Travel Writers Travel for Free

by Nancy V. Sont

How could I ever find out how to travel for free? Well, despite the list- owner telling me that I'd have to be good enough at writing -- and not much more than that -- I found out how.

It's amazing what a simple bio can do for you. Since March 2000, $25,000 has been spent on showing me all that four cities in Texas, a river in northern British Columbia and a resort in Florida have to offer a travel writer. Back in February I had no idea what was involved in a press trip, how to get one or how much they were worth in freebies, experience and research.

I asked a lot of questions on my first trip to Corpus Christi, Texas and learned that Convention and Visitors' Bureaus love showing writers the best a city has to offer. I learned about PR and how resorts and attractions get the attention of the public, with the help of the media.

I'd never realized that I could have this opportunity to travel just because I was a writer. There were many things I didn't know about it. Before I go any further, let me say it started when I got on one email list about travel writers. The list-owner kept saying, Travel writers travel for free. I thought it sounded neat, but I didn't know how it would affect my life. How could I ever find out how to travel for free? Well, despite the list-owner telling me that I'd have to be good enough at writing -- and not much more than that -- I found out how.

I was searching the Internet one day when I was studying a travel article published in the local paper, The Ottawa Citizen. The piece had been purchased from an online company. I did a search on the Internet and found that there were 15 articles that organization sold. Indeed, they had a whole catalogue of articles to sell for cheap to editors who could download them from their site. From there, I linked to www.travelwriters.com. I saw an email list of announcements for free press trips, so I signed up.

Soon one arrived. Little did I know, when I responded to one with the statement that I write travel articles regularly for Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, that they would select me and seven others out of 400 applicants to go on the press trip.

They paid for my flight to Houston. When I arrived, I was given a room with butler service. My traveling companion, a writer whom I knew from the Internet, was also given a room. They took us in a luxury bus all around the city to many attractions. Everything was paid for: the meals, the amenities in the rooms, everything, even the butler service. However, a three-minute phone call home cost $15, which I had to pay for.

Before I went there, I was searching the Internet for information on other sites we might visit after our weekend trip, if I could delay my return flight. I came upon a site that asked if I would be interested in a FAM (familiarization) trip. I thought it would be another trip at another time. They phoned me within hours to find out my needs, my plans and my interests. To make a long story short, the Corpus Christi bureau set an entire itinerary for three cities for about ten days. All I had to do was show up and drive from tour to tour to restaurant to hotel.

I was fed so much seafood that I broke out in a rash all over my face. Since I'd never overdosed on seafood before, I thought the rash was from the sand or the sunscreen.

By the time I returned home, I had enough information for a book about the area with a number of breaking stories from behind the scenes (seahorses being readied for an exhibit at the Texas State Aquarium), many hotels and restaurants I'd visited and could write about, and several birding tours. (That was my focus -- nature.)

To date, I've sold five articles from the trip -- two on ghost shrimping, one about the hotel and butler service, another about a restaurant that dumps the food on the table and one about a cabin in the woods where we stayed and birded.

Now how do you do this, too? First you put together your "bio," a blurb about yourself that you can send to PR (public relations) organizations who promote businesses like the one that was promoting the St. Regis, Houston where I went. However, you can start on your own without a PR organization: just contact a hotel, B&B, inn, restaurant or site on your own -- email works well.

You can say something in the subject line like: "complimentary accommodations requested." Then in the body, you simply ask, letting them know where you have been published before, what story you're working on, and where you plan to publish about your trip. What you receive is a freebie. Some magazines and newspapers won't print any article resulting from freebies, but many will.

My bio, which I use for query letters and for press trip responses and requests, runs something like:

My work has been published hundreds of times. A few include Outdoor Life Magazine, Wilderness Way magazine, Texas Parks and Wildlife, Hooked on the Outdoors, Canada's Outdoor Sportsman, The Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper), The Ottawa Citizen, The Toronto Star and many others.

I can expound on things if I think it matters to that publication. For instance, some will only care about where they might receive a plug, which won't be a sport magazine like Outdoor Life.

When you are selling your work, keep in mind that the more publications that use your articles, the more names you can mention. Although I've only sold one opinion article to The Toronto Star, I can still mention it. It helps your image. Notice I didn't say "my travel articles have been used by hundreds of publications." That's because they haven't. What you've told the client is that you are a good risk. Others have paid you for your work so you can probably sell this article, too.

A company wants to know that it isn't wasting its money when it pays $5000 to bring you to Alaska and take you on a rafting expedition. It may even want more than one article out of the trip. You'll have to either get an assignment first or convince the company that you will be able to do that once you have the experience to write about.

I find it's hard to write a query letter about a trip I haven't taken yet, to get an assignment, but many writers do it successfully all the time. Just do your research. The facts of much of what you'll write in the article are available ahead of time on the Internet, in brochures, etc. It's just your slant, your experience that is going to be fresh. It's the same river, same mountain, same hotel or tent.

So, take a minute and write up a bio. Make yourself sound professional and well qualified. Big corporations don't shyly acknowledge that their product is good. They broadcast it! Think big. Think Alaska, Mexico, wherever. If you can write, you can travel for free.

-- NVS
©2001 Nancy V. Sont