimentation had to ruin everything between us.” I know, I know, but I’m a promiscuous reader and there are so many travel blogs, so many. We were never exclusive. There are only 24 hours in a day and I can’t read all the time.

Right now, you’re probably blocking my Google+ posts and photoshopping Xeni Jardin over me in your Flickr feed. I don’t blame you; Xeni is freaky smart. I just thought that maybe, if you are open minded about what I’m saying, your next reader won’t have to go through the same kind of guilt and disappointment I felt when it came to that final unsubscribe moment.

Okay, maybe you’re happy with the readers you have now, and they’re not so critical, and really, who cares what I think anyways, we’re SO not together any more. I get it. I know. It’s not you, it’s me.

[flickr image via Nina Matthews Photography]

Top tips for TBEX and other writers’ conferences: What I’ve learned from 20 years of success stories at Book Passage

When Elaine Petrocelli conceived the idea for the first Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference 20 years ago, she didn’t know what she was getting into. “All I really knew was that I loved great travel writing and photography, and I thought it would be fascinating to bring the best writers and photographers together for a few days to talk with aspiring writers and photographers about what they do and how they do it,” says the co-owner of Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California, where the conference is held for four days each August. To help realize her dream, Petrocelli contacted the then travel editor at the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle – who, as luck would have it, was me — and I contacted legendary travel writer Jan Morris, who agreed to be the first guest of honor, and the Book Passage conference was born.

That was 20 summers ago. We certainly didn’t imagine then that two decades later conference alumni would have published hundreds of articles and photographs in national magazines and newspapers, and dozens of books that directly resulted from contacts made and lessons learned at the conference. We didn’t think that some alumni would be so successful that they would return in future years as members of the conference faculty. And we didn’t dream that we would be celebrating in 2011 with the most ambitious Book Passage Travel, Food and Photography Conference yet.

We’ve learned a lot over the past 20 years and the conference has evolved to embrace those lessons. We’ve added food writing and photography to the menu and focused more and more on writing for the web, blogging and self-publishing. We’ve included in-the-field workshops and one-on-one evaluations, expanded the faculty and fine-tuned the panels and events. And we’ve added karaoke!

Most importantly of all, we’ve learned from the successes of our participants what it takes to get the most out of attending a conference — whether it’s Book Passage or other creative conferences around the country. Thinking ahead to TBEX in June and to the many other summer gatherings now offered, I thought it would be helpful to share the top tips I’ve learned from successful students.

Fittingly enough, as I’ve put these together, I’ve realized that these tips can equally be applied to getting the most out of any journey:1) Know before you go
Do your research before your journey starts. Know everything you can about the territory: the conference schedule (when do activities start and end, when are the break times, when do you eat, when can you rest), the venue (how far is it from your hotel to the event, where is food, caffeine and cabernet available), and the faculty (what are their blogs and their books and their areas of expertise – if at all possible, read their work before you go).

2) Plan your itinerary
Know who you definitely want to meet (authors, photographers, editors, publishers, producers, participants), and what subjects you want to learn about (at TBEX, for example, this could be making money from blogging, working with pr people, maximizing technology, and/or refining your non-fiction narrative style). If you want to be sure to meet author X and learn about subject Y, mark that author X is reading on Friday at 7 pm and subject Y is being discussed at a panel on Saturday at 10 am, and map your schedule accordingly (this is especially handy when someone spontaneously asks if you want to go to dinner on Friday).

3) Be a sponge
When I’m on the road on assignment, I try to absorb everything; I pick up brochures, postcards, menus, facts. I know I’ll end up discarding 90 percent of them, but since I’m not sure at the time which 10 percent I’ll want to use, I vacuum up everything I can. Past participants say the same applies to conferences. You won’t be able to attend that reading, workshop or panel after it’s over, so do everything you can while you can (and yes, this includes karaoke).

4) Embrace serendipity
Once you’ve crafted your carefully planned itinerary, don’t be afraid to detour from it. My best travel stories always come from serendipitous connections – the artist I meet through a chance encounter, the festival I hear about along the way. I love the story of the Book Passage student who by chance sat at a table with an editor from a publishing company, started talking about his travels in Europe and ended lunch with a contract for a book. If you meet someone fascinating or stumble upon a subject you know nothing about that instantly intrigues you, go with the flow. Dozens of students’ stories affirm that the life-turning, career-changing encounters were unplanned and unforeseen. When the universe opens a door, walk through it.

5) Practice the art of vulnerability
It’s a lesson I keep re-learning in my travels: The more open you are to the world, the more the world rewards you. Open yourself to the people and lessons around you. Embrace the risk; trust in the kindness of strangers. As countless students at Book Passage have found, if you really want to talk to Tim Cahill, pluck up your courage and approach him. (You’ll find he’s remarkably friendly.) And at TBEX, Book Passage and other conferences, you take out only as much as you put in. The more you leave there, the more you’ll bring home.

6) Keep the journey alive
The road doesn’t end when the conference ends. That’s just the beginning. Follow up with the contacts you’ve made. Incorporate the lessons you’ve learned. There’s no such thing as overnight success: All success is the result of hard work and respectful persistence. Pursue your passion; follow your dream. There’s no guarantee where your journey will take you, but as I learned long ago on the Karakoram Highway, there’s only one way to get there: step by step.