If I was a Travel Writer

Week 1

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

I love to dream. I’m also a hopeless romantic, which is a pretty lethal combo (although, can you be a hopeless romantic without being a dreamer?).

I often dream of the multitude of paths I can follow in this life and recently decided it was time to take a test drive on some of these paths. I want to create an interesting life and I want to actually give myself a chance to explore what I love.

Author’s note: I know I said “multitude of paths,” but I made this in Canva and two paths capped my patience. I’m not a designer, okay?!

To build this dreamland, each month I am picking a new lifestyle to explore. How am I selecting the lifestyle? Well, I’m really just going with what feels right at the beginning of the month. I’m starting with areas of high interest and I’ll move into the unique and unexpected once I get my feet wet.

For March, I am choosing the life of a travel writer (outside of my day job, of course. A girl’s gotta eat)! If you’re curious about last month, you can read more about February’s “novelist” journey here. This is only my second month experimenting, so please be patient with me as I learn how to do this (and learn how to keep myself motivated to do this).

Why Travel Writing?

Primarily, traveling lights my soul on fire and I’d love to try writing about it. I’ve had the privilege of traveling a fair amount in the US over the past couple years and finally made a few international trips, each of which taught me quite a bit. I’d love to share what I learned with others in the hopes of connecting with fellow travelers or soon-to-be travelers. Travel writing also ties in some of my other interests, like food and culture, so I have even more reasons to (hopefully) love it.

How am I going to do this?

That’s the tricky part. I considered just turning my Substack into a full travel blog for the month of March, but that felt confusing because I’m not currently planning to only write about travel past the month of March (never say never, but I don’t want that kind of niche just yet). Plus, part of my mission is reporting on processes and ideas to create an interesting life, not just the life itself. My solution? A very large project that I’m super nervous about actually completing.

I am going to write a few travel articles and edit them into a digital “magazine” that I will publish (for funsies, for free) on the last day of March!! Which also happens to be a Tuesday (normal pub day for Silver-Studded Blue) so that feels like a sign.

Narrator: She will almost certainly underestimate how much time this will take and will regret her life choices.

Despite the daunting time commitment, I am really excited about the idea of revisiting my favorite travel memories and anchoring them on a page.

As for the “learning” part of this process, I’m leaning heavily on reading. I’ve already found some incredible travel blogs and authors who have great advice.

Check out this article on seeing like a travel writer! (No, it’s not sponsored lol. I don’t know her I just liked the article)

Learning to See Like a Travel Writer

I’m looking forward to trying some writing exercises in places around my hometown to get the ball rolling.

I’m also curious what a career looks like in the travel industry, so I hope to find some answers on how full-time travel writers actually live their lives. I’m also planning to ask for feedback on early drafts of my stories from friends or possibly even Substackers if I’m feeling particularly brave.

I hope you’ll learn along with me as I navigate travel writing in attempt to create an interesting life 💙🦋

If you have any travel stories that changed your life, please drop them in the comments! I’d love to read them.