73 – Read the rest of the guidebook

Or angles from elsewhere.

The bits we read
Most of us will only use the part of a guidebook that covers the place we’re going to. OK, we might read the front section about the history and culture as well, but we’ll generally not bother looking at the areas we’re not going to.

Cover to cover?
Guidebooks are not designed to be read from cover to cover, but for the travel journalist it pays to read the sections that aren’t immediately relevant to you. This for a few reasons:

Comparison point
Firstly, it gives a more rounded view of the country as a whole, perhaps offering a comparison point to the place you are going to. Secondly, you’ll probably find a place that you may wish to go to in future (and could maybe fit into the planned trip).

Round-up stories
Thirdly, and most importantly, you may discover some good angles that can be used for round-up stories down the line. Even better, they may spark ideas for those stories.

Do it in down time
I’m not going to pretend that this is an exciting task, and this is why I do it when I have nothing else to do – sat on a train, waiting for a meal to arrive when I’ve got the traditional table for one, on the plane...

Brilliant story angles
I’ve done a bit of all three today, and have been idly flicking through the Germany Lonely Planet. Amongst the brilliant story angles I’ve uncovered are a theme park at an old nuclear power station, the world’s oldest youth hostel and the German Occupational Health and Safety Museum. There’s a good story each one, and I may try and work them into a trip for another time.

#68 – Travel Writer Resources: Travmedia

Or getting PR people to do the research for you.

Getting story ideas
One excellent source of story ideas is Travmedia. The premise is quite simple: it collects press releases from tourist boards, hotels, tour companies etc from all over the world and stores them in one place. This means travel writers can have a look through and see if there’s anything that interests them.
Of course, there’s an awful lot of crap in there, but the useless bits of self-promotion are usually easy to spot a mile off and can happily be ignored.

Getting PR people to do the research for you
But the best aspect of Travmedia is the ‘Journalist Alert’ function. This comes in extremely useful when doing research for a feature you might not know too much about. Just type in what you’re after, and it gets sent out to all the tourist boards, PR agencies, tour companies etc that subscribe. And most of them do subscribe.
The PR people will then usually come back a few days later with some ideas that may fit your query.

Sparing use of Journalist Alert
The Journalist Alert should only be used sparingly, however. There are many PRs out there that will leap upon every opportunity to flog and plug their products. And they’ve no compunction about doing so when the subject is completely irrelevant.

Hotel pests
Almost every time I’ve used the Travmedia Journalist Alert, I have been besieged with e-mails. Some are very helpful, but other just make me angry. I’ll have been very specific in the request, to the point of saying: “No shoehorning in irrelevant hotels and tours – they will not be used”. And, unsurprisingly, the hotel pests still send a long missive through.

#64 – Complete round-up articles before you leave

Or why essay-style pieces are easier to write on the road.

Internet access needed
I inevitably find that I need internet access to do a round up article properly. These pieces usually involve more online research than a straight essay-style piece centred on one destination. This is partly because there are more contact details to put in, and partly because you need to find out information on more subjects.

No notebooks?
In fact, to do one of these pieces without internet access can be nigh-on impossible. To do it without internet and access to your collection of notebooks and guidebooks is even worse.

Essay-style pieces on the road
And this is why, given the choice, if I have to write articles while I am on the road, I will always choose do to the essay-style pieces whilst travelling. They’re easier to do without internet access – which can often be limited while travelling – and any missing details can be filled in later with much more ease.

Finish round-up pieces before you go
Thus, if I’m about to go away, I’ll concentrate on completing any round-up articles that I am due to complete. They may have a deadline that’s further away than one of the essay-style pieces, but I know which one will be a bigger pain in the backside to complete whilst away.

#42 – Using theatre productions as a hook

Or how the big shows can work in your favour.

Rude French people
Sometimes a travel writer can have an odd experience when reading their own stories in print. And when I saw the piece I wrote about (what I believe to be) the myth of rude French people for an Australian newspaper, I did a bit of a double take.

Monty Python’s Spamalot
The editor had done a bit of editing, judiciously picked a picture and suddenly my piece was linked to the opening of Monty Python’s Spamalot in Melbourne. I guess the link was that the production featured rude Frenchmen, but it was a little unexpected.

Topical hook
But it does go to show how popular a topical hook is with editors, no matter how tenuous. And when I saw that piece, it got me thinking – theatre productions can be just as useful to hook a story to as films or books.

City-based newspapers
This is particularly true in city-based newspapers (as opposed to genuinely national ones such as those in the UK). For the readership, there is a link with something happening in their city. But how could this work with other productions?

Mamma Mia
Well, I’ll choose a few examples from recent years. Mamma Mia, the ABBA musical, could easily be used for a piece about Sweden – in particular if it includes something on Stockholm’s ABBA Museum, or the Hotel Rival, which is owned by Benny from the group.

And there’s more...
Starlight Express? A rollerskating tour of anywhere, or a something about learning to rollerskate. Lord of the Rings? Tolkien’s hangouts in the UK or the filming locations from the movies in New Zealand. We Will Rock You? Something on Zanzibar, where Freddy Mercury was born, perhaps.

Tenuous – but commissionable
All of these are ridiculously tenuous, but there’s a good chance of them getting commissioned if proposed at the right time.

#40 – Stories based around sporting events

Or how travel writers can win at the Olympics or World Cup.

Travel articles about Beijing
Anyone who reads travel magazines or the travel sections of newspapers couldn’t help but have noticed all the stories about Beijing that have been circulating this year.

Olympics as a hook
This isn’t a coincidence, of course – nearly all of them were using the Olympic Games as a hook. It makes sense – the Olympics are something people are interested in reading about and advertisers are interested in using as a promotional tool. It’s the magic combination of topicality and popularity.

Different styles of articles
Some of the articles linked to the Beijing Olympics were straight guide-style pieces, some focused on a certain aspect of the city, some more newsy about new developments, some just first person accounts of travelling in China. But loads got published. And it just shows that looking into future forthcoming sporting events can pay off for a travel writer.

Big future sporting events
The big ones are obvious. In 2010, there will be a lot of South Africa articles linked to the football World Cup. In 2012, it’ll be the European Championships in Poland and the Ukraine, as well as the Olympics in London. Get in there early, and easy sales await.

Annual events
But you don’t necessarily have to wait for an event that comes along every four years. Some annual events are great for hitching pieces about certain destinations to – Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis, Liverpool for the Grand National horse race, wherever the Golf majors are being played that particular year.

Formula One and cricket
And then there are the sports that tour the world – articles can be tied into Formula One Grand Prix venues, for example. Meanwhile articles about the Caribbean may be easy to sell in Australia when the Australian cricket team is playing the West Indies, then re-shaped for different markets when New Zealand and England go on tour.

Sporting knowledge
Often, you don’t need to know too much about the sport – just the fact that the event is happening is often a good enough topical hook.

#32 – Turn local round-ups into global round-ups

Or extending the boundaries.

In Tip 30, I suggested that a great way of recycling material was using the themes and information from round-up articles with a global scope in a narrower context.

Bizarre museums?
This, of course, can work just as easily in reverse. For example, a piece on Britain’s most bizarre museums can be reslanted slightly to become a piece on the world’s most bizarre museums. It’s just a case of finding a few more elsewhere and throwing in a couple of the British ones for good measure.

Design hotels, cheesiest tourist attractions etc
The same applies to just about any localised round-up piece, whether it’s Europe’s design hotels, America’s cheesiest tourist attractions or Australia’s biggest adrenaline rushes. Open up the parameters to the whole continent (or whole planet) and there’s another piece in it.

#30 – Turn global into local.

Or how to re-use re-used information.

Recycling material
In recent posts I have spoken about turning trivia into articles and using snippets of material from longer features to make round-up features. All good recycling, but there’s nothing to stop you re-using material that’s already been re-used. In fact, the more ways you can use one bit of information, the better for your bank balance.

Most successful idea
As an example, I’ll use what has turned out to be my most successful idea ever. It was triggered, as it often is, by a simple bit of trivia. I read somewhere that the Jenolan Caves in Australia’s Blue Mountains were the oldest caves in the world.

Oldest city? Oldest restaurant?
I found that quite fascinating and it got me thinking about other ‘oldests’. I wondered where the oldest city is (Damascus, Syria); I wondered where the oldest country is (brilliantly, it’s San Marino); I wondered where the oldest restaurant is (Casa Botin in Madrid).

Oldest possible holiday
This continued until I suddenly had a piece on the world’s oldest possible holiday, complete with the oldest theme parks, golf courses, bars and national parks. Boy did that sell well – I think it’s been published in five countries so far. I guess it’s just one of those ideas that makes for an intriguing feature.

Selling one piece many times
Now I could have just remained deliriously happy about selling one piece so many times (it rarely happens, alas). But it had further mileage in it. I went back to the Jenolan Caves and started localising the concept. I’d found the world’s oldest holiday, but what about Australia’s?

Australia’s oldest
So, tweaking the categories where necessary, I went back and found Australia’s oldest pub, building, art gallery etc. Another feature, and another one that did brilliantly well – it sold in both Australia and the UK. I’ve also written about Italy’s oldests, and I fully intend to do the same for Spain, France, Portugal and Britain. In fact, I’ll shamelessly rehash the idea for any country/ region/ city or continent.

Global round-up into local round-up
By turning a global round-up article into a local round-up article, it’s possible to milk a bit of information for all it is worth. It’s a great starting point for further research as well – and this can lead to even more stories. I’m going to Tasmania in November, and I fully intend to visit Australia’s oldest pub while there. There’s a story in that, just as there was one on Italy’s oldest hotel and just as there will be on France’s oldest museum, whatever that may be.

Never-ending cycle
And therein lies the beauty – it’s a never-ending cycle. The information leads to a story, then a round up. Localise the round-up, and you find more information. Much of which can lead to more stories. See – recycling can be very good for your environment.

#28 – Re-using information in round-up articles

Or how to milk your research.

Re-selling... or re-working?
Unless you’ve been foolish and signed away all the rights to a story and the research related to it, there is usually a way of re-using the material. The obvious one is selling the story a second (or third, or fourth...) time, but we’ll come to that at a later date.

Round-up articles
The best way of re-using information is to make it part of – my old favourite - a round-up article. This is often a case of cutting down what you have already written, or picking out an aspect of it, then matching it with some other things that fit.

Celebrities in Anguilla
For example, when I was in Anguilla in April 2008, I was researching a couple of stories. One was on how celebrities have recently adopted the island as their getaway of choice, another was on the oldest hotel on the island (and coincidentally, one of the few places that is suitable for those on a budget).

Adapting articles
I wrote those two pieces up, and then thought about ways of adapting them. The celebrity one was easy – I took out the relevant information, then put it together with other information I’d got from elsewhere in the Caribbean. Et voila, there were pieces on Celebrity Caribbean Hideaways and Celebrity Honeymoon Destinations.

Travelling independently in the Caribbean
For Lloyds’ Guesthouse, it was a case of extending the budget theme through the Caribbean. I ended up incorporating it in a piece about travelling independently in the Caribbean, as well as an advice piece on where to look in order to find good value, non-resort style accommodation in the region.

Top 10 Beaches
I’ll probably end up using other aspects of original article somewhere else too – the restaurants are prime candidates, and if ever I sink low enough to do the archetypal Top 10 Beaches piece, then there are a couple of candidates for that as well.

Turn the detail into a general theme
This process can be applied to just about every destination article you write. Turn the detail into a general theme, then look to see what else fits that theme. If you do a feature on glass-making in Venice, then how about a round-up of other places in the world where you can see glass made?
If you’re doing a story about white-water rafting in the Czech Republic, why not convert it into a piece on Europe’s white-water rafting hotspots?
It’s often a simple way of getting more mileage out of the same material, and making your trips more cost effective.

#26 – Thinking laterally for film angles

Or using the story, not the destination.

More than filming locations
In Travel Writer Tip #24, I suggested that films are a great inspiration for travel stories. This was mainly talking about locations that the films were shot in. However, by thinking laterally, there is another way of using films as a hook for a travel feature.

Indiana Jones
I’ll use 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as an example. I ended up doing a round up piece on locations used across the Indy series, but looking back, there were other angles that could be extracted from it.

Stand-in filming locations
For example, much of the film was set in Peru, but filmed in Hawai’i. That could have been used as a peg to base a story about stand-in film locations around. What other films have been filmed somewhere entirely different from where the scene is supposed to be set?
Point Break springs to mind for this – Patrick Swayze’s character supposedly disappeared into the sea at Bells Beach, Australia, but due to budget restraints, this was filmed in Oregon.

Aztec and Maya civilisations
Then there’s the Crystal Skull angle. Surely there’s scope for a story on the beliefs surrounding crystal skulls in the Aztec and Maya civilisations? This is especially the case if you can get to a site where the skulls have been found and city ruins remain.

Dig sites
And what about archaeology? Every time an Indiana Jones film comes out, there’s a boom in interest about archaeology. Visit a dig site, speak to one of the chaps scrabbling in the dirt, write about the growth of volunteer holidays where tourists can help out uncovering ancient secrets.

Using the plot
It’s all about thinking in themes again. The destinations may not have a direct link, but the plot does. To use another example, it’s possible to do a spy training course in the UK, stay at author Ian Fleming’s pad in Jamaica and visit a Spy Museum in Tampere, Finland. All could use the release of a Bond film as a topical hook.

Links to upcoming movies
And, if you think about it, there’s almost certainly something you have done or somewhere you have been that has some kind of link to an upcoming movie. That could make you money, if you can sell it.

#24 - Film-related travel stories

Or taking advantage of the set-jetters.

Filming locations
One excellent source of story ideas is the cinema. If a big movie is slated to come out soon, you can bet your bottom dollar that will be a market for a story on the filming locations used in it.
This is especially true if it’s been filmed somewhere exotic.

James Bond
I’ve now lost count of how many stories I’ve sold that have a tenuous link to James Bond. I once made the decision that I was going to watch all of the films, make notes of what happened in particularly interesting destinations, and then research where those destinations are.

Multiple articles
It was a real bugger of a task – at one point I never wanted to watch a Bond film again – but it paid off. I’ve sold multiple articles based on that research, and the material is timeless. Every two years or so, when a new Bond movie is released, I can re-package it and sell it on again.
It may be as the cities of James Bond, it may be as Bond’s beaches, it may be as the lairs of Bond villains. Either way, most of the work is done.

Quantum of Solace
Quantum of Solace – the latest in the Bond series - is out in November. Which reminds me – I should really start pitching the Bond material out again, especially given that I’m actually in the film*. It’s practically guaranteed that there will be a glut of Bond-related travel articles out there at the time.
I’m already doing two pieces on places featured in the new film (Panama and Siena, Italy), and I’m sure others will be doing more.

Pirates of the Caribbean
It’s not just Bond of course – most big films lead to a bit of a travel boom. There was Pirates of the Caribbean in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, and all manner of plodding costume dramas in England.
I’ve ended up trotting out travel articles on Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, The Italian Job, Star Wars, Roman Holiday, Mad Max, The Matrix and probably many more.

Internet Movie Database
But how do you find out about where these locations are and which movies are coming up? Well the Internet Movie Database is a fabulous resource, but can be scant on the details. Otherwise, tourist boards are always keen to promote anything filmed in their area. They’ll almost certainly have a list of films that have visited in the past, and ones that are due to arrive.

Apocalypse Now
Then there’s searching on the internet. Want to find out where the river from Apocalypse Now** is? Just do an internet search. The results may not be accurate, but at least they’re a starting point.

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*I was in Siena while the crew were filming Il Palio, the famous horse race held in the city centre. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to pick myself out in the crowd in a wide shot. And I’m telling everyone that I’m the star until they can prove otherwise.

** It’s the Pagsanjan River in the Philippines, if you must know.

#22 – Why round-up articles are more likely to be accepted

Or taking advantage of the gap in the market.

Less competition
Editors (on the whole) love list articles, but that’s not the only reason you should start thinking about ideas for some and pitching them. The other is that other writers aren’t pitching them. There’s less competition.

Not glamorous – but profitable
Putting together a round-up article isn’t particularly glamorous or exciting, but that’s precisely why you should do it. Think about it – if you prefer to be writing flowing, literary prose about one destination, then there’s a high chance that most other writers out there are too.

Gap in the market
So if most other writers are pitching destination pieces that they enjoy writing, there’s something of a gap in the market, isn’t there? If you’re prepared to do the round-ups, then you’ve got a better chance of making a sale.

#21 – Why editors love round-up articles

Or playing the numbers game

Money-spinning list articles
Round-up – or list – articles are brilliant money-spinners for the freelance travel writer. I’m afraid that if you keep coming back to this site, you’re probably going to get bored of me saying that. I’m not going to apologise for this – it is a point well worth emphasising. Even if it is with a sledgehammer.

Editor response
I will always remember the response of one of my editors when I pitched him one of these best-of pieces. I can’t even remember what it was now (probably something like Top Ten Adrenaline Rushes in Australia), but the e-mail he sent commissioning it was very illuminating.

Number on the cover
I’m paraphrasing a little here, but his response was something along the lines of: “Yep, sounds great. And it’ll keep the publisher happy – get a number on the cover and all that.”
It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But an enticing magazine cover is a hugely important factor in getting readers to pick up and buy a magazine.

Top Ten or Fifty Best?
And list articles will do that. Think about when you read through a magazine or travel section. Most of us will flick past stories about destinations we’re not interested in. But when there’s a Top Ten, Fifty Best or 100 To Do Before You Die, we’ll look. Well I certainly do, and magazine sales figures suggest that others do too.

Menu of choices
Why do we do this? It’s partly out of curiosity – we want to know which has been deemed the best, and want to argue over it. It’s also partly because we like having a menu of choices – if we fancy going to a tropical island, it’s nice to have bite-sized round-ups of a few tropical islands to look through.

Selling more copies
To the publisher, however, it’s all about the bottom line. Sell more copies, make more money. And if having a few numbers on the front (30 greatest, top 50, whatever) sells more copies, then they’re going to want articles that allow them to do that.
And unless the editor doesn’t want to keep his or her job, (s)he is going to be looking for that sort of piece to put on the cover too. The magazine can have some of the best writing in the world, but ultimately the editor’s performance will be based on how many people buy the thing.

Not an isolated incident
This editor wasn’t the first to mention this tendency to me either – another said much the same thing when I proposed 50 Things To Do In Australia For Free to her. “Ooh – that’ll look good on the cover...”

#20 – Using trivia in round-up articles

Or making money from themes.

Can’t get to the world’s biggest cave?
In my previous post, I suggested using snippets of pub quiz-worthy trivia as a basis for stories. This is all very well, but what if you can’t get to the place? It’s all very well, for example, knowing that the world’s biggest cave is the Sarawak Chamber in Malaysian Borneo, but it’s a right bugger to get to. And not cheap either.

Round-up articles: Bread and butter
So does this information become useless again? Not at all – it’s just a case of using it in a different way. And by that, I mean a round-up article.
Round up articles are great bread and butter for travel writers. A lot of the time, you don’t need to go to the places mentioned – just find five, ten, twenty things linked by a theme, write 100 or so words on each and put in details of how to get there.

Writing for the internet
It’s not glamorous work, but it can lead to good money. It’s also the sort of thing that many editors want to balance out their destination-based pieces. And if writing for the internet, then round-ups are almost certainly what the editor is after.

Record-breaking caves
To use the cave example, the Sarawak Chamber can easily be used as part of a round-up. That’s the biggest cave, but where’s the biggest cave complex? Where are the world’s oldest caves? The biggest accessible caves? The biggest stalagmites and stalactites? Work on slight variations on that theme, and you have a piece on record-breaking caves.

World’s booziest nations
The same applies to my Luxembourg example. Luxembourg consumes more alcohol-per-capita than any other, but what if you can’t get there to investigate more? Well, how about breaking the stats down? Look at which country consumes the most wine (it’s Luxembourg, again), the most beer (Czech Republic), the most rum, whisky, vodka and gin. There you have the basis for a piece on the world’s booziest nations.

Thinking in themes
A similar approach can be applied with almost any bit of trivia that has a vague relation to geography. If you know where the world’s shortest airport runway is, then a bit of research can lead you to a piece on the world’s scariest airports.
If you know where the world’s longest bridge is, then look into the tallest, the most expensive, the most used etc.
These pieces won’t always sell, of course, but the important thing is to start thinking in themes to make the most of the material you have. There’s good money in it.