"How To Travel the World Free as a Published Travel Writer"

By Martin Li

Introduction

        Is it possible to travel the world for free? Definitively: yes! Travel writers live this dream year-round - it’s their job after all. Four principal industries host travel writers on free trips and provide them with many other free privileges. They are:

• National and regional tourist boards

• Airlines

• Tour operators

• Hotels.

        Experiencing the hospitality and other privileges generously extended to travel writers for free is without doubt one of the most exciting aspects of the profession. Not only will you be showered with offers for an unimaginable array of free trips and other freebies, but you will often be obliged to accept these free trips and freebies as an integral part of your work!

        How? Let me explain.....

        Many editors have policies which forbid (rightly in my opinion) their writers from publishing stories about destinations or facilities they haven’t visited first-hand. After all, how can you hope to write accurately about a subject you haven’t experienced yourself?

        Please understand that publications don’t design these policies just to force tourism companies to provide free trips for their writers. Once you start writing, you’ll discover in no time how vitally important it is to see and experience a place for yourself before you try to write about it. If you’ve done any writing before you’ll know this to be true.

        You can find out an awful lot about a destination through desk research, and you should certainly undertake such research before going on a trip. However, you will never truly understand the essence and soul of a place, let alone be able to capture and describe it in writing such that you can pass it on to your readers, until you’ve visited it and experienced it with your own senses.

        For your article to be readable it needs to record personal experiences, anecdotes and other small details that you simply can’t find in brochures or books. The personal experience might appear totally inconsequential to the destination but its impact on your story most certainly won’t be. It’s often these personal experiences and anecdotes that breathe life into an otherwise drab and ordinary story.

        Furthermore, it’s difficult to be passionate about a destination without having experienced it for yourself. You might become very interested in a location from research you carry out at home but it’s highly unlikely you’d be able to generate any degree of passion in your writing without having visited the location personally.

        This is a critical point. If you’re truly passionate about a destination you’re writing about, this passion will come through in your writing. Not only that but your passion will come through in your writing naturally, with little effort on your part, and will elevate your writing to levels much higher than you would ever have imagined possible.

Free VIP Press Trips

        Once you’ve established yourself as a writer, and that won’t take long using the techniques we’ll teach you in the course, you’ll soon be receiving all manner of invitations to join fellow writers on exotic press trips to faraway destinations.

        Imagine opening your morning post and finding an invitation from a tourist board for an all-expenses-paid VIP press trip to a prestigious location. Along with the invitation is enclosed a detailed five day itinerary of visits to many fascinating sites. The flights are all paid for. All you might need to do is decide when you want to fly or perhaps even that is pre-arranged for you. You will stay for free in luxury hotels and your local hosts will treat you to nightly gourmet banquets. Local experts will provide you with all the information you need about the location to enable you to write a quality story.

        Would you be interested in going? Who wouldn’t? And it can be relatively easy to organise. The secret is to get your name onto the press lists of tourist boards and other organisations, such as tour operators, who regularly host such trips for journalists. You then need to ask a few questions to demonstrate to the potential hosts that you would be an ideal candidate for a forthcoming press trip. We’ll show you the best way to do this in Part Two of the course.

A Real Life Example

        The very scenario described above has happened to me on several occasions. It was during a press briefing that I was first informed that one of my favourite Mediterranean islands was intending to host journalists for five day "study tours". Writers could choose to take tours of the island focusing on one of three subjects: culture, gastronomy or the environment.

        I sent off a fax to the island’s tourist board requesting a place on a gastronomy study tour. Several days later I received a fax back confirming the dates of the press trip and requesting that I contact my local office of the national airline to arrange a complimentary flight.

        That press trip turned out to be one of the most enjoyable I have ever been on. There were about 30 writers on the trip, a combination of freelance and staff writers. We were met off the plane by a local tourist board representative who took us to an elegant hotel with excellent views of the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. After dinner that evening, the representative took us on a private guided tour of the city by night.

        Over the next five days a local expert took my gastronomy group to a number of little-known locations to taste the considerable gourmet delights this island has to offer. The timetable arranged for the tour was fairly relaxed and plenty of sightseeing time was built into the schedule. As if our daytime gastronomic exploits weren’t enough, we were also treated each evening to lavish, haute cuisine dinners accompanied by fine local wines.

        The company on that trip was very convivial, both my fellow writers and our generous hosts. Press packs with much detailed background information about the location awaited us in our hotel rooms and during the trip we were given all the information we needed for our articles.

Travel For Free

        The correct professional approach will often reward you with free tickets for airline and helicopter flights, first class train travel and luxury cruises.

        Most major airlines look to promote the routes they operate and will often provide free flights to travel writers who approach them. Also, because by their nature flights are not generally capable of being written about as stand-alone subjects, airlines will often co-sponsor press trips with tourist boards and tour operators.

        Personally, I have seldom had to organise complimentary flights on their own as flights have generally either been provided to me as part of an all-inclusive press trip or have been arranged for me by press officers representing destinations I was visiting.

        Airlines frequently change their routes and schedules as well as switch their marketing efforts between different destinations. It will greatly help your chances of being offered a complimentary flight if your story angle coincides with a new route, new schedule or a destination that has been targeted for a marketing effort.

        Keep up-to-date with what airlines are doing. Which ones have recently opened new routes or, even better, are just about to? How could one of these routes be incorporated into a story idea you are currently developing? The travel pages of newspapers and publications often carry such stories and you’ll also receive advance notice of airlines’ plans once you get onto their press lists.

        You can approach small airlines and helicopter service operators in the same way that you would approach a major airline. Small airlines and helicopter service operators often serve niche markets. They often welcome publicity and are open to providing free travel for writers who can provide this publicity.

        Free travel is not confined to airlines either. In my experience train operators are also very helpful towards travel writers and just need to be approached in the same way.

A Real Life Example - By Air

        I was recently researching some stories in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, a little-visited South American gem. I became aware of a forthcoming major gastronomy festival in Bolivia’s second city Santa Cruz. Having an interest in food stories I was keen to write an article about Bolivian cuisine which would also describe where to find the finest examples. I was therefore very keen to visit the festival.

        The only challenge was that Bolivia is a huge country. Santa Cruz was the best part of a day’s bus journey away, which I didn’t much fancy, or an hour’s flight away, which I didn’t have the funds to pay for. So, I contacted the marketing officer at the festival organiser, explained who I was and discussed my idea of writing an article covering the festival.

        The marketing officer was very keen on my idea for an article and, the very next day, I had in my hands a complimentary return plane ticket for the flight from La Paz to Santa Cruz (as well as free tickets to the festival and the offer of a free room at the best hotel in Santa Cruz - sadly I had already arranged a free room at another hotel!).

A Real Life Example - By Rail and Helicopter

        A second example concerns a story I recently researched on the most romantic hideaways in the UK. Many of the locations I wished to investigate were in remote parts of the British Isles, such as the Scottish highlands in the north, Exmoor in the southwest and the Scilly Isles off the west Cornwall coast.

        Being based in London it is quite a long journey to get to the Scottish highlands. I approached the Scottish tourist board and asked whether they had contacts with any organisations that might be able to help with my journey. They gave me the name of the press officer dealing with sleeper trains who I then contacted. Within days I was sent first class sleeper tickets for the journey from London to Inverness in the highlands.

        The overnight sleeper is a charming and wonderful experience I would recommend to anyone visiting Scotland from London and southern England. You depart London late in the evening and wake up to breakfast against the spectacular backdrop of the Scottish highlands.

        I had only arrived back in the UK from a press trip to Key West in Miami the morning of my journey to Scotland. I should have been fairly jetlagged and unable to sleep but the overnight train was so comfortable I had no difficulty in sleeping soundly. By the next morning when I arrived in Scotland my body clock had completely returned to UK time.

        Another of the romantic hideaways was located in the Scillies, a Gulf Stream-warmed group of islands off England’s Cornwall coast. The general manager of an exclusive island hotel in the Scillies was very welcoming to my romantic hideaways story idea and had no hesitation in offering me a free room.

        Furthermore, he also gave me a contact at the helicopter operator that runs flights from the English mainland to the Scillies, saying that if I mentioned his name and explained that he was hosting me at the hotel, they would provide me with a free helicopter flight to the island. I contacted the helicopter operator and they were, just as the general manager predicted, perfectly willing to provide me with a free return flight.

Upgrade For Free When You Fly

        Have you ever seen a flight stewardess walk up to a passenger seated in economy and escort him forward into business or first class moments before takeoff? That fortunate passenger probably didn’t pay any more than you did, if in fact they paid anything at all! Upgrading happens all the time and with a bit of savvy it could easily happen to you.

        It’s obviously greatly appreciated when an airline provides you with a complimentary ticket in economy class. But it gets better. Because you, as a travel writer, are often flying for free as a guest of senior officials of the airline, your chances of obtaining a complimentary upgrade are significantly higher than average.

        Check-in staff generally recognise that travel writers are frequently VIP guests and will upgrade you if you simply ask (provided there is physical space as paying customers have to come first).

        The rationale for upgrading travel writers is as follows. You, the writer, are travelling to a destination you’re covering for a story. Almost without exception your story will need to explain to your readers how they can undertake the same trip. Thus the "Travel Facts" section of your article will include details of flights taken, timings and fares, etc.

        The higher quality of service in business or first class is often more worthy of mention than the standard economy class service. Furthermore, some airlines have better reputations in business or first class and may well wish to promote these fares in preference to their economy fares.

        Ask the right person the right question at the right time and the fortunate traveller being upgraded could easily be you on your next flight.

A Real Life Example

        On a recent press trip to a delightful southern European destination I seriously missed a trick when it came to getting a free upgrade. I was one of several freelance writers taking part in what was an international press trip involving both writers and travel industry representatives. The tourist board had taken care of all the travel arrangements, including organising the flight tickets which, for this trip, were booked in economy class on the national airline.

        It was only a short flight of a couple of hours and I simply checked in as normal. It was not until I met some of my fellow writers that I realised my lack of ingenuity.

        A number of my colleagues had approached the check-in desk just as I had done but had explained that they were travel writers who had been invited on a press trip by the national tourist board. They further explained that their tickets had been booked in economy class but, as writers, they would be able to provide a much better description of the airline’s services if they could travel in business class (being only a couple of hours, this flight didn’t have first class).

        On the basis of this alone they asked if they could be upgraded (obviously without having to pay). The check-in staff upgraded my colleagues without hesitation.

Extracted from Part Five of our course The Insider Secrets of Freelance Travel Writing.

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