Travel Blogs Are Doing It All Wrong
Wanted: blogger willing to travel and write at the same time.
As a freelance writer I regularly check up on new jobs for blog writers and the like. Problogger is a good source, as well as FreelanceWritingGigs; but you can’t go astray just getting in contact with sites you’d like to work yourself.
That said, there have been more and more travel blog opportunities floating around. Here is my observation.
When a fledging or even already successful travel blog begins looking for writers, they ask for one of two kinds: those travelling and those travelled. Both propose issues.
Travelling
The ‘ideal’ candidate would be someone currently travelling and blogging about their experiences. It sounds proactive and even romantic, but isn’t practical. How often have you felt like writing in depth articles about your travels while you’re travelling?
Wouldn’t you rather be experiencing your travels; not spending half your time finding internet connections and sitting at a computer? How well can you write while in a drunken haze and the sun is calling you out to play?
The second option for a travel blogger is one who has taken a few trips and writes about the experience after the fact. This takes the immediate ‘diary’ aspect out of the equation, but affords more time to write better articles.
However, now you’re writing about things that happened weeks or months earlier, resulting in inaccuracies and incomplete information that borders on nostalgic writing. “Remember when we met those guys who lived a block from the beach?”
Which brings me to the obvious solution
We’re still on the internet, right? That global connection of tubes and emails? If you ran a travel blog, and were looking for writers to blog about travelling in Paris, why don’t you hire someone who lives there? Because they aren’t ‘travelling’?
The most rewarding travel experiences, in my opinion, occur when you’ve emmersed yourself with the locals and you do as the locals do. So why not, as a travel site, cut out the middle man?
But then it’s not a travel blog…
No, now it’s better than a travel blog. Now you have exactly the information travellers are looking for; because it comes from people who live there. Instead of reading stories of someone who has lived in an area for a week, you get continuous information from someone who’s lived there practically there entire life.
You’ll still need the right kind of writer. One who will write in the mindset of someone who’s new to an area. Someone who is still looking for new things where they live. If you think this writer may be ‘out of touch’ with what it’s like to travel there, they can do a little research.
It’s not difficult; the backpackers still hang out at hostels and pubs.
Photos:
flickr.com/photos/aliasgrace/73889361/
flickr.com/photos/martin-kliehm/1351731245/
