All Posts in Category: Traveling
What I Learned About How to Approach Freelancing Setbacks from Failing at Vacation
Over the holidays, I seriously failed at vacation.
Not in the way that many of us feel that we do, when we discover something with an amazing story and our unsuspecting friends and relatives get stuck listening to a half-hour lecture on the lives of potters in ancient Greece from a local we’ve decided is an excellent source.
Nor in the way that many of us also struggle with—cutting the laptop/phone umbilical cord.
Well, to be fair, I certainly am guilty of that on this trip as well, but since I’ve been doing that since long before I met my husband, back Thanksgiving meant my friends and roommates would endure six weeks before the actual event of fiendishly testing, photographing and blogging recipes every moment I wasn’t at my day job.
This year, I failed at vacation in a way that feels worse precisely because it isn’t as “simple” as deciding whether to or to not be on one’s laptop.
Join Us This Week for Free Travel Writing Lessons on Writing for Travel Companies and Getting Work Done on the Road
In the two years since we began running regular one-hour travel writing classes, we’ve covered more than 80 topics, including:
- how to land free trips
- how to get paid really, really well for your writing
- how to get on magazine editors’ good sides
- how to navigate every step of the process to land travel content marketing work, including phone calls and proposals
- how to keep your hourly rate down so your bank account goes up
- how to get work done on the road
- how to write, step-by-step, 15 different types of travel articles
- how to land guidebook and other traditional publishing deals
You can grab access to all of our past webinars (and a ton of other resources you can’t find anywhere else) with a subscription to our Dream Buffet or grab them one-by-one when you need them in our On-Demand Webinar Library for a set with the video, audio, transcript, and slides.
But we also air a free replay of one of our travel writing classes each and every weekday.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 10: Ten-Part Physical and Digital Jump-Start Kit to Get Your Travel Writing Business Off the Ground in 2019
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 offer, we’re combining two holiday offers we’ve extended for Thanksgiving and the holiday season in the past with more goodies, including some brand new bonus digital content.
All told, we’ve got ten things for you (well, some have multiple parts, so it’s actually even more :)) today, including some that you’ll receive right away digitally, and some we will ship to you–including something special that we will hand-pick based on your writing interests.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 7: (Domestic flight included!) Seven-Day Travel Writing Bootcamp
Today’s holiday trivia: While countries across the globe celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1, Montserrat celebrates Jump-up Day. Commemorating the emancipation of the slaves of Montserrat, Jump-up Day is the last day of Carnival on the island with steel bands and masquerades, as well as male dancers chosen for their large size, who dance encumbered by chains to represent slavery.
If you woke up today, the first day of the new year, and thought to yourself or made yourself a promise somewhere along the lines of, “This year is going to be different. I am going to make sure that my travel writing takes off,” then this one is for you.
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 6: Six Steps to Never Having to Worry About How to Afford Your Trips Again
Today’s holiday trivia: Traditionally, the Japanese celebration of Ōmisoka had participants ensuring the completion of important activities before the end of the year in order to start the new year afresh. Activities ranged from house cleaning and repaying debts to purification rituals such as driving out evil spirits and bad luck, and bathing so the final hours of the year could be spent relaxing. More recently, families and friends gather together for one last time on December 31 to have a bowl of toshikoshi noodles—a tradition based on people’s association of eating the long noodles with “crossing over from one year to the next,” the meaning of toshi-koshi.
When we asked what people wanted to see in this year’s holiday specials, there was one thing people universally agreed on: they wanted to know how to land a spot on a press trip!
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 4: Four Days of Our Favorite Travel Conference
Today’s holiday trivia: December 29 is the main official holiday in Mongolia, marking the day the country obtained independence from China in 1921. To commemorate the holiday, Mongolians hold the largest wrestling match of the year. In Mongolian culture, wrestling is one of their “three manly skills,” the English name for the trifecta of wrestling, archery, and horsemanship. Wrestling is regarded as the most important of the three, and it is said that Genghis Khan considered wrestling to be an important way to keep his army in good physical shape and combat ready.
Today’s holiday special is very different than anything we’ve offered in the past. You don’t actually even pay us for it!
12 Days of Holiday Specials Day 3: Three Days of Personalized Travel Writing Retreat
Today’s holiday trivia: As part of the Feast of the Holy Innocents, December 28 is a day for pranks (similar to April Fools Day in North America) in Spain and Latin American countries. Pranksters or “inocentes” trick their friends and family; even newspapers, radio and TV stations have been known to participate by providing false stories.
The town of Ibi in Alicante, Spain, celebrates the festival of Els Enfarinats each year, as well, with participants in the day-long festival dressing in mock military uniforms and staging a mock coup while a band of street musicians tour the city. The “military” exercise their authority under a blaze of fireworks, flour bombs and eggs, surrendering at the end of the day with a traditional dance.
Join Us This Week for Free Travel Writing Lessons on Increasing Your Pitch Success Rate and Generating Sure-Fire Saleable Ideas
In the two years since we began running regular one-hour travel writing classes, we’ve covered more than 80 topics, including:
- how to land free trips
- how to get paid really, really well for your writing
- how to get on magazine editors’ good sides
- how to navigate every step of the process to land travel content marketing work, including phone calls and proposals
- how to keep your hourly rate down so your bank account goes up
- how to get work done on the road
- how to write, step-by-step, 15 different types of travel articles
- how to land guidebook and other traditional publishing deals
You can grab access to all of our past webinars (and a ton of other resources you can’t find anywhere else) with a subscription to our Dream Buffet or grab them one-by-one when you need them in our On-Demand Webinar Library for a set with the video, audio, transcript, and slides.
But we also air a free replay of one of our travel writing classes each and every weekday.
Learn How to Get Work Done When You’re on the Road for Just $5 This Week
When I first left my job to be a travel writer ten years ago, travel blogging wasn’t really a thing, in terms of a developed business opportunity.
The term “location independent” was still new, and there were just a few sites really dedicated to how, exactly, to build an online creative (i.e. writing, design, etc.) business while working from wherever. And they were almost 100% dedicated to practical matters.
Join Us This Week for Free Travel Writing Classes on Successful Interview Secrets and Putting Together a News Brief
In the two years since we began running regular one-hour travel writing classes, we’ve covered more than 80 topics, including:
- how to land free trips
- how to get paid really, really well for your writing
- how to get on magazine editors’ good sides
- how to navigate every step of the process to land travel content marketing work, including phone calls and proposals
- how to keep your hourly rate down so your bank account goes up
- how to get work done on the road
- how to write, step-by-step, 15 different types of travel articles
- how to land guidebook and other traditional publishing deals
You can grab access to all of our past webinars (and a ton of other resources you can’t find anywhere else) with a subscription to our Dream Buffet or grab them one-by-one when you need them in our On-Demand Webinar Library for a set with the video, audio, transcript, and slides.
But we also air a free replay of one of our travel writing classes each and every weekday.