good places to look for freelance travel writing work

This is a rather scary international site with plenty of freelance editorial work but in an awkward format. Some of the jobs sound very dodgy too - so don't commit to anything without checking the 'employer' independently.

But I've just looked on there and they are currently listing more than 2000 travel writing jobs so it's worth looking at elance.com

The opposite end of the scale is the good old established journalists trade magazine, now online and with a range of job ads. It's always worth looking at UK Press Gazette


are you trying to break
into travel writing?

The useful travelwriters.com website recently published this discussion of tips for new travel writers - you may find it useful. Find it here.

And a professional travelwriter simply calling himself 'David' has a great blog here - 1001 Travel Writer Tips. I don't know how long he can keep it up - but it's worth a regular look.

Yet another new travel website is being planned - this time by Virgin Atlantic. They're looking for words and unusually are paying up-front for them. Visit the vtravelled.com holding page and leave your details or email travel pitches to: editor@vtravelled.com

I also had an email from a small publisher looking for someone to write a travel book about historic walks in popular European cities. There's not much money but the books aren't very big. It could be a good way into the business. Contact matt@destinworld.com for more details.

And here's a new site that emails you with possible journalism jobs at least once a week. Many are for experienced journalists but this site is unusual in that there are plenty of jobs for first-timers and work experience hopefuls trying to get into the media, travel writing included. Give www.gorkana.com a try.

This has some useful tips and some useless ones: www.nocontactsnoproblem.com/
It's by a freelancer that I've never heard of so that's not a great start but she's written a book about being a freelance. She what she's got to say here without having to buy her book.

More places to try

The old way of getting travel writing work was to approach the travel editors of the national newspapers with some ideas that they will then commission.

If they liked you and the ideas you might get paid for a travel article. If you did a good job you were set up forever...

But that is much rarer these days as the newspaper travel sections shrink in the face of online opposition (like this site!).

It's still worth a punt to some of the more approachable commissioning editors like Kate Simon at the Independent on Sunday or Frank Barrett at the Mail on Sunday.

But you can imagine what they will think - 'Who is this person? I'm busy and I've never heard of them, so how do I know if they can do a good job?' 

They don't have to read your CV but they will want some quick pertinent info about you. Keep it sharp, focussed... and true.

There are thousands of hopeful travel writers out there all trying to get work like that so don't be disheartened if you get a rejection or even no reply at all.

I'm going to write more about this on a new page. (HERE) I think it would be helpful to explain a bit about how to pitch travel ideas to an Editor for people who have never done it.

Oh, and one more thing. Sorry, this is a bit more wibbly rubbish but as I write this I don't yet know what the adverts on this page will be.

According to the Google AdSense theory they should always choose ads that relate to what the page's words are about - so hopefully there will be some useful ads about freelance writing and travel writing. The links to Amazon here feature some books that might be useful for new travelwriters too.