How to Become a Travel Writer in 2024 (& Get Paid For It)

Wondering how to become a travel writer?

I have to admit, I stumbled into it. 

While I always thought it was a cool idea, I really didn’t have a ton of travel experience—I’d been on a plane a handful of times, and had only left the country twice. Both on short-term trips—so, honestly, I figured I didn’t fit the bill.

Travel writing was a far-off, barely-there dream for me. But when I started building a future in freelance writing, I certainly didn’t have it anywhere close to the horizon.

Then, out of the blue, I got an email from a travel editor. 

I had apparently applied for a writing job with them (which I swear I didn’t remember doing) and they were interested in working together.

I know, scam alert.

But the company was real, the editor really worked for them, and her email was official. They wanted me to do a test SEO rewrite on one of their articles, and they’d pay me via PayPal.

Cha-ching!

I was brand new to freelancing, and I didn’t exactly have anyone with a wad full of cash knocking down my door. So, naturally I went for it.

Fast forward four years…

I’ve written hundreds of travel-related pieces, covering everything from cool destinations to what to pack and wear while you travel. I’ve written for some HUGE websites and a few smaller ones. And I can tell you, I LOVE travel writing.

I am living proof that you can legitimately make money writing about travel, even if you have no experience. Better yet, eventually you can make money writing about travel while you’re traveling!

What is travel writing?

Before we get too far into it, let’s talk about what travel writing is. And, more importantly, what it isn’t.

One one hand, travel writing is the art of sharing stories about people, places and things that are not in your own backyard. 

That said, there are writers in the travel vertical that specialize in places where they live. If you live in a unique destination that sees visitors, then penning in-depth insider content or local guidebooks could be a great path for you.

Professionally speaking, most travel writers make the bulk of their income penning pieces that are more focused on the hows, whats and wheres of travel. That is, they write travel advice content.

This is the travel space I primarily write in.

You’re unlikely to find me crafting a feature about taking an African safari fit with gorgeous photographs. But if you’re looking for a gal that can tell you the technical ins-and-outs of the best time to purchase a cheap plane ticket, that’s me.

Travel writing like every other niche is filled with sub-niches. It’s your job to carve out your own.

But travel writing is NOT…

Look, travel writing is not what Instagram makes it out to be. I would love to be sipping bellinis beachside with my laptop in a pair of designer sunglasses, a comped bikini, at a fully-paid for hotel. That’s not what’s going to happen.

Honestly, I have a beach in my literal backyard, and while working on it is really cool – it’s not glamorous, and there’s a TON of sand involved.

Before you get too far into planning your dream travel writing career, you need to know that travel writing is not…

• Getting paid to travel—While some BIG travel writers legitimately do make money traveling, most of us merely sell our experiences. That means no one hands me a check and says book a flight to Turkey, but I do get paid for telling stories about my travel experiences and can expense some parts of my trips. It might not be the full dream, but it still counts.
• Writing about your family vacation—unless it was unique and amazing, no one wants to know that your father-in-law wore a banana coloured speedo on the beach, or that your kids loved Mickey’s ToonTown. The caveat to this is that you can share these things on your own blog.
• A huge paycheck—I personally don’t know any writers that ONLY work on travel content. Most operate like I do where one of our verticals or niches is travel but it certainly doesn’t make up our whole income.
• Easy to get into—From what I’ve gathered my experience of getting into the industry with no travel articles to my name and limited familiarity was a fluke. Most people rack up a whole blog’s worth of content or start in a different vertical and make a lateral move before they make money selling travel work.
• Always a stable industry—If you asked me about job security last year I would have told you that people always travel so there’s always an appetite for content on it—2020 decided to prove that hypothesis wrong.

These realities are not meant to sway you from going down this path. 

If you really want it and you’re willing to work for it, chances are you can get there. Just don’t quit your day job tomorrow to freelance in travel.

How to become a travel writer and get paid

Now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s dig into the meat of why you’re here: you’ve got at least some interest in becoming a travel writer, and you’ve got no idea how to get there.

No problem.

If you’ve got a little patience, time and passion, I can teach you how I became a travel writer, and started making a little money. But first, you’re going to need to do a few things…

1. Start writing clips

My story aside, you do actually need some past examples if you want to become a travel writer.

In fact, I left a little out of my story at the beginning. While I truly don’t recall applying for my first gig, I do actually know why I got it and I didn’t have NO experience at all, just none in travel specifically.

I’ve actually been a writer my entire career. I took my bachelor’s majoring in journalism, then my master’s and wrote in-house for government agencies and professional services firms all well-before I started freelancing.

And, while I didn’t have anything travel-specific, why I did have was a solid, demonstrable knowledge of search engine optimization. The original gig that I got was updating 50-something articles from an SEO perspective, after that was done I was moved to their regular pool of freelancers.

In fact, though I do take the odd piece that’s more pure travel, I’ve stuck it out on the marketing content side of travel writing because that’s what I love doing.

All this is to say that if you want to become a travel writer, you need to show them that you can do the job. You do that by producing travel clips. 

Clips, for those of us just starting out, are examples.

In most cases, you’ll want these clips to be published on someone else’s site—the bigger the better. But when you’re starting out, that’s less likely to be an option. With that in mind, there are two places I recommend testing out your skills:

• A shared revenue site where you can possibly earn a little side cash like Medium or Vocal
• Your own blog

To be honest, I recommend doing both. Though, long-term I think having your own blog is more important because you can monetize it.

There are some REALLY important things to keep in mind if you want to make money with your pen (AKA keyboard since it’s 2022). You want to make sure that your content:

• Has no errors
• Has a beginning, middle and end
• A genuine point
• Is unique
• Is built with SEO in mind (even writers who don’t specialize in marketing content NEED to know how to optimize articles)
• Has a killer headline. You can use CoSchedule’s headline analyzer to help you out with that.

While this is slightly (but only slightly) less important, you’ll also want to start building an online presence, including opening a social media profile or two. Photos and videos are both big in this area, so an Instagram account is a good start. If you have your own blog, Pinterest is also something too look at.

2. Get feedback on your writing

When I first started reaching out to prospective clients, it never occured to me to get feedback. As someone who’s been writing for my entire career, I should have known better. But, alas, I didn’t.

I wish I did.

I’ve learned a ton of things over the years, but there’s a few that I could have learned faster had I just asked. So, I humbly suggest that you get someone to give you feedback on your first few BEFORE you start shipping them off and asking for work.

You do not have to ask an actual editor to read your work for feedback (though you certainly can). Anyone you trust will do. The point of it is to (a) double-check that you don’t have any crazy grammar or spelling mistakes, no matter how many times you look over something, things still get missed, and (b) the piece is engaging.

This process sounds A LOT scarier than it really is. I totally understand not wanting to show people your work before you’re ready or you get the money in your account—but as someone who does this for a living, I can tell you this never goes away. So, slash that ice right now.

Eventually, people are going to pour over your work. They’ll slash it to bits and deliver you the pieces in blood-colored text, so you may as well start practicing receiving that feedback sooner rather than later.

3. Set up a writing business

I’m not going to dig too much into this topic but I think it’s important to touch on. BEFORE you start making money, you really should look into the requirements of running a sole proprietorship in your jurisdiction.

When you make an income from anything you need to pay taxes. When it’s an income that’s self-reported, there are additional responsibilities. And simply not paying taxes (even if you think they’re dumb) is a bad idea because it often results in having to pay more later on.

To be clear, I’m not a lawyer or accountant. So, you should absolutely speak to one if you have real questions, I highly recommend looking into what you need to do and report wherever you live.

You’ll also want to have:

• Some way to accept payment
• Some way to make and send invoices
• Some way to record income

For all of these things, I use Bonsai (which has a free trial so you can test it out). I really LOVE it and after ditching it and trying pretty much all of the recommended software out there, I eventually went back to Bonsai.

Finally, writers should have insurance. It’s not a thing we talk about a lot, but it is important. In my jurisdiction (Canada), this insurance is called errors and omissions insurance.

And, honestly, it’s not that expensive. I pay less than $350 a year for ALL of the insurance that covers my business which includes errors and omissions. If you have questions about insurance and what you should have, reach out to a lawyer or insurance broker. They’ll know what you need.

4. Create a pitching list

Most websites that have any semblance of a lifestyle section publish travel-related articles. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean they hire freelance writers–some have in-house staff that take care of these specific verticals. But it doesn’t hurt to ask.

With some work under your belt, it’s time to scope out travel-related opportunities.

There are some great resources where you can find work of all kinds, including travel. I recommend checking out:

• Who Pays Writers
• Freelance Writing Jobs
• ProBlogger
• All Freelance Writing

Beyond looking at job boards, I can tell you a few places that might take something travel-related. But it is really important that you take a peek at their requirements before you submit a pitch. Here are a few places you can check out:

• Popsugar Voices
• Great Escape Publishing
• Listverse
• Matador Network
• GoWorld Travel Magazine
• Horizon Guides
• Verge Magazine

Please note: I do not write for or have any association with any of the above places at this time. I’ve never tried pitching them, so I don’t know their processes, how easy or hard they are or what they pay.

It’s also important for me to stop here quickly and tell you a hard-and-fast freelancer’s rule: unless a publication specifically asks for something that’s already written, submit only a pitch.

5. Write a thoughtful pitch and send it

Once you’ve found a few places that you’d like to submit your work, start crafting some pitches.

Pitches are essentially ideas for articles that will fit in with the outlet you’re hitting up. These ideas are more in-depth than simply dropping a title in an email and saying I want to write for you.

When you pitch, you want to define:

• A suggested title
• What you want to talk about
• What angle you’re going to take
• Who you are
• Why you should be the one to write about the piece and not anyone else
• And don’t forget to include links to some of your sample work!

Pitching sucks. I STILL hate doing it. But it’s a part of working for yourself as a writer, so it’s something you’ll want to started on.

You’ll make mistakes when you pitch—seriously, I STILL do. So, write your pitch. Double-check it. Run it by someone if you have a confidant you trust and see if there are any quick fixes you can do to improve. Then send it and move on.

If you haven’t heard anything from the publication in a week or two, it’s totally fair game to circle around and follow up. A simple, I just wanted to follow up and see if you were interested in this will do.

It’s also important to stop here again and say, do not submit the same pitch to multiple outlets. It’s VERY bad practice, reserved for times where you have no choice—for example, you have a very timely piece that needs to be published ASAP. If you’re a beginner, you’re probably not there yet. Don’t feel bad if you get a rejection or, worse yet, hear nothing back. It happens to all of us.

Stick to one pitch per outlet. If you don’t hear from then in a while, then you can move onto the next. In most cases, I’d give it 14 days, at least, but check their writer guidelines to see if they have a predetermined time frame set out.

6. Rinse and repeat

This is the part of the article where I tell you that becoming a writer can really suck at times. Most pitches you send will be rejected or ignored.

This is not a reflection on you or your work—unless your work sucks, then maybe it is. But in most cases, editor’s inboxes are STACKED with pitches. They only have so much room and budget to hire contractors.

So, if you don’t get a yes right away, that doesn’t mean that you’ll never become a travel writer. It just means you need to give it some time. Keep creating sample work and keep reaching out. If you try enough times, someone says yes.

What other verticals go well with travel writing?

I said right at the beginning that relying on travel content only to make what you need to live is a mistake that most of us find out sooner rather than later. But if all you want is to become a travel writer, you might not have any ideas of what else you could write about without straying too far.

No problem, I can give you a few ideas.

In most cases, travel is more of a lifestyle topics. So, if you want to stretch your writing legs and do some more practice work (or get paid more) you could try out another lifestyle vertical. Examples could include:

• Fashion
• Beauty
• Relationships and dating
• Product reviews
• Personal finance

Writing in other verticals can be a good way to back-door some by-lined work that has a travel angle for your portfolio, and still make money while you do it.

Almost all of the above verticals could have a travel association. For example, you could write about the next romantic place to visit for couples in love or the best makeup to pack in your carry-on bag without overloading your liquids allotment.

If you already have a regular gig in some other lifestyle vertical (or you get one before you start travel writing), you could always pitch a piece or two that has a travel angle to it and possible get a piece published that way.

What about writing guest posts?

A lot of people talk about using guest posts to boost your street cred in the beginning—whether or not you’re aiming to become a travel writer. And I can tell you that while I don’t have a problem with it, I’ve never guest posted anywhere to gain followers or get a published piece.

There are A LOT of benefits with guest posting—which you can find by simply Googling them—but I’ve always had the mentality that if I’m going to create something for free, I’m going to do it for me.

So, any piece that I might have guested has gone onto one of my blogs, my Medium profile or somewhere else where I could boost my own output or possibly put money in my pocket.

By no means am I saying that guest posting is a bad idea. I don’t think that at all. I’m just not the one to tell you about how to do it or why you should because I’ve never done it myself. But if that ever changes, I’ll let you know.

Is travel writing for me?

Becoming a travel writer is just like becoming a writer in any other vertical. It’s not right for everyone, even some of those that are passionate about it don’t find it to be a fulfilling job.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you get into travel writing and decide that it’s simply not the vertical for you, then move onto the next. It’s OK to decide that you don’t want to do something, even if you’ve already started it.

I did a lot of personal and commercial finance writing earlier on, only to find out it wasn’t my favourite thing in the world. There are definitely aspects of it that I LOVE but a lot of the work I was doing I wasn’t passionate about.

While I didn’t completely drop it from my roster, I did severely slim down the contracts I took, sticking with things that I was truly passionate about.

It’s OK to change your mind, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Final thoughts: How to become a travel writer

Travel writing is NOT for everyone, and because it’s such a *fun* niche to work in, there’s A LOT of competition. But if you’ve been daydreaming about travel writing, there’s no time like the present to try.

I stumbled into travel writing, and I can tell you that I still do a lot of travel writing these days. I’ll admit, it’s not the most lucrative niche that I’ve written in — but I’ve also learned in my time as a freelancer, there’s more to consider than just the money.

My best advice to sit mix your travel writing with a second, slightly more lucrative niche — like technology or business. This way they can balance each other out and provide you with a combination of fun and money.

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