Now Blogging at Perceptive Travel Blog...

I recently picked a new writing gig. It's over at the Perceptive Travel blog. This blog is the brainchild of Tim Leffel to compliment his online Perceptive Travel Magazine.

Perceptive Travel Blog has around for over a year, featuring the writing of Sheila Scarborough (also of Family Travel), Antonia Malchik, and Steve Davey. Turns out that Steve has moved on and they needed another travel writer to take his place. And they choose me.

I'll be posting there every weekend about my travels and thoughts about travel and travel writing. Stop and check it out.

In fact, head on over now and read all about my recent road trip to the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.

Travel Blog of the Week...wandering woman writes from spain.

Some might not classify wandering woman writes from spain as a travel blog but as far as I'm concerned it is. The posts focus on Spanish culture, people, history, and everyday living. Written in a conversational manner, the 'wandering woman' makes you feel that you are part of life in Spain.

From A good day in Spain

"It's been a good day in Spain.

It all started bright and early at El Árbol, when an old woman asked if I'd help her reach the things she needed from the top shelves. I tend to be on the other side of that question, you understand. But, today, damn if I didn't reach every product. I was wearing my magic Camino de Santiago boots; I think they stretched me.

And..

Later, as I politely looked for someone to whom I could quietly ask which of the 6 closed cash register lanes we should line up at, the same firey old woman gave me a lesson in living in Spain. She bellowed "¿QUIÉN VIENE A LA CAJA?" ("WHO'S COMING TO THE REGISTER?") without moving an inch. A cashier arrived in seconds."


Learn about Carlos Saura and fados

"!Carlos Saura has made a movie about fados! And every article I devour about it includes what may just be my favorite word in all the world, saudade, a word I fell in love with during a far-too-brief first visit here.

Wait! What do you mean, Carlos who? Get with me here, guiris! ¡Españoles, porfa, decidles quién es! Carlos Saura, as in Tango and Flamenco."

Find out what it's really like to walk the Camino de Santiago

"I was tired and bored. I was 10 or 20 kilometers outside León, more than eager to leave the asphalt I'd been walking all day far behind me. I didn't know I'd sprain my ankle for the second time later that afternoon and spend the next 3 days holed up in an albergue. I only knew I was alone, walking on asphalt, destined to stick with this highway for at least another 10 kilometers. I hadn't seen another soul all morning."


Beautiful photographs, entertaining stories, and a chance to glimpse real life in Spain make the wandering woman writes from spain blog a must read.

The Dictionary in the Internet Age...

Like words?

Then check out this entertaining talk by leading lexicographer Erin McKean about words and how the print dictionary is being transformed by the internet.

Long Story Short: Six Word Travel Article...

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Not all of us have the skills of Ernest Hemmingway to create a poignant story in six words.

But it can be done.

And it seems to be all the rage at the moment, with online magazines such as SMITH getting people to submit 'six word memoirs' which they turned into a real book entitled Not Quite What I Was Planning.

As travel writers, we are always trying to paint pictures with words.

So my challenge to you is how well can you paint the picture using only six words?

In other words, can you create a 'six word travel article'

Here's mine from my recent road trip to the West Coast of New Zealand...

'Ice glacier melting, no footprints left'.

What's your 'six word travel article'?

Weekly Top 5 blog Posts for Writers...

1. Ten Killer Interviewing Tips

2. A Guidebook is not a Guru

3. 10 Things I Learned While on Assignment in India

4. Thank God Something’s Gone Wrong

5. A Step By Step Guide To Writing About Stuff You Know Very Little About

……………………

Plus five:

Heather Johnson on 'how to become a well-fed professional blogger'

How To Take Better Notes For Your Travel Blog

25,000 Words And A Week In A Freelance Writer’s Life

To the end of the line

Rolf Potts: Adventures on a shoestring

Interview with a Travel Writer...Sean McLachlan.

Today we talk with travel writer Sean McLachlan whose articles have appeared in Yoga Journal, The World and I, Ancient Egypt Magazine, Global Journalist, and Reuters Wire Service.

Sean is the author of Byzantium: An Illustrated History, Moon Handbooks London, It Happened in Missouri, and co-authored update of Insider's Guide to Phoenix.

Currently living in Madrid, Sean also maintains two blogs - Grizzled Old Traveler and Midlist Writer


1. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get started in writing?

Actually no. As a kid I wanted to be either an astronaut or a spy, but I ended up working as an archaeologist for ten years. Excavating in Israel, Cyprus, and all over the United States sustained my love of travel. Eventually I realized I didn't want to go into academia and I looked around for what else to do. During the Nineties I got caught up in the zine movement, publishing my own travel/archaeology zine titled Ichthyoelectroanalgesia and writing about my travels for other zines. Eventually I decided, "Hey, why not try to do this for a living?"

2. What do you consider your first "break" as a travel writer?

Getting to co-update the third edition of The Insiders' Guide to Phoenix for Globe Pequot. I got that through contacts and sheer luck. One of the people who was supposed to do the update bailed at the last minute, and a friend of mine, who lived too far away to take the job herself, tipped me off. I had been living in Arizona for many years and had accrued some journalism clips, so I got hired! I paid back my friend by helping her out on her own guidebook a couple of years later.

Guidebooks are great for freelancers because they keep needing to be updated. I did another edition of the Phoenix guide before I moved away, and the experience on that book helped me land the contract to do Moon Handbooks London.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to break into travel writing?

As always, start small and write what you know. Try to break into local markets like newspapers and magazines and do unusual takes on local sites. Smaller local and regional publications are usually hungry for decent copy. Of course, I didn't start this way, I started by being in the right place at the right time, but you can't really plan for that! Well, actually you can. Be visible, be social, and be professional.

If you want to break into local publications, you might want to look at an article I did for The Writer, later syndicated on Written Road - Ten Tips for Landing Great Features in Your Home Area.

4. What do you see as the future for travel writers in the printed media and online?

Travel is a huge industry and that's not going to change anytime soon. What is already changing, however, is how people get their travel information. Travel blogs are very popular now, as are forums like Lonely Planet's Thorntree, and while ebooks and portable ereaders haven't made the major strides that their proponents predicted ten years ago, I can't think of a genre more appropriate for the medium than travel books. Imagine having a library of guidebooks and other works on the local area on an ereader. If someone isn't working on putting guidebooks on mobile phones yet, they should be! These changes are inevitable, so in the next few years writers who are tech savvy are going to be way ahead.

Of course, some things never change. Accurate information, clear and engaging writing, and a unique take on an area will always be important ingredients for successful travel writing.

5. Which travel writers and/or travel books have influenced you?

As a teenager I had eclectic and rather odd reading tastes. One genre I loved was Victorian travelogues. Yes, they were always biased, occasionally clueless, and described a world that no longer exists, but their writers were true adventurers. My favorite was Sir Richard Francis Burton, who was remarkably open-minded for his time, but a real cad otherwise.

Oh, and I agree with Lola Akinmade about Kerouac. For sheer forward momentum and complex yet flowing prose, you can't beat him. Hi Lola, if you're ever in Madrid, I'll show you the sights. You'd love it here!

6. As a writer and traveler, what are the biggest challenges you face on the road ?

Never having enough time! There is not a single country in this world I don't want to go to, but there aren't enough years in a lifetime to see all I want to see, especially since I like to spend at least a month or two in each country or major city. I've been to more than twenty countries, but will I get to the more than hundred others before I shuffle off this mortal coil? Probably not. Of course, trying to go to them all would make a great book, but I'm not sure anyone would give me a big enough advance to cover the expenses. Any takers?

7. Finally, what is your favorite place and why ?

India. No question. I've spent more than a year there on three different trips, and briefly worked for the New Delhi bureau of Reuters covering Kumbh Mela, a giant Hindu pilgrimage, but I always hunger to go back. Give me a free ticket anywhere in the world and I'll pick India over all the places I want to go but have never been. The people are wonderful, the food is awesome, and the depths of culture and history are truly bottomless. I'm sure the same is true about China, but I've never been there. I'm actually a bit afraid to go to China because I know it will probably hypnotize me the same way India has, and I don't have the time for two cultures so vast and complex!

'Write to Travel' Nominated for Travvies Award…

Been reading any good travel blogs lately ?

Want them to have to recognition and attention they deserve ?

Then head on over to Upgrade: Travel Better and start putting in your nominations for the 2008 Travvies.

You can nominate up to three blogs in each of the eight categories on offer…

- Best Travel Blog
- Best Single-Author Travel Blog
- Best Group-Written Travel Blog
- Best Destination or Trip Narrative Blog
- Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog
- Best Photography on a Travel Blog
- Best Big Media Blog
- Best Podcast or Video Blog



I’ve just been over there to enter some of my nominations and was very pleasantly surprised to find that Write To Travel had been nominated for a Travvies in the Best Informative/Practical Travel blog category (thanks to Heather on Her Travels). I feel very honoured.

Nominations close 6 April, so get on over there and start nominating now. Can’t decide who to nominate - check out my ‘travel blog of the week’ series for some ideas. And of course, Write to Travel wouldn’t say no to some more nominations!!!