Dream of Travel Writing’s 12 Days of Christmas – Second Edition Archive

Today’s holiday trivia: January 4 marks a major festival in the Ryukyuan religion, a formal of Shintoism practiced in the islands between Japan and Taiwan, particularly Okinawa. The hinukan, a hearth god that guards the sacred family fire, returns to the family after returning to its own home for several weeks and is welcomed with offerings of rice and local alcohol.

For today’s 12 Days of Holiday Specials offer, we’re giving you the first shot at accessing our newest opportunity to seriously up your magazine assignment game–the At-Home Ideafest Program.

Based on our live IdeaFest retreat, this new four-week program is designed to provide a serious and lasting foundation to turn you into an idea machine, turning up dozens of article ideas every day.

For the home program, we’ve spread the same material we cover in our live event out over four weeks with one email lesson each day (rather than me talking for an hour and a half for each!):

• January 15 – 19: Getting crystal clear on the three sides of the idea triangle–the conceptualizing approach that will insure you never have an idea that an editor doesn’t think fits her magazine again.
• January 22 – 26: The magazine-first approach to pitching in practice–learning how to let magazines give you dozens of ideas of what to pitch them, and getting comfortable enough with the magazine landscape that you never have to wonder what kind of magazine would be interested in a certain story again.
• January 29 – February 2: Final checks and the spin cycle–the methods to not only ensure your ideas don’t bong with the magazines your pitching, but the see how those “outside the scope” concepts actually become dozens of new pitch ideas for other magazines.
• February 5 – 9: Pitching specialized articles–digging into the dreaded (or highly anticipated!) feature, essay, and long-form markets and learning to formulate ideas that cover thousands of words as well as thousands of miles or years while expressing everything in the succinct format of an idea that can be proven to sell.

You can read more specifically about the new IdeaFest program here, including why this program is the foundation you’ve been missing, how the program progresses, and how the program works if you aren’t able to attend to the lessons right away as they’re assigned.

The crazy thing about today’s special offer, however, is that we are not only giving you first crack at the new program and a deep discount–we’re also throwing in the At-Home Pitchapalooza Program.

In its five weeks, from February 12 through March 16, the program will walk you through:

• breaking down your past trips and future trips into pitches tailored for specific publications
• learning how specifically to pitch short magazine sections (100-300 words), recurring columns, and features
• troubleshooting all the common pitch issues and work through all the snags you are each hitting individually
• spending time not only writing pitches, but reworking them to make sure they hit the mark
• breaking down common editor responses, how to handle them, and how to negotiate for higher rates when you do get the assignment

As part of this special, nine-week offer, you’ll receive:

• 45 lessons (daily on weekdays for the 9 weeks of the two back-to-back programs)
• access to the Travel Magazine Database for the duration of the program
• private forum to discuss and critique assignments, article ideas, and pitches–available not just during the course, but going forward for you to use again and again, even to redo the program material during future rounds of the At-Home IdeaFest and Pitchapalooza Programs

Today, you can grab a spot in both programs for just $99–more than 60% off the regular price ($129 for each program).

Besides this serious discount, this is also one of the only ways into the At-Home IdeaFest Program running January 15 through February 9, or the continuation, the At-Home Pitchapalooza program running February 12 through March 16, this winter.

This iteration of IdeaFest will only be open to:

• past participants in the At-Home Pitchapalooza Program or live Pitchapalooza retreat who opt in to participate in IdeaFest at this time
• people who have already requested access to the At-Home IdeaFest Program when we first offered the opportunity to enroll through our webinars at the end of 2017
• people who grab a special $99 offer for both the At-Home IdeaFest Program and At-Home Pitchapalooza Program (a more than 60% discount off the regular price of $129 per program) during our 12 Days of Christmas deal on Thursday, January 4

Grab your spot in both programs for just $99 now.

Please note: If you have your eye on the live version of these events (IdeaFest and Pitchapalooza) coming up this spring, we’ve got a special offer for those retreats coming later in the 12 Days of holiday specials! And, attendees of the live Pitchapalooza will receive access to the At-Home IdeaFest Program before their workshop to prepare for the event.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Please note: Due to an issue with an unscheduled security update creating problems with the display of webinars and transcripts in our webinar library, this offer is available through the end of the day on January 6. We have doubled checked every page of every webinar, and all is now 100 percent operational, but we apologize for any disruptions with past purchases during this time.

Today’s holiday trivia: In many European countries, the celebration of Christmas on December 25 pales in comparison with January 6’s Feast of the Epiphany–also know as the visit of the three wise men or magi. Presents for children arrive on the eve of the Epiphany rather than Christmas Eve, though they are not delivered by a jolly man. In Italy, gifts are ferried about by La Befana, a witch with a long nose and speedy broomstick who leaves garlic and onions, in addition to the usual coal, for bad children or parents who haven’t left her a glass of wine.

There are so, so many opportunities out there for travel content marketing.

How many hotels can you think of off the top or your head? How many destinations around the world? How many cities where visitors take tours during their stay?

In just the tour and activities market alone, in just the U.S., there are 68,000 companies valued at 20 billion. That’s not even the size of fish you’re probably going after. There are many, many more that are smaller and don’t have in-house staff devoted to their content marketing.

Every year when I attend the ITB Berlin travel trade show, more than 10,000 destinations, hotels, travel tech companies, and tour operators cram, often sharing several to a table, into a space the size of 30 football fields and pay anywhere from $4,575 to $38,200 to be there for just 2 days in front of around 160,000 German consumers and trade visitors (i.e. less than the monthly visitors of the vast majority of these organization’s websites every month).

Tourism boards in cities as small as Ontario, California (population 173,212), and Columbia, Missouri (population 120,612) are spending $1.9 million and $1.2 million, respectively, per year on tourism marketing and promotion. Destinations like Florida (population 20.61 million) and Philadelphia (population 1.6 million) spend more like $76 and $19.5 million respectively.

If you have ever had a blog, set up an Instagram account, interview sources for journalism stories or corporate writing, or told stories at parties that kept every glued to your every word, you have skills that these companies need.

We’re gearing up to run our live TravelContentCon retreat next weekend, because this is the last window until after the summer travel rush dies down to get your travel content marketing ducks in a row.

Once we start rolling into March, companies and tourism boards are far too busy interacting with visitors for this season to loop in new contractors and strategies.

That’s why, for today’s holiday special offer, we’re giving you a chance to grab all of our eight of the webinars from our two content marketing series for a special price–$44.

At the regular price ($19 each), this much content would typically set you back more than $150, because all of the webinars from our library come with:

• streamable high-def video
• smaller downloadable video
• streamable and downloadable audio file
• full transcript available to read on screen or as PDF download
• all webinar slides in PDF form
• any applicable worksheets

So today, for just $44, we’re offering the full webinar packages of:

1. How To Earn Big With Travel Content Marketing: Here we talk about the different opportunities for travel content marketing writing–from blog posts to content strategy to choosing and editing photos for Instagram–what kind of pay you can expect, and where to start looking for these opportunities.
2. How To Locate The People Who Need Your Travel Content Marketing: We continue looking at where the big money in travel writing is hiding this week in part two of our series on travel content marketing writing: how to identify the people you can approach for this type of work, whether companies or tourism boards.
3. How To Craft A Travel Content Marketing Pitch That Gets Attention: In the third portion of our coverage on travel content marketing writing, I break down the steps of putting together your own pitch to send cold to companies and tourism boards you think would benefit from your services, including powerful statistics on content marketing ROI to include and just how much information to give away to keep your prospect interested without setting them up to go execute your plan without you.
4. How To Close The Deal:  Proposals And Phone Calls That Get Results: In this webinar, we’ll cover, in detail: the exact questions to ask and path to follow in your call to ensure the best results for you and your prospect (it has to be a win-win to close a good deal!), what to listen for in your prospect’s responses to make sure your proposal speaks his or her language, the formula I use to put together proposals that wow prospects and close deals.
5. Pricing, Negotiating, And Contracts (For Travel Content Marketing): In this webinar, in addition to covering the sections to make sure you include in your travel writing contracts, I cover general pricing and negotiation. Here you can find out what you “should” be charging in different situations…along with what you could be asking for when an editor names a price to you.
6. *NEWLY ADDED* How to Sell Blogging to Travel Companies and Tourism Boards: In this webinar, we discuss exactly what statistics, industry terms, and buttons to push you need to know to get yourself in the door with, fielding assignments from, and signing recurring contracts with tourism boards and travel companies.
7. *NEWLY ADDED* Best Practices When Writing on the Web for Travel Companies: Even if you’re had your own blog for years, tune in to learn the best practices in blogging technique and style when writing for companies and tourism boards, which are trying to provide information quick to readers who may have never visited their site before and may never come back again once they’ve gotten what they needed.
   
8. *NEWLY ADDED* Ghost(writ)ing on the Web as a Travel Writer: So many small travel businesses, whether tour companies or concierge travel bookers, are built around the judgment and expertise of the owner. A blog showcasing those unique advantages is a no-brainer for these companies to build trust with prospective customers, but the owner rarely has the time–or the writing chops. We unpack the process of creating ghostwritten content for your travel blogging clients.

To take advantage of this offer, head to the webinar library, and load up your cart with the webinars listed above and enter the code TCM8.

You’ll also receive something exclusive that we aren’t offering in the webinar library: the recording of our special interview with Dan Gibson from Visit Tucson.

In this call, we went straight to the source to talk about how tourism boards specifically think about their content.

Dan himself was formerly a journalist before making the jump into the tourism board side, so he has a unique perspective on what you need to know to transition into this type of writing. And he generously spilled all the beans about how tourism boards are working with freelancers today.

The thing is, we had problems with the recording for this call (one of the reasons we switched providers!), so we don’t have the beginning of the recording when I introduced the topic–just the interview with Dan–and aren’t able to include it in our webinar library.

The interview is incredibly eye-opening about how tourism boards are working with writers today–and just how easy it is to get into this type of work.

That’s why we’re including this recording (just the audio) as part of this special offer. This is the only way to get your hands on it!

Delivery: In the webinar library, add all of the webinars listed above to your cart and enter the code TCM8.

The webinars will be available immediately in your user profile on webinars.dreamoftravelwriting.com, and you will also receive an email for each webinar with the links to the downloadable audio, video, and transcript files.

Once the offer ends, we will send the downloadable file of the interview with Dan Gibson to all who have taken advantage of this special.

Three important notes:

• You need to have all 8 webinars in your cart for the coupon code to take effect. If you have previously purchased one of the webinars in the set, that will preclude you from adding that specific webinar to your cart. We set up new test accounts attached to different email addresses to get around this issue, and recommend you do the same if you are running into this issue as it is the only work around.
• We’ve completely removed the expiration time from this coupon so there is no potential of weird time zone interaction affecting the expiration time as with the 11 webinar offer earlier this week, and we’ll shut it off manually when the deal has ended. If you have any issues with the coupon saying it has expired within the window specified, email us. The shopping cart will automatically alert you if it cannot apply the coupon, because the wrong webinars  are in the cart.
• Due to an issue with an unscheduled security update creating problems with the display of webinars and transcripts in our webinar library, this offer is available through the end of the day on January 6.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: An important British holiday tradition has been the day when a lord’s subjects would come wassailing. Today, we think of wassailing as singing carols and spreading good cheer, particularly when doing so door to door, but this tradition initially was intended to replace begging and offer peasants a specific opportunity to receive food and drink—especially figgy puddings—from the wealthy. The food-gifting aspect continues today, often in unusual forms, such as the London’s Drury Lane Theatre’s tradition since 1795 of proving cake and punch for the resident theater company each January 6.

If you are new to travel writing, there is no doubt one thing that seems the golden goal for marking your successful entry into this work: scoring a spot on a free trip for travel writers.

I’ve seen this as a goal for many folks who joining us for our 5-week annual review and 2018 planning process this winter.

And if this is one of your goals this year, I’ve got great news for you:

Setting up free trips as a travel writer is dead simple.

That’s actually why we don’t write about it so much on our blog! Earning money from these trips is much harder–but don’t worry, we discuss that in-depth too throughout these webinars.

The fact of the matter is that most experienced travel writers either:

• don’t take a lot of press trips or accept sponsored travel for ethical, legal (for certain publications its a contract violation), or simple logistical reasons (many just don’t have the time to devote that the organized press trips require because they’re too busy writing!)
• prefer to work directly with tourism boards and venues to engage only in highly-individualized itineraries to ensure their travel time is used to the most advantage . . . leaving spots in regular, organized trips for you

Though the winter and early spring months don’t seem like the best time to travel, this is actually when you’ll find yourself with the most opportunities to snag and attend trips because:

• destinations don’t have tons of visitors at this time, so it’s easier for venues to host you, because they aren’t taking away from paid bookings
• in order for stories to hit in time for paying leisure travelers to plan their trips, you need to visit, write up, and publish your stories four to six months in advance of the main vacation season
• the early months of the year are prime time for expos–from regional events like The New York Times Travel Show and the Seattle Golf and Travel Show to major international events like ITB Berlin–which are some of the easiest and best places to set up free trips for yourself (I’ve long planned my entire year just from the connections at ITB each spring)
• press trips are readily available for all attendees (or, if not all, then those who ace an easy application process) through the many travel writing conferences that take place in the spring

That’s why, for today’s holiday special offer, we’re giving you a chance to grab all of our seven of the webinars from our two series on how to get on press trips and make the most of them for a special price–$37.

You’ll save more than 70 percent on these full webinar packages, which include:

• streamable high-def video
• smaller downloadable video
• streamable and downloadable audio file
• full transcript available to read on screen or as PDF download
• all webinar slides in PDF form
• any applicable worksheets

So today, for just $37, we’re offering the full webinar packages of:

1. Setting Up Sponsored Trips 101: Getting on a sponsored trip is the holy grail of travel writing, right? Living a life in which you effortlessly hop from one free trip to another, spending your days enjoying haute cuisine and your nights in the fluffy king bed of your complimentary suite? Here we discuss the basic tenets of free travel as a travel writer, from ethics to minimum barrier of entry to the different types of trips, and their various pros and cons.
2. *NEWLY ADDED* What to Expect on Press Trips: The first in our new series of webinars looking at the pre-, during, and post- aspects of press trips so you can get the most of any sponsored travel you have coming up this summer or are planning down the line, this webinar begins with the full gamut of with what you can realistically expect from your press trips–the good and the bad.
3. *NEWLY ADDED* How to Prepare for Your Press Trips: In this webinar, we look more about the story side of pre-trip preparation, including how to break your trip into stories, what is safe to pitch based on a limited itinerary or destination you’re not familiar with, and how to handle the catch-22 of pitching when you haven’t yet been accepted on a trip.
   
4. *NEWLY ADDED* How to Get the Most (On the Ground) Out of Your Press Trips: In the previous webinar in this series, we looked at the planning aspect of this process–figuring out what stories you can possibly get from the destination and itinerary site unseen–but this time we focus on how to do it in the ground, where the best, most specific story ideas are found.
5. How To Set Up An Individual Trip From Scratch: In this section we’re going to dive head first into how exactly to plan your own individual sponsored trips that fits your interests, travel preferences, and schedule. Here we look at where to find these trips and best practices for applying. I pull real press trips, read between the lines, and break down exactly what you would do in each situation of your application.
6. Getting A Spot On A Group Fam Or Press Trip: In this webinar on Getting a Spot on a Group Fam of Press Trip, in our series on getting free travel as a travel writer, we’ll look at where to find these trips and best practices for applying, and then I’ll pull real press trips, read between the lines, and break down exactly what you would do in each situation in your application.
7. Putting Together A Pitch Portfolio To Support A Big Trip: Here we walk through several press trip itineraries to show who and what to pitch to set up a varied portfolio of coverage for each trip. We discuss five techniques you can use to ensure an impressive pitch portfolio to accompany any press trip request, and how to handle this process whether you’ve never been published and have no connections or have editors that you work with already but perhaps want to branch out to a new subject or geographic area.

To take advantage of this offer and grab these seven webinars just $37–70 percent off the normal pricing–head to the webinar library, and load up your cart with the webinars listed above and enter the code freetravel7.

Delivery: In the webinar library, add all of the webinars listed above to your cart and enter the code freetravel7.

You need to have all seven webinars in your cart for the coupon code to take effect. If you have previously purchased one of the webinars in the set, that will preclude you from adding that specific webinar to your cart.

We set up new test accounts attached to different email addresses to get around this issue, and recommend you do the same if you are running into this issue as it is the only work around.

The webinars will be available immediately in your user profile on webinars.dreamoftravelwriting.com, and you will also receive an email for each webinar with the links to the downloadable audio, video, and transcript files.

We’ve completely removed the expiration time from this coupon so there is no potential of weird time zone interaction affecting the expiration time as with the 11 webinar offer earlier this week, and we’ll shut it off manually when the deal has ended.

If you have any issues with the coupon saying it has expired within the window specified, email us. The shopping cart will automatically alert you if it cannot apply the coupon, because the wrong webinars are in the cart.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: It seems like we’ve totally missed the mark on Christmas by running our 12-day special a week late this year, but today is actually the official Christmas Day in more thank 15 countries, including Greece, Egypt, Russia, Ethiopia, Greece, and Bulgaria. These countries follow the Ancient Roman Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Russian Christmas is marked with a 12-course dinner centered on fish in honor of the 12 apostles, while Greeks use a sprig of basil rather than the European and American fir tree.

People often ask me which of our retreats is my favorite.

They’re all so different–from the people to the programs–that I say it’s like the favorite child dilemma.

But since our first week-long Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp, I have to say, there is a certain child that I favor. Having the opportunity to spend a week together digging in and making deep progress throughout the week felt special on its own, but the last 24 hours of the retreat were what sealed it for me.

For our final outing, we had a private tour of a landmark modern art institution. Little did I know, heading into the outing, the attendees were actually dreading it because most had had decidedly uninspiring experiences with contemporary art in the past.

However, we had worked throughout the week, in all sorts of settings, on honing our ability to find stories from any experience, no matter what.

And within less than an hour of begin at the museum, the attendee who was most unenthused about the very concept of modern art had whipped out her phone and scribbled down an entire, stunning, thought-provoking essay based on her experience.

When we returned to the retreat house that evening, the attendees busied themselves working on their final assignment while I set up a bonfire for our final evening’s celebration.

One attendee had worked on writing a story in the style of a section in Lonely Planet Magazine for this assignment, but during our last one-on-one, I had requested a number of revisions and that she dig in and put herself and her feelings deeper into the backbone of the story.

When she read the piece in our final session–designed for all participants to share how far they had come and us to celebrate that progress together–the final version was so perfect, so poignant, that it was met with a round of applause and tears from many.

I have been completely blown away by this experience purely because of the incredible changes it creates in such a short time.

The bootcamp is not designed as a beginner / introduction-style event at all providing just a basis in the opportunities in travel writing today. It’s all about action, specifically, leaving as a finely tuned travel writing machine.

The bootcamp encompasses the IdeaFest curriculum plus, and in particular is able to really focus on the process of transferring what you see in “the wild” (out touring and doing research while traveling) into article ideas and then quickly formulating the associated pitches with little time and fuss.

Everything from the approach to interviewing, what details to take in with the senses, and the note-taking process we’ll discuss all center around getting more and more usable ideas.

It’s difficult to compare the the bootcamp to our other events, because a weekend versus a full week translates to a very different feel of the event and instilling of the learned processes.  You could say that IdeaFest and Pitchapalooza revolve around classroom learning and working on your own between lessons and one-on-ones while the bootcamp is more hand-on laboratory style.

Given the time and space and the learning focus of the longer event, it’s much easier to come up with a list of 100 ideas or 15 pitches if you wish, but it’s more about leaving 100 perfect confident you can do all the facets of the process whenever you need to.

That’s why, for today’s special, we not only offering a chance to grab a spot in the Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp, but also taking two very special offers from last year’s 12 Days of Christmas to create a super-charged, comprehensive program that starts before you arrive and continues after you leave so you are guaranteed to make this the year your travel writing skills, portfolio, and income go through the roof.

What’s Included

The Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp already comes with:

• 12 modules covering the full content of our IdeaFest and Pitchapalooza programs along with special sessions to dovetail our afternoon tours and 4 post-tour debriefs ($599 value).
• 4 afternoon tours to historic, natural, and artistic sites in the Catskills and Hudson Valley ($200 value).
• 1 month of our coaching lite program following the event to help you stay on track to reach your goals including daily freelance travel writing inspiration, weekly accountability check-ins, one coaching check-in call each month, and full access to the Travel Magazine Database, with breakdowns of hundreds of travel magazines that spell out which sections of each magazine are open to freelancers, how to pitch them, and the direct emails for the editors you need to reach ($199 value).
• Two private coaching sessions with Gabi during the weekend to polish your portfolio, pitches, and proposals and plan for your travel writing success after the retreat ($250 value).
• A shared room with writing desk and the opportunity to stay on at the retreat center the following week as many days as you’d like to continue working on your pitches in a focused writing space ($150 value).
• The opportunity to stay at the retreat house for an as many day the week before or after the retreat as you’d like ($150 value).
• Wholesome, organic meals, beverages and snacks throughout the retreat ($250 value).
• A print copy of The Six-Figure Travel Writing Road Map…plus you’ll skip the shipping. We’ve already paid that for you ($25 value).

You can get all of this (a more than $1,500 value!) for $599.

But today, we are adding something very special in place of the month of our coaching lite program that typically comes with bootcamp registration.

Last year, during our holiday specials, we offered a special with an unprecedented amount of access to me for a small group of writers who needed to make huge steps forward with their travel writing careers in a very short amount of time, either because they were on their way to quitting their jobs to freelancing full-time, just had, or were using an unexpected exit from a past job as the opportunity to final make the leap.

What You’ll Also Get With This Special Offer

The four-step start-up package includes:

• 3 half-hour phone calls over the course of two months–beginning before the bootcamp to ensure you’re primed to make the most of the experience
• 1 month unlimited questions by email (I just noticed that my own business coach charges nearly $200/month for one email a day!)
• 1 month unlimited query critiques of pitches before you send them
• 2 portfolio site reviews
• 1 review of social media profiles

Step One – Day One
You complete a comprehensive questionnaire that guides you through the groundwork and soul searching you need to do to set yourself up for success as a travel writer:

• why you are looking to become a travel writer
• when you’d like to hit a certain income goal or go full-time
• the complete time resources at your disposal to pursue this endeavor in the two months we’ll be working together
• the direction you’d like to take your freelance travel writing in terms of type of writing as well as topical or geographic focus
• and a detailed overview of your previous publishing and writing experience so I know all the skills you have to bring editors and clients and can help match you with the right ones.

After I’ve reviewed this information, I put together a work plan for you for getting yourself set up quickly and correctly the first month along with resources to help you overcome any fears or knowledge gaps you have, then we have our first call to get to know each other, discuss the plan, and get clarity on anything other questions and roadblocks you have.

Step Two – First Month – Laying the Groundwork
Following the plan we’ve laid out, you get fresh versions of your websites and social media profiles online and we got back and forth over email to review them.

During this time, you’ll also attend the Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp and transform your travel writing skill set.

Step Three – Transition from First Month to Second Month – Moving into Action
Once we’ve finalized your online presence and initial travel writing footing, we attack…I mean…we pitch blitz.

Our second call with be a highly-focused pitch brainstorming and trouble shooting session designed to set you up with 20-25 solid pitch ideas to work on in the month ahead.

We’ll go back and forth on email during the rest of the month to whip your pitches into shape and ensure you’re at the point where you can create stellar pitches on your own once our work is done.

Step Four – End of Second Month and Our Start-Up Sessions – Moving into a New Day-to-Day Maintenance Routine
In our third and final call, we talk through any major, recurring issues that popped up in your month of pitching and make sure you feel prepared to continue pitching on your own going forward.

Then we make a plan for how to pre-pitch your upcoming trips and pitch on-going writing work to hit your complete income goals.

Who Can Make the Most of This Offer?

Today’s special is especially for all of you who are just starting out, for if you don’t have clips (or not any that you’re proud of), you don’t have a blog you’ve worked on for some time, and you haven’t changed your LinkedIn profile to proudly proclaim yourself a travel writer.

The commitment from you:

• an hour or two several days a week (though it doesn’t have to be every day) to do focused work on your questionnaire, website copy, and other tasks
• resolution to do the soul-searching to dig up what’s really holding you back and who you really want to be in this new career so we can create a sustainable foundation in our time together
• a promise both to yourself and to me that you will remain resilient and flexible throughout this process as we reshape your preconceptions about what is and isn’t needed in this career
• determination to give 100% to the work you’ll do during our time together

This offer is extremely limited–both because of spots in the bootcamp and also the fact that we can only offer this kind of email access to a very small number of people at one time–so if you’re interested, check your schedule and reserve now.

Delivery: Pay for your spot in the start-up program and the Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp at the holiday special price of $599 for the bootcamp and four-step program here. The four-step start-up package can begin:

• Monday, January 15, or
• Monday, January 22, or
• Monday, January 29

Please reply to your order receipt and let us know what day you would like to begin. The timing of the four-step package will unfold according to your start date and the schedule above.

You can arrive early the week before and leave late the week following the retreat at your leisure–no need to confirm dates with us before booking your travel. We’ll send a questionnaire to collect more information about your needs and preferences closer to the event.

One important note: Thanks to our Thanksgiving survey (and thanks again for those that took the time to help us out with that!) we realized that a lot more of those following us that we had accounted for are on other continents but would really like to take a retreat, so we’re looking at having our other week-long event this year not at our own retreat center in the Catskills, but potentially in Europe. That means it’s closer to some, but a more expensive plane ticket for others.

So we wanted to make sure, that if you’ve been thinking about joining us for this event to make serious, speedy, lasting progress on your travel writing business, you have the chance.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: On January 8, Bulgarians celebrate the feast of Babinden. A female-focused affair, the event dates back to pre-Christian times and honors children, mothers, grandmothers, and childbirth as all babies born in the previous year are anointed with honey and butter, and young mothers bring the favorite traditional Bulgarian cream-filled pastry, banitsa, along with new clothes to their midwives.

I recently received an elated email from our of our readers and past retreat attendees about an upcoming assignment.

It’s her first $1 per word piece, and it’s for a national publication that is a household name even outside of the U.S.

In the past months since she joined us for our Pitchapalooza retreat, I’ve seen an enormous change in her confidence as she’s lined up recurring gig after recurring gig, allowing her to cut out her non-freelance writing work and have the time and space to move into pitching magazines.

But this was an enormous achievement to have just six months into buckling down on her freelance travel writing career coming from a completely different line of work without clips to speak of.

The thing is, while I am incredibly proud and delighted for her, I’m not entirely surprised.

When we first launched the Travel Magazine Database, which we completely self-fund from our savings to pay our writers at least $100 per post, we did so because we knew what a difference it would make to writers like the one I told you about above.

And while she has landed a $1 per word assignment with a major national publication, because she had in-depth insights into what that magazine wanted from writers–beating out hundreds of other writers who pitch the same outlet and receive no responses–I’ve seen many other writers land plum assignments through the database (including $1 per word gigs) with magazines you’ve never heard of.

It’s a no-brainer when you think about it. Magazines most writers don’t know have less competition!

That’s why we not only include these major publications, including newsstand titles like Men’s Journal, Travel + Leisure, and Town & Country, in our database, but also magazines from all over the world that you would like never get your hands on anywhere else, including custom magazines for hotels, airlines, tour companies, and airport lounges, along with major newsstand publications from all over the world and the most stunning, through-provoking new independent magazines.

So, for today’s holiday special, we want to offer those of you who haven’t yet had a peak under the database’s hood a chance to see what the fuss is all about for just $5.

Our Travel Magazine Database includes detailed breakdowns of hundreds of travel magazines, including information on:

• how to reach editors directly
• which sections are open to freelancers
• the word count, style, and content of each section open to freelancers

Choose five travel magazines of your choice from the list below to receive as a personalized PDF set. No need to worry about having access to the database; they are yours to access offline or without a log in whenever you need them.

Major newsstand magazines:

• Airbnbmag
• Coastal Living
• Conde Nast Traveller (UK)
• Men’s Journal
• National Geographic Traveller (UK)
• Smith Journal
• Travel + Leisure
• Wine Enthusiast
• Town & Country
• Harper’s Bazaar (UK)

Custom magazines (with sponsoring organization):

• The Red Bulletin (Red Bull)
• Cara (Aer Lingus)
• WestJet Magazine (WestJet Airlines)
• easyJet Traveller (EasyJet)
• Endless Vacation (RCI Vacation Rentals)
• Preservation (National Trust for Historic Preservation)
• Sierra (Sierra Club)
• Atlas (Etihad Airways)
• Qantas (Qantas Airways)
• Gour Seasons Magazine (Four Seasons Hotels)

Indie magazines:

• Ambrosia
• hole & corner
• Hobo
• Gastronomica
• Suitcase
• Taproot
• Majestic Disorder
• bedboat
• Upward Magazine
• Swanky Retreats

Not sure what to pick? Mix and match from the different categories or focus on just one. Check out the covers above or give them a Google.

We’ve handpicked some of our favorite Travel Magazine Database entries with the most opportunities for freelancer contributions, most interesting article opportunities, and most fantastic topics.

Delivery: Once you’ve paid for your personalized set of magazine breakdowns, email questions@dreamoftravelwriting.com with your receipt and the five magazines you’ve chosen.

We’ll put together your PDF packet for you and send it to the email you’ve used for your purchase by midnight Friday, January 12, 2018.

Love what you see and want a database subscription after? We’ve got a very special price (so low we can’t even publish it here!) put together exclusively for folks who take advantage of our five-for-five offer.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: Thought the exact observed date changes every year, January 9 is the first day for the celebration of Hōonkō, one of Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhism religion’s major festivals in honor of the passing of its founder. As the name of the festival translates to “return of gratitude” and “to clarify the meaning of” or “gathering,” temples typically open their services to all, including non-Buddhists, and temples offer the shōjin ryōri or monastery cuisine, which consists of dozens of simple yet creative variations of basic ingredients from tofu and wheat to herbs and vegetables.

In our webinars, retreats, and online pitching programs, I frequently talk about putting my “editor hat” on.

I don’t usually mean these literally–as in “it’s time to edit your work!” I actually mean that it’s time for some very tough love that you rarely get to hear: exactly what an editor would think if your pitch rolled into their inbox without warning.

This is an incredibly important process for writers who are stuck on their pitches (in yesterday’s offer, I mentioned a writer who has attended our Pitchapalooza event who is now landing $1 per word assignments because of “aha” moments like this). But it is also very unlikely to happen to most writers for the simple fact that they aren’t sitting there, pitching editors in person, seeing their responses in real time.

What you hear tends to be exactly the last thing you expect. And it makes sense. When you’ve been myopically stressing over a certain part of your pitch, another major issue–perhaps one that would only jump out to an editor rather than a freelancer–has avoided detection, even though it is what is sinking your pitches.

As we frequently discuss in our weekly webinars, there are so many deeper problems involved in magazine article pitch letter than simple editorial tweaks. (We overhauled many listeners ideas live in our year-end call-in webinar in 2016, which you can catch here!) Often the idea needs to be expanded to a round-up, better matched to a specific section of a magazine, or completely revisited and revamped into something that a magazine editor would be more likely to buy.

I love to see your pitch letters because they show me so much more than the idea at hand: I get to see the larger brushstroke tweaks that we can do in your thinking that will make *all* of your query letters more effective.

That’s what I want to offer a set of four query letter critiques to you for our 12 Days of Christmas.

It’s like a low-key form of coaching in which we get to work out larger issues in your writing while also perfecting the ideas you have right now.

When we do offer query letter critiques, they run $25 each for a one-time critique. Multiple back-and-forths on the same query are only available for monthly coaching clients, so this is an opportunity that you won’t see at any price in the future. (Unless we bring it back the 12 Days of Christmas next year ;))

For you guys this season, I’m offering them at $49 for a pack of four critiques–more than $50 off our regular pricing.

Delivery: Once you pay for your critiques here:

• each query is eligible for two rounds of edits; more edits on the same pitch count as a new pitch letter out of your four
• pitch critiques need to be used in the calendar year (2018)
• expected turn around time is five days due to my travel and teaching schedule, but if you need something on a rush, let me know
• if I’m on vacation or a trip without regular email access, I’ll alert you as soon as your pitch comes in, so you can decide whether or not you want to save it for later or wait a few additional days
• no more than two pitches per writer can be in the review queue at a time
• all pitch critiques should be submitted through the form provided

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Please note: this offer is quantity limited.

Today’s holiday trivia: Today’s holiday trivia: Every January in Benin, preparations begin for the celebration on the 10th of the Fête du Vodoun. Ouidah, a small village and former slave port, is the center of the largest celebration, which brings priests and revelries from all corners of the world, particularly France and other former colonies. The festival is not for the feint of heart—the throats of sacrificial animals are ripped out by priests with their teeth and some attendees in a frenzy cut themselves with knives and pour local gin on the wounds—but Zangbeto masquerades, live music, emotional dance performances, and free-flowing local gin are accessible to visitors.

We promised it was on its way, and here it finally is!

If there’s an event you’ve already go your eye on, scroll down and grab it before it fills up. We’ve also got two brand new events available for registration through this deal that haven’t yet opened to the public, the first chance to register for our fall TravelContentCon.

It’s been just over a year since we first started these events, and I’ve seen simply incredible results from our attendees, from landing national cover stories to racking up thousands of dollars of recurring travel content marketing work in just a couple months.

All of our weekend events include:

• 6 to 9 lecture, workshop, and discussion modules
• At least two private coaching sessions with Gabi during the weekend to polish your portfolio, pitches, and proposals and plan for your travel writing success after the retreat ($250 value)
• A private room with writing desk and the opportunity to stay on at the retreat center the following week as many days as you’d like to continue working on your pitches in a focused writing space ($150 value)
• The opportunity to stay at the retreat house for an as many day the week before or after the retreat as you’d like ($150 value)
• Wholesome, organic meals, beverages and snacks throughout the retreat ($100 value)
• A print copy of The Six-Figure Travel Writing Road Map…plus you’ll skip the shipping. We’ve already paid that for you ($25 value)

The retreat location is accessible via public transit from New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal or by car (1.5 hours from New York City).

Today is your chance to sign up for any of our upcoming weekend retreats at a price even lower than our early-bird specials: $349.

This is the absolute lowest we can run any of our retreats at, and we’re doing so by offering these retreats will out additional access to our coaching lite program following the retreat.

If you’re interested in joining the coaching program, you will have the chance to do so after the event you’ve attended at the normal coaching lite pricing, even if coaching isn’t open for public registration at the time.

Through this offer, you can grab a spot in the following events:

IdeaFest: Friday, March 16, to Sunday, March 18, 2018

Whether you’re brand new to freelance writing, have a blogging background, or are coming to travel writing from another type of freelance writing, this weekend workshop is designed to make sure that you never run out of the travel writers’ most important currency: article ideas that are laser focused and a perfect fit for the magazine you’re pitching.

As you learn how to become an idea machine and walk away with 100 ideas matched to magazines, we’ll discuss how to find and formulate ideas whether you’re on the road or cooped up at home with nothing to inspire you but the internet, and you’ll see how to take any one kernel of an idea and reshape and slant it for dozens of magazines.

Read more about what the event includes and the full schedule here.

Pitchapalooza: Friday, April 13, to Sunday, April 15, 2018

Pitching is the single best way to up your portfolio and income; get all of your questions answer and 25 ideas workshopped into polished pitches. If you know you can write and get good feedback from the editors you’re already working with but are having trouble moving up to bigger and better markets and stories, this event is for you.

Read more about what the event includes and the full schedule here.

NEW EVENT! Building a Blog Business: Friday, August 17 to Sunday, August 19, 2018

There has been a lot of talk in recent years in various online programs and industry conferences about exactly how to make money with a travel blog.

By an large, people are fed up with advice that doesn’t work and blogs that don’t provide them any return.

If you are serious about turning your blog into an actual business—a.k.a. something that creates money for you every day, without your needing to keep the wheels running with income from freelance writing and other paid-on-receipt services, this event will show you how.

I’ve been writing about how to create a business only for going on four years now, and in my own time as a freelancer have worked for so many blog businesses over the year run by people who bought blogs, started and built up blogs on their own and then tried to turn it into a money-making venture, or started a blog in advance of launching their product to build momentum.

I also know so many small business owners with blog based businesses from my own small-business-owner circles that I constantly compare notes with at the top conferences for blog-based businesses every year (which uniformly cost upwards of $1,000 to attend—and that’s not including accommodation!)

I have seen a lot of successes, but also a lot of failures.

So, like our exercise-heavy TravelContentCon, we’re launching a new event that will distill all of the steps that you need to follow to get your blog acting like a business and making you money while you sleep.

NEW EVENT! Travel Writing Business Mastermind Retreat: Friday, June 22, to Saturday, June 24, 2018

**Please note: this event is free for members of our coaching program as part of our summer retreat week for coaching program members, so if you are already a member of the coaching program, please do not sign up for this event through this offer! That also means that if you sign up for an event that precedes this and join the coaching program as a result, you’ll also eligible to attend for free.**

This very special event will take a deep dive on how you run the business portion of your freelance travel life in a higher-level approach to our programs like IdeaFest and Pitchapalooza, which focus singularly on an individual part of the marketing process, or TravelContentCon, which firmly divides the freelance pie between editorial and content marketing writing.

Expanding on the work that we go through in our afternoon Freelance Travel Writing Master Class events (you can check out the schedule and content of one of those here), we will dedicate this weekend to a deep planning and reflection process for your business, similar to our year-end review followed by a pen-to-paper planning process to sketch out exactly which steps you will take when to get your business where you want it to be, from:

• negotiating raises or additional work from on-going clients
• systematically pitching both editorial and content marketing work to create long-term relationships with the most minimal marketing involvement
• leveling up from “plateau” markets you’ve gotten stuck writing for in which your skills are increasing but there’s no way for the pay and opportunities to follow suit

This event is specifically for freelance travel writers who:

• are currently freelancing full-time (even if it’s not 100% travel)
• are actively freelancing part-time and planning to transition to full-time this year

Don’t worry how much you are or aren’t making—the important thing to apply the work from this event is that freelance is or will soon be your primary income source.

TravelContentCon: Friday, August 24 – Sunday, August 26

Last year’s TravelContentCon attendees killed it pumping out pitches after this event last August. If you’ve been telling yourself it’s time to:

• double down on your recurring income
• transition from one-off or non-contract blogging work to more stable relationships
• figure out what travel content marketing looks like for you and how to get a piece of the pie

…this event—built entirely on action and start-to-finish travel content marketing planning for what will work best for you personally—is for you.

Read more details here on the page for our January event. The August event will follow the same content plan and schedule as the one coming up this weekend.

Delivery: After paying here, send your receipt to questions@dreamoftravelwriting.com with the name of the retreat you would like to attend. Then you’re all set!

You don’t need to confirm your flight dates with us before booking; you’re welcome to arrive any time the week before the event and leave any time the week after.

We keep those weeks open for attendees who want to front-load work before the event and bang out some deadlines so their decks are clear for new endeavors and those who want to take advantage of the thousands of magazines in our physical library—the progenitor of the Travel Magazine Database.

A bit more than a week before the event, you’ll receive a questionnaire about your arrival time and food preferences , then another the week of the event with reminders on what to pack and the weekend schedule.

Please note: like all of our holiday offers, this offer is non-refundable and not combinable with another product. If you are unable to attend for unforeseen reasons, you can transfer your ticket to another individual, but we are unable to facilitate that connection for you.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: In many Asian traditions, odd numbers are lucky, and Japan is no exception. The 11th marks the festival of Kagami Biraki, which means “opening the mirror,” and implies the end of a period of abstinence. The celebration began with the samurai in the 15th century and continues in the judo martial art tradition today, as well as in private homes, to whack open sake barrels with wooden mallets, drink the sake from specially made square wooden cups, and break upon and share a mochi (traditional japanese rice and red bean sweet).

Ever since we laid our eyes on what is now our 3,400-square-foot writing retreat in the Catskills, we knew it had to be used for one thing: a place for writers, editors, bloggers, and other creatives to come and do deep work, like…

• finishing a first draft of a book
• editing a documentary
• processing a huge batch of photos from a trip you’ve just wrapped up
• banging out an entire month’s worth of blog posts
• finishing some big feature assignments
• recording a series of videos for your audience
• writing the materials for a course you’re planning to launch

We’ve set up the property with gardens, writing spaces for all temperaments, and a rich library of magazines and travel literature–everything you need to focus deeply on whatever it is that will seriously move the needle on your writing career.

For today’s offer in our holiday specials, we’re offering two weeks of writing residency (you can read all about the program here) for $299. You can use the weeks one after the other or at separate times during the year, but they must be used in 2018.

Our usual pricing for residency weeks is $150 per week, with the option to add your meals for $100 for the week, but for this offer, we’re throwing in the food so rather than $500 for two weeks, you’ll just pay $299.

You’ll have all of your meals and snacks for the week (prepared in advance by us to your preferences using local, brain-boosting ingredients, ready to be heated up by you when you’re ready for a refueling break) at the regular weekly price ($150) for a private room with private writing desk and full access for the week to the entire facility, which includes also includes a sauna and a pub for relaxing in the evening.

When residency guests opt to have their meals included, that goes for drinks as well, so you’ll also have access to local beers, hand-selected wines, and a bar sourced from around the world to highlight traditional flavors from our favorite culinary destinations.

You serve a treat after a long day of focused writing work! Just be careful mixing the bar and sauna 🙂

Confirm your spot here.

FAQ:

What dates are available?
Begin Sunday and End on Saturday. Dates for this spring and summer, subject to availability and confirmation:

• Sunday, January 28, 2018 – Saturday, February 3, 2018
• Sunday, February 11, 2018 – Saturday, February 18, 2018
• Sunday, February 19, 2018 – Saturday, February 24, 2018
• Sunday, February 25, 2018 – Saturday, March 3, 2018
• Sunday, March 4, 2018 – Saturday, March 10, 2018
• Sunday, March 25, 2018 – Saturday, March 31, 2018
• Sunday, April 22, 2018 – Saturday, April 28, 2018
• Sunday, May 13, 2018 – Saturday, May 19, 2018
• Sunday, May 20, 2018 – Saturday, May 26, 2018
• Sunday, September 9, 2018 – Saturday, September 15, 2018
• Sunday, September 16, 2018 – Saturday, September 22, 2018

If you would like to use a date in a later month that’s not listed here, let us know. There is no availability for June, July, or August.

If you choose back-to-back weeks, there’s no need to leave for the Saturday night in between, of course!

Please do not book any travel until the dates you’ve requested are confirmed in case we have run out of spots that week.

How do I confirm a date?
Respond to your receipt email with your three top choices (in sets of two or that can be combined in any fashion), in order, and we’ll work it out together with you next week. We’ll allocate first choice options in order of booking receipt.

What is the food like?
I have a food background (my first blog was around 30-minute dinner parties and featured recipes from all over the world) and have often catered events in the 100 to 200s over the years. Expect everything to be healthy, primarily gluten- and dairy-free with vegetables from our own mini-farm or other farms right in our village. We have a detailed food preference form to capture your choices, and will confirm the menu with you in advance to allow you to request changes as necessary.

Can I arrive Monday?
We can only check-in in person on the weekend, so we’ll leave you a key and detailed instructions if you can’t arrive until Monday. You will still need to check out on Saturday for the next folks unless you are staying for multiple weeks.

How many other people will be there?
It might just be you! There will never be more than four residents in any given week. Some weeks your hosts will be there working on the farm or setting up for events and the next round of guests.

How do I get there?
There is a bus directly from Port Authority Bus Terminal near Times Square and Penn Station in Manhattan (connected by train to JFK and Newark airports) to our village of Ellenville if you do not have private transport.

If you plan to fly in and rent a car, Stewart and Albany airports are also options, but typically do not have as many flights, particularly not direct.

This offer has ended. Thank you!

Today’s holiday trivia: While king’s cake or Gateau des Rois has becoming associated with North and South American Mardi Gras festivities, it was originally consumed on Twelfth Night, the last day of the 12 days of Christmas. Each cake, or pudding in the case of Britain, had a bean or charm baked in. Whoever found it–assuming they didn’t choke on it–was said to be blessed with good luck for the year ahead.

We’ve let you know for months this was coming, and now it’s finally here!

If your circumstances–time-wise, financial, or just not being ready quite yet to pull the trigger and dive headlong into travel writing–make it so that our coaching programs aren’t the best option for you right now, but you follow our webinars and new magazines in the Travel Magazine Database, we’ve got something that might be just what you need for where you are right now.

If you’ve been itching for an opportunity to pop off questions to me when you need help–our new system will give you a way to do that too!

You’ll also have access to every question and answer we’ve ever handled for other clients, so you can find even what you need on the spot.

We’ve joked in webinars and internally that this program could be called Coaching Zero, shorthand for “all of the benefits of the coaching program, none of the calls.”

As were compiling the resources for this new program, we realized that a better way to think of it is as a giant buffet rather than a prix fixe meal when the chef guides your dining process. Members have access to all of our past webinars, magazines in the Travel Magazine Database, and every question we’ve ever answered in a webinar or for a coaching student.

So we’ve named it the Dream Buffet.

Members have access to:

• downloadable and steamable videos for all of our past webinars (51 so far with new ones added every week!) after they air and the transcript of the call as soon as its ready–members of Dream Buffet and our coaching programs get access before the webinars are set up in our paid library
• detailed breakdowns of exactly which sections are open to freelancers and how to pitch them in more than 600 magazines
• dozens of detailed answers to questions about every facet of freelance travel writing, from how to email editors to what to say to land a travel content marketing client (and we’ve got folks going through our past webinars and pulling new ones to add throughout this month!), in our On-Demand Coaching Concierge system
• the ability to submit their own questions for inclusion in the database through a quick “request” right from any screen of the coaching concierge site if you can’t find what you need

Once we open regular registration for the Dream Buffet on February 1, the regular price for Dream Buffet access will be $99 per month.

So if that’s more your speed, keep an eye out for that announcement in the weekly newsletter the week of January 29. But if you know this is a fit for you, we’re going to give you $831 off of the regular price.

Yes, $831 off.

If you’d like to grab one year of Dream Buffet access through our holiday specials, before it opens to regular registration, we’re going to give it to you for 70 percent off: $357.

If you have been following us, you’ll already be familiar with how much these resources cost on their own. The Travel Magazine Database runs $20 per month, access to individual webinars and their transcripts is $19 each, and the On-Demand Coaching Concierge site is only available otherwise through our Coaching Lite or Full Coaching Programs ($199 or $499 a month respectively).

Delivery: Once you’ve paid here for your one-year access to the Dream Buffet for $357, we’ll start setting up your access to the included resources. Your access will run January 15, 2018, to January 14, 2019.

• Travel Magazine Database
  • If you do not already have an account, we will create one for you and send you the log-in instructions.
  • If you already have a monthly subscription, we will suspend the payments, and you can use the same account going forward as part of your Dream Buffet membership.
  • If you have already purchased months of access through an event, your one year of Travel Magazine Database access through the Dream Buffet program will be added on top of your current subscription.
  • If you have already purchased annual database access, your one year of Travel Magazine Database access through the Dream Buffet program will be added on top of your current subscription.
• Full Library of Past Webinars
  • We will set up a page in our private system for coaching students for you and send you your access information when your access begins on Monday, January 15. This page is linked to your email and username.
• On-Demand Coaching Concierge
  • Your log-in will be sent to you when your access begins on Monday, January 15.

Dream Buffet, like our database and coaching programs, is a subscription offering. If you would like to cancel your Dream Buffet access after the year is up, be sure to let us know before January 12, 2019, so that we can cancel your subscription before it renews automatically.

This offer has ended. Thank you!