The Art of

Travel
Writing

Tim Neville
Welcome!
S
Goofing
o you want to do some travel writing and around in
Antarctica
the reasons are probably pretty clear.
It’s fun, right? Especially that travel part.
Someone else pays you to hike the Andes or
to go salsa dancing in Cuba. Out there, your

a good story
What makes
challenges and rewards meld into one. The globe
grows smaller; your perspectives widen. What’s
not to love? Travel writers
Anyone seriously considering a career in travel writing probably n e ed t o t h in k o f
knows, however, that it isn’t a vacation. No doubt going to Tahiti beats
th e m se l ve s m o re

and tension
Characters
going to the office – but once there, successful travel writers don’t sleep
il ke repor ters at
in, order room service, and hit the spa. They don’t crack open the laptop
first.
at a beachside bar to dash out lazy thoughts with an umbrella drink and
call it good. Professional travel writers are successful business owners

Using your
there to get a job done.

setting
And what exactly is the “work”? Travel writers need to think of
themselves more like reporters at first. They don’t just order something
adventurous off the menu and post it on Instagram. They corner the chef and
ask thoughtful questions about what inspires her. They stop to read the roadside

Pitching
a story
signs no one ever reads. They observe and take notes. Most critical of all, travel
writers don’t just bop around a destination. They have a goal and they spend
their trip tackling its obstacles relentlessly. At the end of the day they have more

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questions than answers.

of writing
Then, of course, the real work begins. They take all of those experiences and
distill the right ones down into sentences that become paragraphs organized into
clear sections full of imagery, dialog and pivot points. They refine and fact check
and write again, over and over, graciously and exactly as a stressed-out editor

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orders, until the story reads as smooth as fiction. That’s right, fiction. The facts

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must be watertight, without exception, but the best travel writing reads like a
story.
I’ve been a full-time freelance travel writer for about 15 years now, and for
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nearly all of them I’ve counted Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and The New York
tips

Times among my best clients. I’ve skied in North Korea and gone scuba diving in
Fiji. Tomorrow someone might call with a job in Egypt. Along the way I’ve worked
with some of the most respected editors out there who’ve helped me assemble
stories worthy of inclusion in anthologies like The Best American Travel Writing, The
to write
Time

Best American Sports Writing and Best Food Writing. The Society of American Travel
Writers once named me the second-best travel writer of the year. Hey, I’ll take it.
To be clear, I didn’t get to where I am because I’m a great writer oozing natural

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talent. I’m no Pico Iyer. I’m naturally super curious and that’s helped but
I’m here mostly because I learned how to play the game, to report well
and to write well enough that a patient editor can always make me
Many of the ideas
better. With each assignment I learn something new about the craft.
expressed here
Whether the idea is to start a blog or fulfill a dream of writing for translate into
National Geographic, this guide is meant to help you become a better other types of
storyteller. It is by no means a definitive guide but rather a place to travel writing too.

a good story
What makes
share some of the strategies that have worked for me over the years.
So many excellent writers and editors have taken me under their wings
along the way and so this is also an attempt to repay that debt. I’ll share
their most insightful tips, too. If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them, too.
The focus may be on longform narrative travel writing but many of the ideas

and tension
Characters
expressed here translate into other types of travel writing too. Editors need
hotel reviews and round-ups of great beaches. They like trends and news. I’ll
touch on the basics of these “service” stories, too, but the bulk of the guide tries
to go deeper. It revolves around how to find a good tale, how to pitch it and how

Using your
to write it. The contents form the heart of what I offered the scholarship winners

setting
in Montenegro.
Everyone knows travel writing doesn’t pay so well, at least not in some form of
an exchangeable currency. The cruel twist is that few travel writing assignments
come with a budget big enough for you to even go do the story. We’ll go over

Pitching
a story
some of the business aspects and the ethical questions you’ll encounter over
funding, too. The juicy commissions that do come with a budget do exist but to
land those you’ll need persistence. That’s beyond anything I can teach. Instead,

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I’d like to show you the building blocks you’ll need to give it a go in whatever

of writing
capacity you’re up for. I promise it’ll be fun. Shall we begin?

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On
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What makes
a good story?
Think of the best travel stories you’ve read. Chances are
high that you loved it because of how it spoke to you, how the
language made you laugh and gasp, or how the author changed

a good story
What makes
your feelings for a place. I can guarantee all of those articles
involved action — people doing things, not on whims or out of
boredom, but on purpose. Good stories happen because
writers make them happen.

and tension
Characters
T o begin, it helps to have an idea for your story, of course, but to find the story
in that idea you need to craft it. At its simplest a story strings together bits of
action that move toward a goal across a setting using characters we want to see

Using your
succeed. “France” is not a story. “A guy who makes artisan cheese” is not a story.

setting
“Aruba has the best beaches” isn’t either. Think of it this way: Story is a verb.
To see what I mean, let’s break the pieces down, starting with the most crucial
component 99 percent of the time: the hook. We’ll look
at characters and setting next.

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a story
Staying fresh and desirable
Hooks hit at the very raison d’être of an outlet that might run your story. That’s

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because the survival of the media depends on one thing really, and that is being

of writing
current and therefore smart and desirable. Your stories need to help the media
accomplish this, which means your ideas need a hook. A hook tells an editor
that of all great places in the world to write about, this one is one story that’s
happening now.

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Hooks come in several forms and time-

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sensitive ones are often the most compelling.
If a new route to Machu Picchu opens in
June, you have a hook. If you’ll be among the
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first Westerners ever to ski in North Korea,

tips

then wow, you’ve got it. Realize though that

“new” is also a somewhat pliable concept. By
that I mean your subject doesn’t have to be
brand-spanking new to have a shot at getting
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commissioned. You can give your idea a

veneer of newness with two simple tricks.

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 a good story
What makes
If a new route
to Machu Picchu
opens in June,
you have a hook.

and tension
Characters
Using your
The magic of the “-est”

setting
The first is to look for exclusivity and superlatives — the only, the biggest, the least
— and the more interesting those superlatives are, the better. Discovering a village
with stores that stock the most brands of canned corn in the world might tick the
right box but at the end of the day it’s just canned corn. How much can you really

Pitching
a story
say? On the flip side, take Aniakchak, a national monument in remote southwest
Alaska. Almost no one has ever heard of it, much less been there. Already, that’s
pretty exclusive.

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A colleague of mine wanted to write about Aniakchak but he had no hard

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hook. No new lodges twinkled on its fringes. No new trails wended through
the wilderness. No new mines threatened the area. To convince his editor to
send him, he turned to exclusivity and superlatives: “the least popular
place to visit in the National Parks System,” he wrote in his pitch, calling

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the monument perhaps “the nation’s most spectacular, least-known natural

On
wonder.” (My emphasis). And by “least” he meant it: Just 12 people had
been to the area the previous year. He then trotted out some exclusivity by
implying that his merry band of explorers would have the “pumpkin-colored
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hot springs,” the trails and the rivers all to themselves. He found a guide
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who’d been looking for an excuse to check out the place himself. Together
they’d explore this area.
Outside assigned Christopher Solomon the piece and his Baked Alaska
article made Best American Travel Writing. It all came to be because
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Solomon could show his editor a “new” take on a place where nothing new
has happened in a long, long time. You can read his pitch here. We’ll get
more into those later.

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Using pivot points
The second trick you can use to create a hook is to expand your thinking to search
for pivot points happening now in the life of a place or, ideally, a character. You’ll
then need examples to demonstrate what you say is happening, of course, and
three seems to be the magic number. These “new chapters” unfolding in an age-
old place, as it were, often lead to far more compelling tales. Is a once crummy
town coming back to life with a crop of new restaurants, a cleaned-up beach and

a good story
What makes
new outfitters offering kayaking tours? Have a raft of lodges popped up in an
otherwise remote place over the past few years, offering access like never before?
The subject may be old — the Kimberley might be the oldest land around — but
the pivot point recasts it in a new light.
Kevin Fedarko used this trick to write about rafting the Grand Canyon, a topic

and tension
Characters
that’s hardly new. Instead he focused on a central character whose environmental
activism had a profound impact on Colorado River culture. The hero, a river
runner named Martin Litton, was 87 and making what was likely one of his last of
a lifetime of trips through the Grand Canyon by boat. Fedarko’s “Ain’t it Grand,”

Using your
which ran in Outside in 2005, should be in the hands of any student wanting to

setting
learn how to do the job well.
In the end, your hook will claim only a handful of words from your final word
count but they’re absolutely critical. Ask yourself, why should we do this story
now? If you can’t answer that, your idea is just one in a million and it won’t get

Pitching
a story
noticed.
Let’s move on to characters and tension.

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Th e s u b je c t
may b e o ld b u t
o t p oin t
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the piv
rec a s t s it in a
h t . On
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Characters
and tension
As far as I know, no fairy tale ever begins, “Once upon a time,
nobody did anything at all.” What always follows is a lonely king or
a neglected giant and they each seek something even if they aren’t

a good story
What makes
quite sure yet what that is. If story is a verb, then characters are
the bearers of those verbs. They give readers a touchpoint from
which they can explore whatever world you’re exploring. Their
fates keep you reading.

and tension
Characters
T he same works for travel writing, too. In the
best-case scenarios, you’ll have a central figure
to show you what’s so special about whatever

Using your
you’re covering. Or maybe that person’s path

setting
through life, as a whole, reveals something deeper
that we all experience when on the road. If you’re
going to write about mountain biking in Colorado,
it helps to have an impassioned guide whose life

Pitching
a story
changed for the better after spending years of
finding fun paths through an area that she’s now
ready to show you. Mountain biking

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In practice, though, finding good characters who are strong enough to carry a in Colorado

of writing
Tim Neville
travel story on their own can be tough to find. They’re wonderful folks but they
simply aren’t that interesting from a story perspective or their motives aren’t so
sexy (“It’s a job…”). That’s when travel writers toss themselves into the narrative.
Doing so comes with countless pitfalls so you must use yourself wisely. No one

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cares if you eat a hamburger unless that hamburger is the first food you’ve eaten

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after a two-week ordeal.
The best way to incorporate yourself into a story is to make the reader care
about you or at least what happens to you. This cuts to the heart of your story’s
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narrative engine — the thing that keeps everyone reading. It’s called tension and
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without it you don’t have a story.

Tension and billboards

Think of tension this way. If J.K. Rowling had written a story about an average
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boy wizard who has a swell time in school, graduates with honors and earns a
respectable desk job for his efforts, we would have never heard of Harry Potter.
We need conflicts with Voldemort, rivalries with Malfoy and a challenging fight

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with a troll in the ladies'
room among countless other
“conflicts” to keep the story
moving. At it’s simplest,
tension is just a character
facing an obstacle while
pursuing a goal, be it the

a good story
What makes
arduousness of climbing a
mountain or a city full of
Reuben sandwiches in a
zany quest to find the best
one. The manner in which a Narrative tension

and tension
Characters
character attempts to reach doesn’t need
that goal becomes the character’s mission. Maybe you’ll hike for five days to be as epic as
for up to ten hours a day, crossing mountain streams and climbing glaciers a Pot ter-st yle
to reach that summit. Spelling out your character’s goal and offering a bat tle between

Using your
quick overview of how the character plans to reach that goal somewhere
good and evil.

setting
fairly high in the story is critical to establishing the tension any story needs.
Travel writers have it a bit easier in the sense that narrative tension
doesn’t need to be as epic as a Potter-style battle between good and evil
or camaraderie and loneliness. The tension can be as simple as a character, even

Pitching
a story
you, facing a question: Will you reach your goal? When the New York Times bought
an idea I pitched about fly fishing for a specific type of fish in the Chesapeake Bay
with my dad, my quest was straightforward: To catch a speckled trout. The whole

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piece then revolved around my attempts to do that. I lay out my plan high in the

of writing
second section — also straightforward — but since this was for a travel section and
not a fishing magazine, I had to expand my goal and mission to incorporation more
than just catching fish. The fishing would serve as a reason to check out the places
I’d visit.

assignment
This paragraph serves as a giant sign — a billboard, as writers say — of what’s to

On
come down the road if the reader sticks with me.

“I wanted to catch fish, yes, but I also wanted to explore the communities from which
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I might catch those fish. I wanted to eat fresh oysters at seaside sheds, run my fingers
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over tombstones from the American Revolution and sip lemonade on bayside patios.
I picked three regions around the bay with established guides and that might be
interesting culturally, too: one in the west and two in the east. Onancock came first.”
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Fortunately, most travel stories come hardwired with tension if you know where
to look. This is travel after all; someone needs to get from A to B and there’s
almost certainly a hellish road or a mountain in the way. As long as there are some

8
meaningful (or at least interesting/funny) challenges en route and as long as you
have a satisfying reward at the end, you’re probably good to go. Failure stories
rarely work, but the more doubtful the outcome, the stronger the story will read.

Reward vs REWARD
Also keep in mind that the more the reward
becomes multifaceted to include something

a good story
What makes
you didn’t set out to find—say, a newfound
heartiness—the more pleased your readers
will be. For my NYT fishing story, which picked
up a Lowell Thomas award, the payoff is richer
than my catching a bunch of speckled trout,

and tension
Characters
which I did. The more meaningful reward
comes through my father, who grows proud
watching me find joy in something he’s loved
his whole life. Fly fishing for

Using your
spotted sea
Solomon handles this like a pro in his

setting
trout — aka
Aniakchak story, where his group faces grizzly bears, stinging plants, and “specks” — in
Chesapeake Bay.
murderous storms on a very difficult through-hike that make you wonder if they’ll Courtesy of Scott Neville

actually make it out. They do, of course, but that’s not really the payoff. Instead, it’s
the perspective shift on daily life and the magic of finding beauty with friends in

Pitching
a story
an harsh, overlooked place that he earned by overcoming such wild obstacles that
gives the piece its weight. The reward becomes that much richer.

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No drama, no problem

of writing
Character quests can be far less dramatic, too. Maybe a character is on a
personal mission to find the best Reuben sandwich or maybe you’re road-tripping
across Iceland looking for hot springs. Neither is super compelling — there’s little
doubt you’ll succeed and no harm if you don’t — but at least it’d push the narrative

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along. Following in the footsteps of a famous person can also work as a quest

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as long as there’s some reason to follow those footsteps now. Several years ago,
the New York Times ran a story about retracing Mark Twain’s journey through
Nicaragua timed to the 100th anniversary of his death. That’s tidy — a hook and a
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quest all in one.

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In the end, though, even if you’re the main character, you need to use the
spotlight on yourself sparingly and authentically — no trying to be funny if you
aren’t. The reader also needs to see you earn a reward for your efforts, otherwise,
what’s the point? Most of all you need to remember that a central character in your
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story should be the one that has no voice at all and that’s the place itself. You give
it one. To do that, let’s talk about setting.

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Using your setting
There’s a funny truth in the fact that great narrative travel
writing doesn’t necessarily rely upon a spectacular setting
itself. A story set in a suburban backyard can be just as good
or better than a piece set in Fiji. On a fundamental “how does
a story work” level, a tale about viewing polar bears in Canada

a good story
What makes
might not actually differ so greatly from a story about looking
for whale sharks in Mexico. Yet in reading either piece, you
should walk away with a very different “sense of place.”

and tension
Characters
S etting is something you must also craft and that means offering details far
deeper than just the name of the place, when it was founded and how many
people live there. “Tirana, the capital of Albania” isn’t a setting. “A surprisingly hip
city of leafy boulevards lined with brightly painted buildings and trendy cafes” is

Using your
getting there but it’s telling not showing. Instead, look for ways to slip in active

setting
descriptions of what’s happening around you that show what the place is like.

Setting affects mood

To do that, you need to expand your thinking of “place”. When we talk about

Pitching
a story
setting we need to go beyond a geographic location and drill down into the
emotional value a place can provide for the story, too. Places make us feel
something and they do that by affecting our characters and the tone of their

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quests. If you’re getting your butt kicked on a hike over World War I trails in Italy,

of writing
w a ys
assignment
Loo k f o r
to slip in active On
de sc rip t ion s o f
w ha t ’s h a p p e n in g
around you.
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we should probably see the landscape rear up
into cruel angles, feel rocks crunching under feet Powder day in
North Korea
and hear your breathing turn beastly. If you come Tim Neville

across a comfortable patch of wildflowers, let’s

take a moment to lie down and stare at the huge
granite walls before setting out again smelling
of sweat and lavender. Use the setting to make

a good story
What makes
your readers’ senses kick into gear. Combined
with a paragraph up high in your story with some
hard facts — like where you are, how high the
mountains are, and the name of the trail — you I mention the
begin to build your sense of place. cadaver-gray sky,

and tension
Characters
If characters carry the action, then settings — and how you describe a lifeless river and
and use them — can help enhance the mood behind those actions. The ice fishing holes
same holds true for your story as a whole because the words you give that look like
to settings contribute powerfully toward your overall tone. You must bullet wounds.

Using your
absolutely orient the reader with some dry geographic details—we’re

setting
20 miles north of Paris; we’re deep in a canyon in Jordan — but take the
time to show her some carefully curated snapshots to plant an imagine in her mind
that brings the place to life.
Is the day’s heat somehow reflecting off the corporate skyscrapers to beat on

Pitching
a story
a street vendor dragging his cart home after a brutal day of work? Are the clouds
swollen and dark as your boat races back to port? Maybe after a big day on a bike
you’re finally camping — down by the lake, under a cottonwood. When I wrote

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about a winter trip to North Korea for Ski magazine, I needed a serious, almost

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witchy tone, so right off the bat I mention the cadaver-gray sky, a lifeless river and
ice fishing holes that look like bullet wounds from way up high. Settings are all
about the details.

assignment
Setting as a hook
On
The value of a setting doesn’t always have to be so literary. In fact, you can use
a setting as a hook. Remember how Christopher Solomon landed his Outside
assignment on Aniakchak by turning to the setting’s superlatives — the one of the
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most remote, least visited national park properties? His hook was more or less “now
tips

we’re going to go check it out.”

That’s one trick. Just like with characters, finding a pivot point in the area’s
timeline that suggests a new era is about to begin is another. Places on the verge
of a significant change make for dynamic settings, which can make for dynamic
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characters. Turning points like those often create a natural tension that’s great for
your story, too. People either like the changes or they don’t. The first piece I ever
wrote for the New York Times involved a deeply depressed, defunct railroad town

11
in coastal Virginia that was about to become the quaint centerpiece
of a massive new leisure resort many times the town’s size. In a story Places can be
like that, the tension between what was to come and what already wor thy of a
was might even give your story a subtle theme, if you work it right. story if those
Places can be worthy of a story if those places have a timely aspect places have a
to consider, too. If Star Wars is filming on Skellig Michael again, maybe timely aspect
there’s a story visiting set-locations in Ireland to do that’s timed to the to consider.

a good story
What makes
movie’s release. You can go to the birthplace of a poet you adore on
the occasion of his birthday and write about the places he loved most.
No matter the situation, when you’re out there, remember to take time
throughout the day to take notes on what’s happening around you so you have the
tools you need later to build your setting appropriately. Sprinkled throughout your

and tension
Characters
piece, details like those will give your story some depth.
Once you understand your setting, as well as the hook, the characters, and the
mission, it’s time to convince someone to buy your idea. To do that, you need a
pitch. Let’s look at those.

Using your
setting
Walking trail in
Skellig Michael,

Pitching
Ireland

a story
Tim Neville

The business
of writing
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On
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12
How to pitch a story
Now you have your idea. You’ve combed through newspapers
to find a place navigating an intriguing pivot point or maybe
you’ve seen a report about yet another new lodge opening up
in the Kimberley. You have some characters and a plan for those
characters to accomplish a goal. The setting is full of superlatives.

a good story
What makes
It’s time to make this happen.

Pitch first or write first?

One of the biggest mysteries people seem to

and tension
Characters
harbor about travel writing has to do with the
order of things. Do you go on a trip first and then
try to sell a finished article or do you write only
after you get an assignment to go in the first place?

Using your
For years I believed the latter was the only way

setting
to go. Each media outlet has its own needs and
angles and trying to sell them a story I’d already
Traveling to the
written felt like walking around the universe with a uniquely shaped peg hoping to North Korean slopes
find the right hole. It seemed backwards. Why do that when you could pitch an idea in Pyongyang

Pitching
a story
Tim Neville
and let the magazine tell you how it could fit its needs in the first place? In other
words, why write 2,000 words on a sailing journey in Palau when an editor might
want 400 words on “how the sea can change your life.”

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I’m not so sure my way is the best way, though. Other writers I know say it

of writing
was only by sending an editor a tight, rollicking read that got them noticed and
published in the first place. Still, the advantages of doing a pitch first should be
obvious: With an assignment in hand, you can work more efficiently and, ideally,
with an expense account. If you get nowhere, maybe try sending in a completed

assignment
draft anyway. Plenty of others say that works.

On
The pitch
Now that we’ve gone over what makes a good story — having a hook, a dynamic
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character on a mission, and a setting, it’s time to put it all together into a pitch
tips

that you can email to an editor. There’s no set way to do a pitch but some universal
truths do apply. It’s a fact that editors don’t have a lot of time, so you’ll need get
to the heart of your story quickly. You need to show that you’re familiar with the
magazine and its audience. Finally, remember that a pitch shows off your idea, not
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necessarily your voice, so save your literary muscles for later.

To keep your pitches succinct, think of them as having three main parts: The idea
itself, how you’ll do it, and who you are, though you can play around with the order.

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You want to cover all of this in about 700 words or so and in a way that
gives the editor all the info needed to demonstrate you’ve done your
homework and there’s a good story at hand. At the same time, especially
You may want
if you’ve already done the story, you may want to preserve some secrets
to preser ve some
to tease the editor into wanting to know more. Longer stories can
secrets to tease
require longer pitches, of course, but in general, keeping it short and the editor into
tight increases your chances of getting your pitch read. wanting to know
more.

a good story
What makes
What’s your story?
For the idea itself, trot out your superlatives and your hook. “In July the
largest gathering of hobo-style train-riding fans in the world kicks off, complete
with one-can-meal cook-offs and box car bars.” Perhaps you want to backpack

and tension
Characters
through the second-most glaciated peaks in Europe after the Alps, crossing
international borders that have only recently opened to hikers. Maybe it’s the
setting itself that’s most compelling as “a national monument that may be the
nation’s most spectacular, least-known natural wonder” and now you have a chance

Using your
to go explore it. In any case, your hook needs to be crystal clear. You may also

setting
need to show somewhere in your pitch why your story is different, especially if the
region is getting a lot of coverage already. Read on for an example of that.

What’s your plan?

Pitching
a story
After you’ve laid out your idea, you’ll then want to show how you’ll report it. This is
“the mission” we talked about and any details, especially superlatives or exclusive bits
that you can drop in here, the better. Maybe you’ll plan to spend four nights at the

The business
Hobo Fest with the Grand Master Hobo, a normally reclusive fellow who has agreed

of writing
to show you around as he works to make history in his own overlooked world. On
that cross-border hike, are you going to spend a week trudging up to 15 miles a day,
crossing 9,000-foot passes, and punching through meadows where endemic molika
pines grow? Then say it (and notice how I packed that mission with details).

assignment
For his Aniakchak story, Solomon laid out the challenges of his mission by

On
mentioning the three days of whitewater rapids
he’d have to navigate in a tiny raft that he’d
first have to carry on his back for 18 miles over
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unmarked trails. He mentions the dozens of grizzly

tips

bears he’ll likely see and the fierce storms that

could thwart the journey. By the time you get
to the end of his pitch you can already feel the
tension. Will he make it out? Who knows! And so
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an editor sent him off with several thousands of

dollars in an expense account. To see Solomon’s
Aniakchak pitch, click here.

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Who are you?
(I’m someone with a different idea who’s
familiar with your magazine, for starters.)
If you’re pitching an editor you’ve never worked
with, you need to show you understand what the
magazine is about. For the first pitch I ever sent
to Departures for a story about sailing around

a good story
What makes
Antarctica, I first did a quick internet search to see
what the travel magazine had done on the ancient
Terra Incognita in the past. If I’d found a feature
story published within the last two years — or a Fat biking the
similar story published recently in a rival publication — I probably wouldn’t have Oregon coast

and tension
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Tim Neville
bothered pitching them at all. Instead, I got lucky and found they’d only mentioned
Antarctica very briefly in a round-up that focused on a company called Quark that
offered cruises on a much larger ship.
I quickly used that to my advantage by stating how my trip, on a tiny four-cabin

Using your
sailboat, was “THE way” to see the continent since going with “other companies,

setting
like Quark, which you mentioned in a round-up in 2013…means sharing the
solitude with 189 other people.” Translation: You haven’t covered this in a while and
my way is better. I got the assignment and spent nearly two weeks on a dream gig.
Click here to see that pitch.

Pitching
a story
Lastly, if you don’t know the editor, you should explain who you are and offer
up some clips. If you don’t have any clips you need to get some — any. Write for
your local weekly newspaper. Try to get a piece published online. As a last resort,

The business
point to articles you’ve self-published on your own blog. You need to show the

of writing
editor that you’re not a risk and that you can do the job. A simple, “As for me, I’m a
writer based in Oregon who hikes as much as possible and has stories published in
X, Y and Z” should do. I usually include a link to my website that holds some of my
showcase pieces.

assignment
On
Finding the right person to pitch
Ah, yes, how none of this means a thing if you can’t get your pitch to land on the
right desk! How do you do that?
Reporting

Many magazines and newspapers have this (perhaps) unspoken policy that if you
tips

can’t use your reporter skills to dig up an editor’s name and email address then you
probably aren’t far along enough in your career to warrant a serious read of your
pitch. It’s a Catch-22, no?
There are some tricks, though. First, you need a name. The best way is to
to write
Time

have another writer introduce you to an editor that person already works with.
Sometimes editors don’t like you doing that so make sure it’s ok first. If you’re just
starting out and don’t know any other writers, look at a magazine’s masthead and

15
 a good story
What makes
and tension
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Using your
find out who works there, then start Googling those names. Chances are good

setting
you’ll find a LinkedIn page with a job description like “I edit Dispatches at Outside.”
Sometimes you can find email formulas in press releases. And you can always pick
up the phone and call. Just tell the receptionist you’d like to speak with a news
editor or a travel editor. If they’re busy, ask for an email. If that doesn’t work, keep

Pitching
a story
trying until you get the person on the phone and then make it quick. “Hey, I’m a
writer in New York and found an idea I’d love to send you. Are you still the travel
editor? Would you mind if I sent you a pitch? What’s your email?”

The business
If all else fails, try to attend some conferences where you’ll likely run into other

of writing
writers and editors and can start to build your list of contacts. In many ways, being
a successful travel writer means being great at networking.

Pitching multiple places at once

assignment
Generally, sending your idea to more than one editor at a time isn’t very classy.

On
I personally think it also makes you look a little desperate. At this stage you’re
playing a sales game so you need to treat your “customer” well. Remember, your
job is to make the publication feel fresh with unique content. Sending ideas for
Reporting

that content out to competitors doesn’t really do that.

tips

How long you wait to follow up is up to you. I generally hope to hear something
back in a week and it’s usually just an acknowledgement that the editor got the
pitch. A lot of times, editors need to have another editor sign off on the idea, too,
and that means they might only tackle pitches at a once-a-week staff meeting. If
to write
Time

it’s time sensitive, I say so, clearly, while adding that the editor is getting first right
of refusal, but that I’d like to try to sell it elsewhere if it’s not going to work out.
If the silence drags on, I might pick up the phone for one last try. Only after I get

16
a definitive no or have no calls returned for long enough will I then send the idea
out again. In most cases, that means recasting the pitch to match that publication’s
tastes. If no one bites at all, I usually move on to the next idea.
What matters here most is that you send off high-quality pitches that show
you’re a professional plugged into a worthy story. Even if your idea goes nowhere,
the editor will be much more likely to consider your next pitch, and the next, and
the next.

a good story
What makes
Eventually what you hope to happen is for an editor to like your ideas so much
— even if they aren’t assignable — that she’ll call you with a story to chase. Those
moments are the best. When an editor from the luxury magazine Robb Report
called to send me on a 22-day trip tooling along the northwest coast of Australia,
she did so as a sort of consolation prize for her rejecting a fantastic pitch I’d sent

and tension
Characters
on a new inn-to-inn walking safari in Zambia. There’s no way that would have
happened if I’d fouled her inbox week after week with crappy pitches.

A word on timing

Using your
Magazines, more so than most newspapers, work months if not years in advance.

setting
The time it takes to get a story edited, flowed onto the page, printed and shipped
means you need to send in pitches for stories that can run about six months from
now. A lot of publications also have editorial calendars that advertisers can use to
time any ads they might like to buy. These can be useful for you too and oftentimes

Pitching
a story
magazines have no problems sending you their calendars. If National Geographic
Traveler is running a Europe issue in May, time your pitch on that road-trip through
Iceland to land on an editor’s desk sometime in December.

The business
Websites and newspapers can move much more quickly but giving editors time

of writing
to review your idea before it goes stale is always key.

assignment
On
Reporting
tips
to write
Time

Whisky distillery
in the Kimberly
region Australia
Tim Neville

17
The business The Internet is a
of writing much hungrier
beast with a
craving for new
At some point in the pitching process, if all goes well,
content.
your assigning editor is going to bring up the question
of money. This seems like a good time to talk about the

a good story
What makes
business side of things. Make no mistake, travel writing is
a business and you need to treat it as such even if you’re
independently wealthy or have other means. Why? Because
your reputation — not to mention your editor’s — demands it.

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Pay rates
When you’re first starting out and you simply need some clips, you can consider
working for free “in exchange for exposure” but that is not a sustainable business

Using your
plan. As fun as an Italian wine tasting assignment may be, you can’t pay your bills in

setting
grigio. Even if you can afford to work for nothing, you should still insist on getting
paid. The craft, your time — and the time of every other writer trying to make a go
of it — are worth something.
Each publication has its own rates, with national print magazines generally

Pitching
a story
paying much more than websites, even if those websites are for national
magazines. The advantage of writing for the web is that the Internet is a much
hungrier beast with a craving for new content that no print publication could

The business
ever satisfy. Writing for websites that allow you to work with an editor is a great

of writing
way to get some clips.
For print in North America, editors generally pay by the word though it in
practice it becomes a flat rate. “400 words at $1 a word” means “$400 for a story
that’s right around 400 words.” Websites generally work with flat rates, as do the

assignment
Europeans involved in print that I’ve worked for. In some cases an editor may talk

On
about articles based on character counts, with
spaces. In any case, top magazines in the United
States may pay multiple dollars per word for a
Reporting

3,000-word story, while websites like Vice might

tips

pay a $500 flat rate for the same piece. European

outlets generally pay much less so I generally try
to resell articles to them with minor adjustments
for added income. In any situation, you should
to write
Time

always ask for a contract and understand the

rights you’re selling, exactly. That’s beyond the
scope of this guide.

18
 a good story
What makes
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Characters
Using your
Expenses, press trips and ethics

setting
Ah ha! We’ve reached the death site of many a fantastic idea, which is to say the
cost it takes to realize it. Publications are a business, too, so the more a story will
cost them the harder the commission may come. If you’re lucky and your career
takes off, your editor will ask for a budget breakdown — X for flights, Y for hotels,

Pitching
a story
Z for food — and you’ll get your hands on an expense account. Typically, you’ll pay
up front. They reimburse you later. I try to put everything story related on a credit
card that earns me frequent flyer miles. That also helps me keep track of expenses,

The business
not only for reimbursement purposes but also for tax reasons.

of writing
The unfortunate truth is that many publications simply don’t have an expense
budget for you at all. If that’s the case, you’ll have to do some math to figure
out how much you stand to lose (or earn) and whether you can stomach that. At
first, taking a hit will just be part of breaking in but the idea is to make a profit

assignment
after all. That said, there are ways to stretch your dollars and help keep expenses

On
down.

Press trips
Reporting

The most common trick is also ethically the ickiest. Travel

tips

professionals know that having their hotel, their beach, their country The truth is that
covered by a real writer on a trusted travel site with 2 million unique many publications
visitors a month is the kind of marketing that money cannot buy.
simply don’t have
The bang for the buck is so great, in fact, that often it’s in their best
an expense budget
to write
Time

interest to just cover all of your expenses for you. Free flights! Free
for you at all.
five-star hotel! Free gourmet meals! “Come experience what we have
to offer first hand,” the invitations might say.

19
 No doubt that sounds dreamy and plenty of travel writers need these “press
trips” to make their careers work. Public relations agencies and tourism boards
find writers and influencers to invite on these junkets or “fam trips” (short for
“familiarization”) by monitoring the media to see who’s writing or posting about
what. If the writer goes on a sponsored trip and does a good job writing about it,
everything can snowball from there. More stories published usually means more
invitations to visit places to look for more stories.

a good story
What makes
Many publications rely on press trips, too, since they may have legitimate
reasons for covering a place but no budget to send a writer. If a magazine wants
your story but can’t pay your expenses, you first need to know its policy on
writers accepting “assistance” from tourism boards or public relations agencies
or anyone, for that matter. If it’s no issue, then it might be worth getting a “letter

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Characters
of assignment” from your editor to show those tourism boards or PR firms when
asking for help making the story happen. You’ll have to do some research to find
which agencies represent which places, of course.
Press trips can be win-win situations but they come with one major caveat:

Using your
Many of the most respected publications out there do have a problem with

setting
writers accepting freebies and will blacklist you if you try to pull a fast one. Don’t
do that. For those publications, having a writer beholden to no one but the
readers is a matter of maintaining an independent voice, hard-earned authority
and steadfast credibility. If you write an article based on an experience funded

Pitching
a story
by people who benefit from that article, any favorable coverage will smell like
it was paid for — whether that’s true or not. It’s the appearance that matters.
Fortunately, publications with strict no-free-stuff policies generally offer decent

The business
expense accounts.

of writing
Pro tips and the media rate
In worst case scenarios, a publication wants your
story but has no money for expenses and has a

assignment
policy against accepting freebies. In cases like

On
those you basically have a choice: Do the story on
your own (you’re going there anyway!) and hope
the fee gets you closer to breaking even; or try
Reporting

to find several stories to do while you’re there.

tips

The latter is obviously better. If you can line up

three assignments in, say, France, then you have
drastically tilted the expenses-to-income scale
toward income. Even better, you also have a shot now at getting at least some
to write
Time

things covered. It’s easier to eek $200 out of an editor by saying you’ll be in France
anyway and only need a couple of meals and a hotel bed, than to come at her with
a $2,000 proposal and a request for international flights.

20
 For me, finding cheap ways to do big stories has been a major key to
staying employed full-time. By finding multiple stories to do in a region
I can often piggyback multiple expense accounts that individually
Some outfitters
might not have covered the trip in full. Recently, Outside sent me
might be willing
to China to report on a winter sports industry story and paid for my
to charge you
international ticket. With the need for such an expensive flight out of only what it
the way, I could then pitch a relatively inexpensive story on a different costs them to
run the trip.

a good story
What makes
topic from another area in China to Departures. By combining the trips,
my expense reports for each magazine came in under budget.
The most extreme bit of expense engineering I had to do came with
my North Korea story, The Great Pleasure Project. For that one, I had to line up
two assignments with expense accounts, which still didn’t cover the bill even

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when combined. To caulk the gap I found a third assignment that came with no
expenses. Instead, I took the hit and dedicated the entirety of that third story fee
to covering the bill.
Another way to keep expenses down is to ask hotels or other service providers

Using your
for a media rate, which is basically a discount that also ups the chances of you

setting
having a VIP fruit basket waiting for you in your room. Some outfitters might
be willing to charge you only what it costs them to run the trip. Either way, be
sure your editor is OK with your accepting media rates before you go down that
road. Some publications want you to remain anonymous while you’re out on

Pitching
a story
assignment. Asking for a media rate not only blows your cover but also creates an
appearance of accepting favors.

The business
of writing
assignment
On
Reporting
tips
to write
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21
On assignment
The plane touches down, you grab a taxi and off you go. On the
surface it looks just like the start of any other trip you’ve taken
but this one is different. You have a job to do.

N o matter how many assignments I zip off

a good story
What makes
on, I’m always anxious and often a little
overwhelmed those first few days. My career
depends on my ability to do the best job I can
do every time, and every time that job seems
daunting — so much to do and so little time! How

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Characters
do I overcome that? I get to work, that’s how.
One of the biggest mistakes I see aspiring travel
writers make is a failure to respect the work. They
don’t ask questions. They don’t get names. Most

Using your
unforgivable of all: They don’t take any notes

setting
Taking notes in
whatsoever. Traveling is fun but you’re not traveling now — you’re reporting — so Antarctica 2016
Courtesy of Moira Le Patourel
don’t let yourself get caught up in the sunsets and cocktails. If you’re doing it right,
an assignment should be pretty exhausting. That’s why when people ask me about
my favorite place to vacation I say home.

Pitching
a story
Let’s take a look at what you need to do on the ground, the gear you should
bring, and how to collect the material you’ll need to give your story the best shot at
landing you another gig.

The business
of writing
Pre-trip preparations
The work begins before you even go with some pre-trip research. If you did your
pitch correctly, you’ve already made some good contacts and have some good
facts at your fingertips. Now is the time to dig in.

assignment
First, go back and read much more about the place you’re going. Lonely

On
Planet and other guidebooks are a good place to start but don’t rely on them for
everything. Instead, set up Google alerts with keywords relevant to your story to
keep abreast of what’s happening. Get a map, a real one, and trace your finger
Reporting

around your route, looking for mountains, rivers and bays with fun names that
tips

might reveal something about the history of the place. Find a book and read it,
looking for ways to build the context you’ll need to connect your own observations
later. Maybe even call the author and do an interview. Start gathering the goods.
You never know what will come in useful later.
to write
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Study the culture, too. Is the place famous for any poets, artists or musicians?
Find their work and use it. We travel writers are crafty thieves, constantly taking
what’s out there, slapping on some new stickers and calling it ours. I don’t mean

22
plagiarize! Rather, mine the country’s most famous poems for images
that you can allude to later when talking about, say, a market. Maybe
you can apply the artist’s pointillist style to your descriptions of all the
umbrellas you might find on a crowded beach. If hot rods are cruising
I try to travel with
the prado wouldn’t it be nice to mention the local hit blasting from their
only carry on if I
radios? A subtle nod to any cultural reference points will go a long way
can — I simply can’t
to making your story sound like you’re in deep and know what you’re put the job on hold
talking about. while waiting for
lost luggage.

a good story
What makes
In some cases, with complicated stories or assignments with language
barriers or in places where you simply can’t waste a moment figuring out
the local bus system, it may be worth your while to hire a fixer. These
are folks who act as translators and quasi-guides who can help you work more
efficiently. Assignments to China almost always involve my hiring a fixer. Same with

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Characters
the Middle East. Typically you can find a college student or ask one of your local
contacts for help finding someone. Rates vary of course. Visitor information areas
often have a list of local guides who would be thrilled to take on a client doing
interesting work instead of just another tourist.

Using your
Decide if you need travel insurance before you go, too. I often just fold that into

setting
my expenses since magazines will generally balk at paying for you, an independent
contractor, to get a $25,000 medical evacuation flight out of the mountains of
Nepal. (Disclosure: World Nomads paid for this guide but the advice on insurance is
worth considering, regardless)

Pitching
a story
Gear I take, things I use — a list
I try to travel with only carry on if I can — I simply can’t put the job on hold

The business
while waiting for lost luggage. To do that, I love Eagle Creek’s Pack-It system for

of writing
condensing soft goods like clothes and organizing harder goods like chargers,
adapters and batteries. Cotopaxi makes a great day pack that stuffs into its own
sack. If you have a lot of electronic equipment, consider bringing along a power Notebooks from
strip with multiple ports that can handle enough volts from the destination sockets various assignments

assignment
Tim Neville
to charge many things at once. Some specifics:

On
Notebook: The paper kind because you have to
take real notes with real pens (I bring at least five
and a Sharpie). I like smaller Moleskine knock-offs
Reporting

that fit in my pocket and include a paper pouch

tips

in the back for stashing business cards I gather

along the way. I give each notebook a name and
take a picture of it that I stash in a digital Evernote
project file (more on that later) so I can remember
to write
Time

months afterward what assignment goes with

which notebook. In the front of each notebook I
leave a few blank pages to either create an index

23
— eg, “Louvre, pages 10-25” — or a rough calendar where
I can write short notes about what happened each day. The
calendar works like an index since I start notes for each new
day with the date. That saves me a lot of frustration finding
specific notes from a specific day later on.

Camera: Fortunately most of the outlets I work for hire

a good story
What makes
professionals to take photos or just use stock images from an
agency. Rarely will I shoot my own stories—at least not for
publication. I do take a ton of photos though. An editor might
need a shot of something specifically mentioned or the local
library might ask me to give a talk about a trip I did. I’m a big

and tension
Characters
fan of micro 4/3 cameras and lenses for the compact size,
versatility, and performance. I like GoPros, which I use almost
exclusively for shooting wide-angle stills around water. If you
are taking your own pictures, it’s a good idea to shoot in RAW

Using your
format so you can better edit the photos later. A close up of a

setting
notebook calendar
Laptop: I bought the smallest, lightest, least fancy MacBook Air for taking on trips. that serves as a de
facto index
At home I have a beefier desktop computer with two monitors. Tim Neville
Smart phone: Beyond being useful for email and posting to Instagram, your
phone is also a highly versatile notebook. Use it to take pictures of signs at historic

Pitching
a story
landmarks, of menus, of the person who sold you the cheese, or of hotel room
so you can reference it all later. I have an international plan with data and often
launch a map app to get a better feel for where we are and the names of stores or

The business
landmarks that we’re passing when driving from place to place. Details like those

of writing
make for good setting material. More on that later.
Apps/Software: Beyond apps that translate, show train schedules or help me book
hotel rooms and flights, I have a few others that make travel writing life easier.
Evernote is the one app I can’t believe I ever survived without. It’s basically a

assignment
digital filing cabinet that allows you to build dossiers on anything you want. Each

On
assignment gets its own Evernote notebook that becomes the nerve center of
everything I do. Text files, pictures of menus and informational signs, web clippings,
business cards, stories I’ve found online, my flights, contracts, PDFs of reports I’ll
Reporting

reference, emails, even typed out phone interviews and the audio recording of
tips

those interviews: it all goes in an Evernote notebook. I back up my physical paper

notebook by taking pictures of the pages (and the cover itself). The premium
Evernote service runs $45 a year but that allows me to sync everything across all of
my devices. Coolest of all, the premium service also opens a search feature that can
to write
Time

hunt for any word that appears in PDFs, text files, even pictures, including pictures
of your hand written notes. Super slick. I can then share that whole notebook
online with any fact checkers hired to double check my work.

24
 Scapple: mind-mapping software I use mostly at home to make sense
of my notes. More on that later.
Scrivener: sort of like the Photoshop of wordsmiths, Scrivener is a
Find the texting
vastly complex and powerful word editor mostly intended for book or
app of choice
dissertation writers, but I use it for most of my larger magazine stories.
in the county
Unlike Microsoft Word or Pages, Scrivener allows you to create multiple you’re visiting and
documents within a single project to help you keep everything organized. create an account.

a good story
What makes
WhatsApp/Viber/WeChat: Find the texting app of choice in the county
you’re visiting and create an account. So much easier to arrange interviews
and keep in touch that way.
Large Zip-loc bag: So sexy! But, hey, it’s useful. I try to take photos of brochures
and any other handouts instead of schlepping them around, but for those print

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Characters
items worth bring home, I toss them all into a big plastic bag with the name of the
project written across it in permanent ink. Most of it gets recycled as soon as the
story goes to press.
On to reporting.

Using your
setting
Pitching
a story
The business
of writing
assignment
On
Reporting
tips
to write
Time

25
How to report
a story
Let’s face it. Travel writing can be insufferable if the places
feel shallow, the characters remain 2D and nothing happens
beyond you bragging about your holiday. Travel writing is not a

a good story
What makes
recap of everything you did. Self-indulgent riffs are fine on your
blog or Instagram feed but good travel writing demands much
more. It all starts with great reporting.

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Characters
A lex Heard, the editorial director at Outside, used to tell me the three things
that make a story read well are details, quotes and pacing. The latter comes
into play when you sit down to write, but many of the details and quotes should
come from your time in the field. Never go anywhere without a pen and a

Using your
notebook.

setting
Maybe even two notebooks. Kevin Fedarko, author of the Emerald Mile, uses
one to jot down in-the-moment observations and facts that he can’t easily look
up later, like what the Mongol goat-herder had for breakfast or what his son said
at dinner. The second notebook becomes more of a diary where he can process

Pitching
a story
his thoughts about the story itself and elaborate on his experiences.
Gathering the good details that will make your piece shine seems simple
enough but it does take practice. Think of yourself as a scientist out collecting

The business
specimens. You’re looking to jot down snippets of conversations you capture and

of writing
to use all of your senses to document what’s happening around you. Give specific
names to everything. “Rose is a rose is a rose…” is far more evocative than “Plant
is a plant is a plant.” If you’re on a hike in Patagonia, find out the types of the
grasses that span the bottomlands and the kinds of trees that can survive those

assignment
winds. What type of rock is the stone fireplace in the mountain hut made of?

On
What’s the local word for that juicy pork dish? Take the leash off your curiosity
and ask, ask, ask. It’s your job. The answers you get will be critical for crafting a
vivid tale later.
Reporting
tips

The art of the interview

When my collecting turns to people, I begin each interview with an apology. I
explain how I’ll be asking a ridiculous amount of questions and how some of
them may seem silly. I say how I’ll probably interrupt some answers to ask more
to write
Time

questions. In the end it’ll all come together, I promise. I also offer to fact check
any parts of the story that involve the person I’m interviewing. That’s key. Never
send your story to sources before it’s published, but do go over individual facts

26
 a good story
What makes
and tension
Characters
You want to think
of the interview
as a friendly

Using your
and summaries of their quotes with them later in the draft. That not

setting
only puts your interview partner at ease but also opens the door for
conversation, not
staying in touch to gather more details later. Of course, it also saves
a list of questions.
you the embarrassment of getting something wrong.
Getting people to loosen up and talk starts with you being there

Pitching
a story
in person. If it’s a complicated or sensitive topic, or I’m on a bumpy
car ride and can’t really take notes, I might record the conversation on my
smartphone with permission. Otherwise, I’m scribbling away in a notebook using

The business
my own version of a shorthand. Either way, you want to think of the interview as

of writing
a friendly conversation, not a list of questions you have to burn through. Don’t be
afraid to push your partner a bit, too. Yes, Mr. Keeper opened his coastal inn last
year because he always wanted to live by the sea, but why? Do cities make him
feel claustrophobic? Does the salty air remind him of his grandfather? Generally

assignment
people like to think about such questions.

On
Putting this all together by carefully observing your surroundings is the only
way to collect the scenes you need for your story as well. Look for action. What’s
happening outside while you’re eating clams or interviewing an artist? Listen
Reporting

for dialog between two or more people that’s colorful or snappy or reveals
tips

something about the place you are, then note what they’re wearing or eating or
the picture they’re sitting under. Is the street wet with rain when you embark on
your quest to find the best Ruben? We’ll talk more about writing scenes later but
for now take a look at how Fedarko uses observational details and dialog in the
to write
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opening section of Ain’t It Just Grand to create a mood, show some action, and
set up the rest of the story. He didn’t do that by not taking notes.

27
Alan Brown or Allan Braun and other reporting tips
Don’t forget these key points:

Spell names correctly: It’s a real rookie move to get a name wrong. I always
ask my interview partners to spell their names for me as I write it down. I then
flip the notebook around to show them what I wrote to make sure it’s right.
Later, I’ll fact check it all over again.

a good story
What makes
Circle people’s names anytime you mention them in your notes: This
just makes it easier to find them later as the notebook fills out. It’s also
particularly helpful for finding notes with quotes since I’ll always write down
who said it.
Always find a way to follow up later: Get an email, a mobile number, a

and tension
Characters
WeChat handle. You’ll need it for fact checking and to ask those questions
you’ll almost certainly forgot to ask. Besides, you never know when a source
might come in handy on another story.
Go back over your notes each night: Writing “blue with rust” all by itself

Using your
might make sense when you’re staring at your source’s car but a week later

setting
you may have completely forgotten why you jotted that down. Go back each
night and shore up your notes.
Create some “story techs”: At the end of each trip I’ll use a few pages in one
of my notebooks to summarize the elements I gathered that I’ll need in the

Pitching
a story
story. What’s the tension? Do I have an opening scene? What might work for
an ending scene? Who are my characters? Key points I need to discuss? From
now on you’ll be building on those.

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On
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28
Time to write
The moment of truth! You’ve reported your story, you’ve
turned on the computer, cleaned your desk, vacuumed
the floor, eaten lunch—twice. It’s so easy to do anything
but write. A friend of mine used to say he’d rather slip sharp
things under his fingernails than sit down and get words
on the page. I’d have to agree.

a good story
What makes
M aybe the writing comes easy to you but not to me. I become my own worst
critic and spend hours rewriting sentences that I have to cut anyway. Slowly
it all starts to come together to create a deeply gratifying experience, but the

and tension
Characters
start of that process is always horrendous. I know I’m not alone. Look at how
many books are out there about writing.
Whether you struggle or not, it helps to keep a few things in mind when you
sit down to write. Remember, your story is a process not a product. Aaron Sorkin,

Using your
the screenwriter, says that dumping your ideas onto the page and smearing them

setting
around to create a work you send off isn’t writing but finger painting. For every
paragraph that appears in one of my stories there are probably five that lived
before it. Rewriting over and over again is how you make a piece sing.
Every writer does things a bit differently so find a process that work for you.

Pitching
a story
Here’s how I get it done.

Mind-mapping

The business
Once I have most of the reporting done I need a way to make sense of it all. Some

of writing
colleagues like Christopher Solomon will spend a day or two taking notes of his Rafting the
Green River
notes to refresh his memory and highlight key elements to build his story around.
through Dinosaur
I do something similar but add a visual element that author Dan Koeppel shared National
Monument
with me.

assignment
between Colorado
It’s called mind-mapping, which you may have heard of. It’s just a way to show and Utah, USA

On
Tim Neville
how tiny parts of your story relate to a bigger
whole. Any notes that have to do with, say, the
history of the area get lumped together in one
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section of the map while any notes on, say, the

tips

bus ride from hell get grouped in another. Across

the top of the map I’ll make a timeline of each
day, looking for key pivot points that I might be
able to build into scenes later. The real magic
to write
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happens when you start to see connections. A

note in the bus ride section dovetails nicely with
a bit of history you learned that ties in well with a

29
quote. The end result is something very close to an visual outline.
I used to pull out a bunch of pens and a large sheet of craft paper Knowing how to use
that would cover my desk completely to create the map but now I do it tension can make
digitally with a $15 piece of software called Scapple. There are plenty the difference
of other mind-mapping programs to try but I like Scapple because it’s between a noisy
made by the same folks who make Scrivener and so the two programs
mess of a read and
work well together.
gripping tale.

a good story
What makes
If analog is more your style, instead of going to a hobby store to get
your paper, try going down to your local newspaper and ask to buy the
remnants of the huge rolls of blank paper they feed into their presses
to create daily editions. Even if I make a digital map, I’ll still print it out to a desk-
size oeuvre that encapsulates pretty everything I know on the subject.

and tension
Characters
Using tension
Remember how we talked about how stories all need tension to move them along?
Knowing how to use that tension can make the difference between a noisy mess of

Using your
a read and gripping tale.

setting
Pitching
a story
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On
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tips

An overview of a
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completed, rather large

mind-map (top) and a
detail from the same
document

30
 Veteran writing coaches like Jon Franklin and
Jack Hart have published excellent books on
how to assemble your story into a rollicking tale
and both Writing for Story and Story Craft are
well worth your time to read. Solomon also likes
Into the Woods by John Yorke. The key thing
to remember, really, is that narratives all have a

a good story
What makes
unifying form and tension provides the bones.
Franklin does a deep dive into this in Writing For
Story and lays out how each scene needs that
question mark of what will happen next to keep
the reader engaged. Not every scene is a cliffhanger. That’d be exhausting at

and tension
Characters
best. The tension can be far more subtle. Even Seinfeld, the show about nothing,
was really just a series of scenes that either created, complicated or resolved
tension.
The same could apply to travel writing as long as each moment serves a

Using your
purpose. In your quest to find the best Reuben, you get lost walking around, so

setting
you take the time to describe the neighborhood and the snippets of daily life
you happen upon. Then you come around a corner and —whew!—you resolve
the tension and find the street. Or maybe the first Reuben disappoints, so you
use the moment to talk about the early reactions to Reubens when they first

Pitching
a story
appeared, and then you head off to find the next one. Each scene of relatively
minor tension needs to move the story closer to either resolving or complicating
the greater tension upon which the entire story is built, in this case, hunting for

The business
the best Reuben. Blending your reporting into the action helps keep the pace

of writing
clicking along.

Structure
So how do you organize your scenes? In general, think of your story in three

assignment
acts with an introduction, a middle and an end. Each section has a job and the

On
introduction usually requires the most thought (along with your conclusion)
because everything else will hang off of it. In most cases, somewhere in the first
few hundred words the safe bet is to plop the reader down in a place, lay out the
Reporting

hook (why you’re there), explain your mission (an overview of your “quest”) and
tips

foreshadow any obstacles you might encounter. In longer stories you might just
write a 400-word scene that’s super captivating with lots of dialog and tight action
that brings the reader in like the opening scene of a Bond movie. In later sections
you’ll lay out the hook and quest and explain, often with no tension or scene at all,
to write
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exactly why what you just saw is significant.

Packing everything into one opening section is far trickier than it sounds
because you must hit the billboard bits while using a scene that sets a mood and

31
introduces your main character. You also need to create and resolve some minor
tension that moves this first section along. Let’s say we’re starting our story out
at a trailhead where everyone is stuffing sleeping bags, tents, food and maybe,
oh, a revolver, into their backpacks for the start of a ten-day hike. Man that pack
is heavy! We might meet a cast of characters. We’ll learn where you’re going, why
(the hook, goal and an overview of how you’ll accomplish it), and get a feel for
the setting—and maybe why you need that pistol. You then want to end

a good story
What makes
the intro in such a way that it not only resolves whatever minor tension
you’ve created but also makes the reader feel some variation of “ok, here
we go! You’re going to tell me a story!” For the backpacking story you You need to crea
might do that by hoisting your load and setting off down the trail. and resolve som te
Notice how Kevin Fedarko in Ain’t it Just Grand ends his first section minor tension e

and tension
Characters
with him following his main character into a set of rapids. Reading that that moves this
story and picking it apart is where I learned this trick in the first place. first section alo
That’s a lot of moving parts to get right so let’s break it down a bit. ng.

Using your
Where to start

setting
First, think about the order of things. A chronological telling with context blended
in often works best in travel writing but this is where I also see a lot of aspiring
writers make the mistake of “throat clearing.” A story presumably about exploring
some islands in Indonesia starts off with the writer driving to the airport, checking

Pitching
a story
in, and getting on the flight. Or a story about cycling in Italy begins with a 300-
word philosophical dump about what it means to ride a bike. Really great writers
like Outside contributing editor Patrick Symmes (see: From the Wonderful People

The business
Who Brought You the Killing Fields) or Tim Cahill (see: Floating the Mighty Free

of writing
and Easy) can pull this off but I rarely can. Instead, as my friend and mentor Brad
Wetzler reminds me, you should consider starting with your best beginning, even if
it didn’t happen first.
Brad was the editor at Outside in 1996 who sent Jon Krakauer to climb Mt.

assignment
Everest to report what eventually became the bestseller Into Thin Air. Notice how

On
Krakauer starts the story with an exciting moment on top of the mountain.
We haven’t even climbed it yet and there we are at the summit:

“Straddling the top of the world, one foot in Tibet and

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the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen

mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared
absently at the vast sweep of earth below.”
to write
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Starting in the middle like this is called en medias res, which means “in the middle
of things,” and I bet 90 percent of my stories use it. It’s a surefire way to create
tension and capture the reader right off the bat. When using this technique your

32
opening section should still hit many of the key
parts — explaining where you are, the hook, the
quest and how you intend to do it — though
sometimes it’s ok to just let the action unfold
and then explain it all later. With Into Thin Air we
see bad weather rolling in and learn that a lot
of people are about to die. The rest of the work

a good story
What makes
explains how that came to be. There are few
more potent ways to create tension than to show
your readers Death winding up the scythe, hit
pause and spend the balance of your word count Kayaking in
Antarctica
bringing us back up to that moment.

and tension
Tim Neville

Characters
People dying icy deaths doesn’t generally make for good travel writing but
the technique works the same. For a story I did on sailing around Antarctica for
Departures, my best beginning was actually the very end — a 75-hour crossing of
the violent Drake Passage to get back to civilization. I could start the story in the

Using your
final moments of the trip with an opening scene that had our skipper explaining

setting
that a storm was coming and we needed to beat it across the Drake right away. I
explained why we were there, why this trip was different and special than other
Antarctica trips, and who comes on such a voyage. I wrapped up the introductory
scene with us pushing into the Drake with a hint of doom looming in the air. The

Pitching
a story
rest of the story brought us back up to that moment. I concluded the piece by
resolving the tension: we make it back with only one broken rib (not mine).
The opposite of en medias res, meaning starting at the beginning, is called

The business
ab ovo or “from the egg” though I’ve never actually heard an editor call it that.

of writing
But this technique is what Solomon uses in his Baked Alaska piece.
Notice how he starts at the true beginning of his adventure, though, and not
with any throat clearing.

assignment
The opposite of On

en medias res,
meaning star ting
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at the beginning,
tips

is called ab ovo or
“from the egg”.
to write
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33
Tell me everything
En medias res works great for straightforward travel tales and is fairly easy to pull
off but it starts to fall apart when you have a story that needs a lot of explaining
right up front. In situations like those you may need to do something a bit more
complicated and use your first section to give a broad overview of your entire story
or to show your main character in a situation that you’ll then spend the rest of the
piece resolving. Your hook, your quest, all of those building blocks may get shoved

a good story
What makes
into your second section.
For example, Ski magazine wanted a story I
pitched about going to Switzerland to find old-
school masters who could teach me how to make
the perfect fondue, that classic après ski dish. The

and tension
Characters
mission was simple. I’d travel around Switzerland
collecting ingredients from as close to the source as
I could get, I’d meet the masters who’d help me mix
them, and I’d ski, this being a ski magazine and all.

Using your
The tension was equally simple: with the right help,

setting
could my own fondues become something great?
So cheesy, I know, but the thing that saved the
Vallée Blanche in
story and made it super fun, in my view, was my main character, a cheesemonger and Chamonix, France
vivacious fondue expert named Fred Fischer whom I found before pitching the story. Tim Neville

Pitching
a story
The best story I had was really Fischer’s story and it had played out long ago. In short,
he’d become kind of famous for his fondue recipes among people really into fondue,
but then his cheese empire began to fall apart through no real fault of his own. I used

The business
my whole first section to tell his back story in a narrative style that takes us through

of writing
his rise and fall and then leaves us in the present with the whiff of a comeback about
to happen. Remember the talk about finding people at turning points in their lives
for hooks? Fischer wasn’t really at a turning point — he’d found a solution already —
but by setting the story up in the context of his past I could start the cameras rolling

assignment
at a point where my own quest came into play.

On
Some might say my story, Rites of the Caquelon, stretches the definition of what
counts as travel writing since it isn’t until the third section that we actually do any
traveling. Worse, the entire second section is basically a navel-gazing essay that
Reporting

explains how I came to meet him through my own obsessions with fondue. But
tips

starting the piece somewhere in the middle, jumping back, explaining him, me, and
everything else might have been disastrous because in the end, it’s just cheese.
Short of having a vat of molten Gruyère about to fall on my head, there just isn’t
much of nail-bitting cliffhanger to keep you interested. Instead, I set the story up
to write
Time

as two narratives about to collide. The rest of the story shows what happens when
they do. It worked better than I’d thought and the story made Best Food Writing, an
anthology of the year’s standout magazine articles about food.

34
 a good story
What makes
Here is where we
cruise along from
scene to scene
with your best

and tension
Characters
reported bits
blended in.
Middles and the accordion of time
The middle of your story is generally the easiest to write if you’re

Using your
using the en medias res or ab ovo techniques mentioned above. Here is where we

setting
cruise along from scene to scene with your best reported bits blended in like ice
in daiquiri. Remember, each mini scene or anecdote needs to have some minor
tension (and a resolution) to help move it along. You need to reach a pass before
sunset. (You do). You explore the city looking for the poet’s grave (you find it). You

Pitching
a story
take a surf lesson. (You surf).
If you started your first section off with a scene, you may need to start your
second section off with no scene at all but rather with some backstory or other

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context about your characters or setting to paint a fuller picture. Be careful

of writing
though. You need to keep your pace moving along.
One way to do this is to play with time. As a writer, you can speed it up and
slow it down to linger on important moments or to breeze through points that
don’t need an entire scene to explain. My mentor Brad Wetzler calls this playing

assignment
the accordion of time.

On
Solomon does this well in his Baked Alaska piece. The second section starts
off by slowing time down to take us back to the early exploration of Aniakchak
and to introduce us to a colorful but little-known historical figure that he can
Reporting

call back to from time to time. After that, the action is straightforward: Our
tips

characters face some tough conditions hiking out of the fog (they overcome
them). Throughout, Solomon slows down time to let his characters speak and
then speeds it up again to give us highlights from that day’s hike that create a
sense of place. We see mist dripping off the barrel of a side arm. We see grizzly
to write
Time

bear tracks and caribou tracks and “wolf tracks that stalk the caribou tracks.”
Stack together a series of scenes like this, each moving you closer to the goal,
and before long you’ll be at your conclusion.

35
The end and what it all means
Conclusions in action movies happen quickly. The alien ship explodes.
The best endings
The detective captures the bad guy or a sympathetic crook pull off a
spectacular heist. Some loose ends might need wrapping up (he gets the
do something a
girl!) but in general the tension pops, the pieces settle quickly and the
lit tle more than
curtain falls.
just deliver you
The same goes with travel writing. Your final section might be 90
back to the real
world.

a good story
What makes
percent a continuation of you middle as we get ever closer to our goal.
Here we can finally resolve the scene you set up in your en medias res
introduction. Your actual conclusion might only be a few paragraphs long.
The purpose of your ending needs to hit a few notes, but the most important
one is that it needs to come to a natural, satisfying conclusion. You finish the

and tension
Characters
hike or you at long last have your hands on the world’s best Reuben. This is why
failure stories rarely work. Unless you can pick up the pieces and cast it in a more
positive light, never finding the best sandwich or having to bail on your hike can
take all the wind out of your sails.

Using your
There are ways around this, though. I once wrote a fishing story for Stonefly

setting
in which the whole tension was “will I catch a fish.” The answer, it turned out,
was no, but I was able to end the story on an upbeat note anyway simply by
cutting the camera off just as a fish grabs my lure. I didn’t land the fish but I don’t
mention that on purpose. Like the last scene of The Sopranos the ending felt

Pitching
a story
stronger if I left the reader wondering. With my story, I made a bet that readers
had had enough fun with me along the way that they would feel satisfied with
my line going tight but never actually seeing the fish.

The business
Often times you can tie your story back to an image or other element you

of writing
mention earlier in the tale. Comedians do this all the time with “callback humor”
but in travel writing it doesn’t need to be funny. For a story I wrote about hiking
the Wild Coast of South Africa, I mention early on how the area is so pretty that
people sometime catch a fever that makes them want to stay. At the end of my

assignment
hike, I simply say I felt a fever coming on. Other times I’ll resort to an image that

On
suggests this particular adventure might be over but there’s still more to do.
For a story I wrote for the New York Times about biking around the Alps on an
electric bike, I thought ending with me having completed the route I set out to do
Reporting

felt limp. Instead, I left the reader with a scene where I decide to extend my ride
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a little bit more. I shift into high gear and rocket off around a bend in the road.
The best endings, though, do something a little more than just deliver you
back to the real world. They not only show you or your characters accomplishing
goal, they also show how you or your characters learned something along the
to write
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way and that’s the real reward. They step back for just a second and show how
your quest has revealed something about those big universal themes that bind
us all: love, hope, desire, companionship, fulfillment, finding peace, and so on.

36
This is a stretch but maybe in your quest for your Reuben you come across
a character whose enthusiasm for the sandwich says something about the
importance of having a passion for something, anything. In my Departures story
about Antarctica, we make it across the Drake, sure, but it’s in watching how the
austere beauty of the place deeply affects another passenger that you sense
the true payoff on a trip like that is coming face to face with something far more
profound than anyone imagined and letting that experience shape who you think

a good story
What makes
you are.
It’s easy to get carried away, though, so don’t navel gaze unless you can do it
quickly and honestly. Not every story needs a nod to What Does It All Mean so
don’t force it. If you do want to do it, the best place is often the penultimate
paragraph because readers have but one more paragraph to go. They will likely

and tension
Characters
forgive you for pontificating as long as you don’t linger on it. Again, turning to
Baked Alaska, look at how Solomon handles this. He doesn’t linger on the end but
speeds up time to show us the trip is over but the reward is something greater:
“Mostly what I remember, though, is the feeling of a different rhythm taking

Using your
hold, not of the wristwatch but of natural places. Each day as we hike, the sun

setting
sets a little sooner. We see salmon gather in the bays, sniffing for their home
rivers—and see bears come down to the shore, ready to flick their sushi onto the
sand. My fancy GPS watch dies; I don’t much care. I go days without thinking of
e-mail or my iPhone. This is what we want from our Aniakchaks, isn’t it? Places

Pitching
a story
that help us shake off the dross and find a surer and more ancient pulse.”
After that, a plane comes to get them and — cut! — we’re out.

The business
of writing
assignment
On
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tips

Cave in Jordan
- _Sometimes
to write

travel writers
Time

have to squeeze
in sleep wherever
they can!
Tim Neville

37
It’s a wrap! Almost…
N o doubt if you’re doing it right the writing will be hard at first before slowly getting
easier. Remember that you want to write the first draft of your story realizing it is
just that, a draft. Don’t polish. Don’t get hung up on words. Don’t worry if a scene has
its flaws. Print your story out. Read it out loud. Smooth over those rough bits.
Before hitting send though you need to fact check your story, not just for spelling

a good story
What makes
and specifics like mountain elevations but also for things that don’t seem so obvious at
first. I once described a street lined with blooming azaleas in a story but a very astute
editor noted that azaleas don’t bloom that time of year. It turns out we were both
right. They’d been genetically engineered, which made for an even stronger detail.
Not every travel story requires all the meta thinking you’ve read about here.

and tension
Characters
Sometimes your idea doesn’t need tension or characters or some great universal
theme to land it in a magazine. A new lodge opening in a popular park that adds
something new to the experience is often good enough for what editors call a short
FOB item, or “front of the book,” meaning those little hits you see in the first few

Using your
pages of a magazine before the big features play out.

setting
But no matter what level of writing your article requires, it does need to
have that all important hook spelled out clearly, and you absolutely must
whip out the notebook and ask some questions. If you’re doing a round-
up of the best beaches in the Caribbean (simply because winter is coming), Look at the

Pitching
a story
you’ll need all manner of details. Is the sand white or black, rocky or smooth? details. And kee
What trees grow around the beach and what corals lie in the bay? If I have traveling. Who p
to hike there, what’s my reward? A cove all to myself? “Service” pieces like ever heard of a
stay-at-home

The business
these live or die on the details you gather.

of writing
As for the big narrative travel stories that were the focus of this guide, travel writer?
you need to remember what Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter, teaches. He
says you don’t have an idea until you can say “but,” “then” or “except.”
Stories are made of turning points and tension. Without them you have an

assignment
idea in search of a story.

On
Travel writing is indeed one of those careers with perks that seem unbelievable
to most. But like any job, it’s a job, too, with real work to do. So don’t be discouraged
if you just can’t seem to land an assignment. Keep at it. Go to the library and read
Reporting

magazines you’d like to work for. Better yet, don’t just read those stories but study
tips

them. Pick out the parts we’ve discussed here. See how they’re organized. Look at the
details. And keep traveling. Who ever heard of a stay-at-home travel writer?
The greatest thing you can do to help yourself get going is to start thinking
like a writer. Soon you’ll be spotting story elements everywhere. You’ll see the people
to write
Time

you meet in a new light. You’ll naturally find new questions to ask. Hopefully you’ll
stumble upon something surprising that makes a dive deep into a place something you
just have to do.

38
About the Author
When Tim Neville was 17 years old, he moved
out of his parents’ house and into a tent in the
backyard, where he stayed long enough that his folks
eventually gave away his room. Those five months
in a leaky tent sparked an insatiable curiosity that

a good story
What makes
has since carried him to more than 70 countries for
countless interviews with tortured folk heroes, wily
schemers, and North Korean skiers.
His articles—from travel sketches to intimate
portraits—are meticulously reported and delivered with telling details, thoughtful

and tension
Characters
reconstruction, and spirited, often humorous storytelling. A correspondent at Outside
and frequent contributor to The New York Times, Tim has scaled glaciers, scuba-dived,
and cycled hundreds of miles to report his stories.
His work has been reproduced in The Best American Sports Writing, Best American

Using your
Travel Writing, and Best Food Writing and in 2015 he was named a travel writer of the year

setting
by the Society of American Travel Writers.
Tim was announced as the World Nomads Travel Writing Scholarship Mentor in 2017,
and his travel writing articles and stories also feature on the World Nomads website.
He lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife and daughter, where he skis Mount Bachelor

Pitching
a story
as much as he can.

The business
of writing
See our other guides
Introduction to Travel Visual

assignment
Travel Photography Storyteller
On
A video guide to getting Video tips for starting out
started and improving your and making it as a travel
photography craft. visual storyteller.
Reporting
tips

Travel Filmmaking Gap Year Guide

Fundamentals 400+ tips, hacks, advice, and
Video tips for planning, personal stories from our
executing and producing Nomads to help you plan
to write
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great travel films. your big adventure.

All images from stock libraries unless otherwise credited

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