TravelContentCon: Skyrocket Your Way to the Best Travel Writing Pay – Friday, August 25 – Sunday, August 27, 2017

A Weekend Travel Content Marketing Writing Retreat in the Catskill Mountains of New York

For years, writers have bemoaned shrinking newspaper and magazine budgets, but for travel writers looking to earn a serious income with their words, the easiest path to success is through travel content marketing.

Major companies that have never had blogs are now racing to catch up with their competition as it becomes increasingly clear that content marketing and brand storytelling are not only the path to better SEO but to customers who are diehard fans rather than price conscious comparison shoppers.

In fact, even destinations are much happier to spend big money on bloggers writing content for the destinations’ own sites than send bloggers on trips to write about the destination on their personal blogs.

From the evening of Friday, August 25 through the afternoon of Sunday, August 27 a small group of travel writers is going to hit the fast forward button on their travel content marketing writing careers in a private mountain retreat center just 1.5 hours outside of New York City.

From a blank slate, they will build a complete sales portfolio to land travel content marketing gigs that are perfectly aligned with their interests–and income needs–complete with new websites, cold pitch letters, prospective client lists, proposals, and talking points for sales calls.

The workshop includes eight modules mixing learning with doing to make sure that you leave the weekend with everything you need to land travel content marketing writing gigs right away. Attendees also get:

• 3 months 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 ($300 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 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).
• 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).

Will you be one of them? This event is now full! Grab exclusive discounts on our 2018 events:

The travel writers who come together in the Catskills for this intensive week will not just learn:

• the special sauce they have with a combination of their travel and work backgrounds that will make them irresistible to clients
• what type of companies to target that will be happy to sign a deal right away
• the stats that intrigue enough to get a response to cold email pitches
• the soft skills that make prospective clients feel like they can’t imagine their next marketing season without you after just one call
• why your post-call proposal is one of your single most important sales opportunities and how to ace it
• how to counter the most common objections clients have about hiring freelancers for content marketing–and when to know that those objections are a warning sign that you show run rather than woo

Together, we will create and polish every single tool that they need to walk out of the retreat house and starting getting high-paying travel content marketing gigs the very next week. I should know. I’ve done it.

We’ve specifically timed this retreat at the ideal time to pitch travel content marketing work. As tourism boards, travel agents, and tour companies wrap up their summer rush, they immediately turn their eyes to marketing to travelers for the next spring and summer seasons.

We’ve interviewed tourism boards, tour companies, and travel tech start-ups to find out exactly:

• how these organizations are working with travel writers
• what their budgets look like for content marketing
• the best practices that these organziations aren’t using that you can pitch them that will make their lives demonstrably easier and prove their ROI for working with you
• the biggest pain points tourism boards are facing with their content marketing and how exactly you can help them

You will walk out of TravelContentCon confident, capable, and armed to hit the perfect target companies for you at just the right time to take the most advantage of their marketing budget and to insert yourself into their planning process at the stage where you can help with strategy–the type of travel content marketing that pays the best.

Normally, people have to pay $500 a month ($250 per hour of one-on-one time) for personal coaching from me to do this sort of working incorporating both learning, doing, evaluating, tweaking, and repeating until we’ve got the perfect travel content marketing package.

But this August, you have the opportunity to come to my private travel writing retreat in the Catskills and learn from me in a small-group setting punctuated with one-on-one meetings for little more than I usually charge for one month of coaching.

And…we’ve even got a special treat for travel writers who join us for our retreats this summer and fall–free follow-up coaching after the event.

What The TravelContentCon is All About

Location:
Rosewood Writing Retreat Center
Catskills, NY (1.5 hours northwest of New York City)

The workshop includes eight modules, each combining learning with doing in the spot, so there’s no possibility of going home, procrastinating, getting busy, and not getting your travel content marketing career off the ground:

• Module 1: The ocean of opportunities; expanding your mind to know what your options are before we narrow your specialty.
• Module 2: How does your work background uniquely prepare you for travel content marketing? A skill evaluation to find your most lucrative offerings.
• Module 3: Packages and packaging; what will you offer your clients and how will you present it? We work together to create your content marketing web copy and look.
• Module 4: Target practice: compiling the criteria for your personal prospect list and working through red herrings as a group until you’re confident you can tell a winner from a time sucking PITA (pain-in-the-a$$) client.
• Module 5: Your perfect pitch–both written and verbal. How to snag your fish by email and then reel them in.
• Module 6: Polishing your proposals; how to craft lines that sell for you once you’ve dazzled them on your call.
• Module 7: Don’t get caught on the close; working through every snag in your game that might keep clients from signing on the dotted line.
• Module 8: Your step-by-step action plan; designing the timeline of your travel content marketing success.

And you’ll also get:

• 3 months of our new 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 ($300 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 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).
• 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).

You can get eight workshop modules of travel content marketing instruction and the $800+ of items included above for just $549 you register online.

Will you be one of them? This event is now full! Grab exclusive discounts on our 2018 events:

And if you register with a friend, use the code SHARING for take $50 off your registration.

Our Money-Back Guarantee

Our Travel Magazine Database has a pretty crazy guarantee.

If you use it, and pitch regularly for three months and don’t hear back from any editors, we’ll not only give you your money back, you’ll also get a private coaching call and three query critiques to get your pitching up to snuff so you start getting responses.

We’re going to extend that guarantee to the full price of the workshop.

If you attend the workshop, go home and send pitches regularly, and haven’t gotten any responses in three months, we’ll refund your entire fee and give you the private coaching call and three query critiques for free.

FAQ

How is this different from other writing retreats?

Dream of Travel Writing has the privilege of holding writing retreats in its own private retreat center, which has been set up explicitly for writers. There are a wide variety of writing spaces, including a desk in each room, writing desk with expansive view of the garden and forest, multiple outdoor writing spaces, library stocked with travel magazines, textbooks and travelogues, and more.

Where is the food coming from?

Gabi has a food background (her first blog was around 30-minute dinner parties and featured recipes from all over the world), has often catered events in the 100-200s over the years, and has a certificate in plant-based nutrition from Cornell University (the same one as Tom Brady’s personal chef!) Expect everything to be healthy, primarily gluten- and dairy-free so we can all enjoy the same great food with lots of vegetarian options and many vegetables from our own mini-farm or other farms right in our village.

Where is the retreat center?

The address will be released to attendees after registration. It is in a village in the town of Warwarsing, New York.

How do I get to the retreat center?

There are three ways to reach our location:

• Private vehicle (1.5 hours from Manhattan)
• Direct bus from Port Authority in Midtown West to the town of Ellenville (2.5 hours, departing 5:30 from Port Authority and arriving right in time for dinner on Friday)

What is the schedule for the weekend?

Friday:

• Afternoon: Optional additional coaching time or free time to work in the house or make use of the library.
• 5:00 pm: Guests arrive, tour the house and amenities; reception with cocktails and snacks.
• 8:00 pm: Pick up any guests arriving by the evening bus from Manhattan, dinner, introductions. Module 1.

Saturday:

• 8:30 am: Breakfast
• 9:00 am: Module 2
• 10:00 am: Bathroom and coffee break
• 10:15 am: Module 3
• 12:00 pm: Lunch
• 2:00 pm: Module 4
• 3:00 pm: Coffee and bathroom break
• 3:15 pm: Module 5
• 4:30 pm: First round of individual one-on-one’s
• 7:00 pm: Dinner and socializing; you deserve a break!

Sunday

• 8:30 am: Breakfast
• 9:00 am: Module 6
• 10:00 am: Second round of one-on-one’s
• 12:30 pm: Lunch
• 2:00 pm: Module 7
• 2:45 pm: Coffee and bathroom break
• 3:00 pm: Module 8
• 4:00 pm: Departure for guests not staying for additional retreat days (transport to afternoon bus back to New York City)

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If you’ve been thinking about pursuing travel writing as a part- or full-time, PAYING job, why haven’t you reached your goal yet?

If you’ve read this far, you need additional help or information to reach that goal. There’s only a handful of spots left for the workshop. Don’t let someone else grab yours.

This event has now ended.