Love exploring the world? In recent years, travel writing has become a popular job for those who enjoy being on the road and writing down their adventures. In this article, we’ll outline the steps to becoming a professional travel writer. If you love to write, freelance travel writing is a great way to tell people about your trips and express your creative ideas.
Table of Contents
1. Take a writing course
Travel writing follows a special format. It isn’t simply storytelling, but recounting an adventure to inspire others to travel. There are many travel writing courses available online, which will teach you the structure of a good travel piece. If you’ve travelled in the past, you can practice by writing about it.
2. Become an avid reader
All good writers are also good readers. Writers expand their vocabulary and skills by reading the works of others, and this is also true for travel writing. Reading published travel pieces will give you an idea of what kind of articles work and inspire you.
3. Get experience
Start by going on small trips and recounting your experiences there. Once you feel you have the hang of writing a good travel piece, you can expand into different areas whilst staying informed of what’s happening in the world. It’s important at this stage to get into the habit of writing while you travel. This can be as simple as keeping a diary to note down your immediate experiences and ideas and turning them into articles later.
4. Register your freelance business
Most travel writers and writers generally, work as freelancers. This means that you work for yourself, allowing you the freedom to travel whenever and wherever you please. To work as a freelancer, you should register an Australian Business Number (ABN). You’ll be able to run your travel writing business through this and be taxed only on the income you earn.
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5. Edit and proofread your work
Even the best written pieces won’t be accepted if they have poor grammar. This means you need to check and re-check that there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors in your piece. Beyond this, using good grammar will indicate professionalism.
6. Send your work to publications
Once you’ve written a few pieces and made sure they’re ready to be published, it’s time to send it to publishers. A good way to do this is to make a list of all the travel publications you want to get published in and the editors’ email addresses. It’s important to note that when starting out, you may not be paid for this work. However, this is a necessary step in building up a portfolio from which you’ll be able to command fees later on.
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