Being a successful travel writer or outdoor writer is a dream shared by many freelancers. However, only a small percentage of freelance writers will truly be successful at it, and by successful I mean able to support a middle-class lifestyle.
Below are excerpts I wrote in response to a frustrated beginning travel/outdoor writer who posted in the “writing rants” section of the forum at Freelance Writers Den. I’ve also added some extra info for greater clarification.
The frustrated beginning travel/outdoor writer said he was discouraged with his efforts in the travel field. It sparked a very good discussion. It’s a bit disjointed, but it’s useful for freelance writers, and it covers some aspects of my early years as an outdoor writer you may not know about.
(FYI: I’m a moderator in the Den with about 2800 comments to date.)
Travel Writing and Outdoor Writing Niches: Key Points
Below are some of the key points I made during the discussion. Specifically:
- Many of us choose freelance writing niches that pay our bills, even if at times it’s not that exciting.
- Freelance writing for travel and outdoor publications is hard work.
- “Do what you love and the money will follow” won’t work for everyone, including many people who want to write in the travel/outdoors field.
Forum Discussion About Travel Writing and Outdoor Writing: My First Response
It is quite difficult to make a good living as a travel writer, especially if you write only articles for magazines. There are hundreds of thousands of writers traveling the world, so there’s a lot of competition for the limited number of feature articles in the limited number of magazines that pay well.
If you are truly serious about it, consider starting on a lower level and then using your clips to market to progressively better markets. Newspapers can be good place to get initial clips, along with some of the better websites.
More suggestions:
- Focus on other niches that can pay your bills while you get your travel writing going.
- Buy recent books about how to succeed as a travel writer. (Use Amazon for research.)
- Consider business writing related to travel. (See Erin Raub’s site.)
- Go through the Step by Step Guide to Freelance Writing Success and the Freelance Business Bootcamp, if you haven’t already.
- Have your queries critiqued here in the Den.
Travel and Outdoors Writing Reality Check: My Second Response
Like everyone else above [earlier replies in the forum thread], I understand your frustration. I write primarily for higher education companies, and while I love what I write about, I often have to write in a very specific style that often isn’t how I’d truly like to write.
However, higher ed writing has paid all my bills and funded my retirement accounts, and leaves me a lot of time for vacations.
I started as an outdoor writer, which is a form of travel writing, and I specialized primarily in hiking. I wrote three books, two still in print, and 100-plus magazine and newspaper articles, but I finally got tired of the hassle of pitching stories to magazines and just focused on the higher ed companies. I do still write new editions of my books, and I market them on my Northern California Hiking Trails website, but the book royalties are a relatively small percentage of my income.
There’s an expression: “Do what you love and the money will follow.” That does work for a few people, but most of us have to make compromises.
I suggest you find a high-paying freelance writing specialty that will pay the bills, and then use your time beyond that to pursue the types of writing you really want to do.
But I Want to Travel and Get Paid for It!
My writing in my specialty earns me the money to go hiking and traveling without having to feel like I have to make a living solely from hiking and traveling.
For me, there’s a major difference between traveling when I’m writing about it and just traveling for the pure pleasure of it: I enjoy the latter far more than the former. I don’t have to take notes or do interviews or gather information; I just get to do what feels right in the moment.
There’s a good article about the travails of travel writers here.
My Advice for a Beginning Travel/Outdoor Freelance Writer
If you want to be a travel/outdoor freelance writer, start by writing about local destinations, and for local publications, and then build from there.
That’s actually what happened for me. I love to hike. I was very fortunate to land contracts in the 1990s with a mainstream publisher, The Mountaineers Books in Seattle, to write hiking guidebooks on Northern California. I parlayed that into writing about Northern California hiking in Sunset, VIA, and a national outdoors magazine, along with a hiking column in six newspapers.
I had wanted to become an outdoor writer who travels around the country and the world doing cool things, like Tim Cahill. However, for the reasons listed above, I decided to focus almost exclusively on writing for higher education companies. But if I had wanted, I could have continued to pitch magazine and newspaper pieces about Northern California outdoors destinations and activities. Would I have had substantial success eventually? Maybe, but I didn’t feel the odds were very good.
Travel Writing and Outdoor Writing: Your Take
Are you interested in travel or outdoor writing? Had much success at it? Share your thoughts below.
