The Travel Communicator Q&A...with me
I ask myself some real curly ones.
Each month I’ll feature a Q&A with a travel communicator professional: Travel writers, editors, publishers, destination representatives, bloggers, influencers, marketers and PRs. They’ll let you on all their secret tricks to carving a career in the travel communicator space: How do I forge relationships with editors? What are the best ways to work with PRs? And do I really need a posh set of matching Moleskine notebooks?
If this sounds like stuff you want to know, I’ll just leave this unobtrusive little subscribe/upgrade button here:
Meanwhile. to kick things off I figured I’d start with … me. Yeah look, I feel weird about it too but I do know a bit of stuff. Plus if anyone knows how to grill me, it’s me. I know all my weak spots. I promise I’ll go full Tracey Grimshaw.
I’ve been a travel writer for around eight years, and I’ve done plenty of other writing for about 10 years before that. So I know my way round an airport and a deadline.
Here are some things I’ve learned:
Tell us a bit about your career as a travel writer?
I began my work life at a weekly magazine, WHO Weekly, back when it was owned by Time Warner in the US. It was the best writing training you could get - fast, short deadlines, proper ‘doorknock … or at least pick up the phone’ reporting. And Time Warner’s writing style was strict. So were its factchecking methods. In fact we had to ‘red tick’ every single word we ever wrote, to show we’d spellchecked it. It was that laborious. Good-laborious.
Then I moved into women’s and fashion magazines, titles like Marie Claire, Grazia (RIP) and Madison (also RIP - wait, am I some sort of magazine kiss of death?).
That taught me about long form feature writing. One mentor in particular stood out,
(you can read her fantastic Substack here), who used to really push me to observe more, interview harder, add colour, colour, colour. I have fond memories of her sending me to bars and clubs to find out ‘what do golddiggers do when the economy crashes?’ during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (the answer, if you’re wondering, is they stick to their marks. “If someone can make a million dollars once, they can make it again,” was one memorable quote.)
Anyway, I then learned to write short, fast, tabloid-style digital stuff when I moved over to the parenting website Kidspot around 2014-ish. A lot of people sneer at tabloid writing but there’s nothing better at teaching you to write fast and hard, and develop an innate instinct for what humans connect to when it comes to storytelling.
Oh and during all this time I wrote annual restaurant reviews for the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide, where features ed Pat Nourse* taught me how to crank out tight, detail-driven, colour-packed snippets. Very short, review-style writing is the hardest writing style of all, at least for me.
Combined, it gave me a bunch of skills that I use today: firm writing structure and discipline from the weeklies, longform from the feature writing in the glossies and an eye for a tabloid-style angle from Kidspot, and finally the Pat Nourse school of ‘give me gold in 130 words’.
*P.S. if you want to read Pat Nourse In Full Flight, I highly recommend his recent tribute to the dearly departed Bar Americano in Melbourne. There’s no-one, anywhere, like Pat when he’s really put his back into a bit of writing. Tremendous stuff.
You always do a bit of travel writing in those in-house lifestyle jobs but I didn’t start really focusing on it properly (with a side order of food writing) until about 2015 when I landed my first real freelance travel piece. It was for Qantas magazine, and it ended up on the cover, to my surprise and delight.
Since then I’ve steadily built a career working regularly for Qantas magazine as well as for Escape, Gourmet Traveller, The Australian and more. I also write for commercial clients, such as tourism boards and other brands. It’s not a bad way to make a crust.
Point me to something you’ve actually written, then?
You can read a chunk of stuff on my portfolio, here.
How did you get your first travel writing commission?
I was very fortunate that I already knew several people working at Qantas magazine, as they’d been former colleagues or contacts built during my regular journalism career (waves to Kirsten Galliott and Di Webster).
Di asked me to sling her a few pitches and - glory! - it happened to be the year prior to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton heading to the polls in the 2016 US election. American politics is my weird nerd hobby.
Here’s a very granular and somewhat exhausting thing I wrote about Donald Trump’s impeachment a couple of years ago for news.com.au, if you’re interested. It’s…a lot.
What, I suggested, if I did a big piece on Washington DC - how to see it like a political insider? Where do the Senators go for steak, where do the interns go for a gossip? That kind of thing. And then it could run to coincide with the election.
It got the green light and I then got a taste of pulling together my first real famil from the ground up, with the help of the very kind people at Washington DC tourism. It remains one of my favourite stories ever. I even went hunting around in the Maryland woods to try and find Camp David (hot tip: American federal security agents don’t like people going hunting around in the Maryland woods to try and find Camp David).
A bit of back and forwards with the ever-charming Akash Arora and it ended up as the cover for that issue, which was wild. You can read a digital version of it here.
Can you really make a career out of travel writing?
You can! I have. I freelance and I live off it. But it takes time and energy: I work long, long hours to make enough money to keep a roof over my head (on the occasions that I’m actually under my own roof).
The secret, really, is simply providing the service - on time, to order and with little fuss.
What’s your best tip for building relationships with editors?
My number one tip for anyone wanting to go freelance is to work in-house first - that is, at a salaried job at a travel publication, or some other kind of publication.
Not only do you build relationships but you’ll be much better at pitching when you understand how editors work and how publications are pulled together.
Ok that sounds wonderful and everything but working in-house is not on the cards for me. What should I do to get my first piece published?
Fair enough. In that case, my biggest tip would be to do as I did, and really zero in on a punchy story idea. Something that’s super zeitgeisty, speaks very strongly to the brand and audience of the publication you’re working for, and pitch that way.
There is absolutely no sense in writing to an editor and saying “I’d like to write a story about India.” You probably won’t get a reply.
But what about “The ICC Cricket World cup is coming up at the end of 2023. It’s likely that the final will be held in Ahmedabad. I’d like to write a feature that looks at where to stay, play, and eat in this vibrant Gujarat city so cricket fans can plan a trip around watching the Aussies cream the competition.” (Anyone want to commission me to do that, btw?)
That’s a pitch.
One great story is all you need to get the ball rolling.
Oh, another idea? Why not pitch a story about the city you live in (or somewhere close) to an international publication like Condé Nast Traveller, CNN or the BBC? These publications need Australian content and who better to serve it to them than a local who knows all the real insider tips?
These publications need Australian content and who better to serve it to them than a local who knows all the real insider tips?
And finally…when you have those relationships secured, nurture them by doing your best to give your editors what they want, when they want it, and be as cheerful and helpful through the whole process as possible. They are busy, stressed and hard working. Your job is to make their lives a bit easier.
Hello to any of my editors reading this! I hope that’s how you feel I work for you.
Are all your trips paid for?
No! Many are but a good travel writer doesn’t sit around expecting a waterfall of freebies.
You will do a lot of your best work when you fork out for a plane ticket yourself and go exploring on your own dime.
Your accountant will also thank you at tax time if there’s a flight or two that she can write off on expenses.
What actually happens on a hosted press trip (AKA a ‘famil’)?
Famils can be loosely grouped into two camps: solo and group. On a solo famil, you are often given a more relaxed itinerary, perhaps just your meals are booked but the rest is left up to you. These are fantastic, as they give you a ton of time to explore and you know that no other rival publications are going to nab the best stories.
Group famils are - wait for it! - groups. You’ll be in a pack of several other journalists - around five or six is the norm. Generally your itineraries are planned quite tightly so your host can keep track of you.
Group famils are wonderful for one big reason: you get to hang out with other travel journos and PRs. We’re a pretty good bunch and it’s a great way to build relationships. I’ve made some excellent buddies on group famils.
What is less great is the fact that you generally get less time to explore on your own and you really do need to work harder to find unique angles that your colleagues won’t grab from you first (scoops and exclusives are prized in the Travel Communication world, just like every other form of journalism).
While it’s always Good Famil Manners to participate in all the activities your host plans for you, it’s also OK to ask for a bit of time on your own to do some self-guided exploration, as well as one-on-one interviews with locals
That’s another strong tip: interview as you travel! Always! Other people’s voices always make a story sing.
Where was your last trip?
I just came back from a Transatlantic crossing with Holland America for Escape. Not all my pieces have been published around this trip yet but you can read a little bit about it here.
And I also spent a couple of days at Jackson Ranch on the NSW South Coast for The Australian. That one you can read here.
Have you ever witnessed any bad behaviour on a famil?
Yes! In fact…I have a theory: There is always one shifty person on every famil. It is the Universal Law of Famils. (Great, now everyone I go on a famil with will be side-eyeing me to see if I think they’re The One. Hang on, what if sometimes I’m The One? Something to think about!)
I remember once going on a very luxurious, extremely high-end, food-focused cruise which included an international journalist who was The World’s Greatest Expert On Cruises. She complained loudly and often about everything, from the food to the entertainment to - I kid you not - the placement of the ship’s internal stairwells.
You don’t have to love everything you see or do on a trip but you don’t need to be a nightmare about it. There’s no excuse for being this rude to your hosts. Within a few days the group was giving her a wide berth. Berth! Get it? Little cruise humour for you, there.
Another personal peeve I have about journos on famils is when they treat them like a holiday rather than work. Of course it’s fun, fabulous and we’re insanely fortunate to be there. And a few drinks and a bit of a laugh are fine.
But … the important stuff comes first.
Take notes. Ask questions. Pay attention. Be on time.
How do you take notes as you travel?
Three ways, actually. I record quite a bit of audio: mostly speeches and interviews, or my chatter of things I notice as I drive. For that I use the Voice Memos app on my phone and then transfer the audio to Otter.ai which turns it into a usually fairly accurate written account.
I take written notes in a variety of notebooks. I wish I was one of those people with sets of neat Moleskines but I’m not. My notebook collection looks like an Officeworks store vomited.
My best notebook tip? Write the name of the trip and the date in the inside cover, like a sort of Table of Contents, because you’ll use that notebook for multiple trips
This is a way to remember which notebook holds which notes when you refer back to them later (which I often do).
Then my third way is photos. I take photos constantly. They don’t all need to all be publication-standard but you need details about menus and the colour of the cushions and wall paint in your hotel room.
I don’t bother organising my pics in any special way - but I often refer to the map feature on Apple photos to find pics of previous trips.
Okay, one last thing. How are you going to fit in creating The Travel Communicator around all your other writing work? Are you aware of how many hours there are in the day?
I’m a writer. I don’t do maths. I can’t count much past three. So no, to be honest I cannot tell you how many hours there are in a day. Seven kilometres? Two-hundred-and-three centigrade? No idea.
Look, it’s going to be a timecrunch but I'm already really enjoying this, and I eat deadlines for breakfast. We’ll make it work. Stay with me.
(And if you really like it, maybe consider upgrading to a paid subscription - or sharing it with a friend - so I can keep this thing going without deeply resenting it?).
So there you have it! Alex on Alex.
“Thanks Alex, you’ve were fantastic as The Travel Communicator’s first guest. You were so generous with your time,” - Alex
“No problem, Alex, and thanks for those hard-hitting questions, you really made me think,” - Alex
I - we - love to see it.
If you like what you’ve read, you’ll like it even more when I do real interviews with much smarter professionals than me for The Travel Communicator, and when we sprinkle this little corner of the internet with travel news, cool travel-y stuff I’m loving, check-ins from industry launches, parties, famils and more.
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And finally if you’re a travel media professional: a writer, editor, blogger, influencer, PR, marketer, accommodation owner or anyone else in the travel communication space, and you’d like to A some Qs in this Q&A spot, drop me a line! Leave a comment below or email me: alex@alexandracalton.com.au
Welcome aboard,
Alex x
As much as I wish you a bazillion subscribers, how do you top this? You’re very interesting (*George Costanza voice).
Love your honesty and humility