Travel Writing: Explore the World & Publish Your Stories!
What you'll learn
- Learn how to write professional-quality travel tales that readers (and editors) will love.
- Master writing techniques that hook readers right away, maintain their interest throughout the story, and leave them feeling fulfilled at the end.
- Weave together the various elements that create a great travel tale — the setting, people, events, and unique emotions we encounter on the road.
- Understand the critical differences between travel journaling and writing travel tales for others to read.
- Travel with a writer's eye for stories.
- Introduce colorful characters into your travel tales, and understand the rules and common practices for handling quotes and writing dialogue.
- Discover easy and comfortable ways to connect with people when you travel (even if you're an introvert) -- because doing so leads you into richer, "story-worthy" experiences.
- Know what *not* to include in your stories, and pace your action to maintain reader interest throughout.
- Obliterate travel writing clichés to create original tales that are truly your own.
- Learn the two big mistakes that keep beginning freelance writers from getting published -- and discover easy ways to avoid those mistakes.
- Understand the different methods and best strategies for pitching stories to editors, even if you're just starting out.
- Publish your travel tales in blogs, newspapers, magazines, and books.
Requirements
- The desire to become a better writer, and to share stories of your travels -- to places close to home or far away.
- A love for writing ... even though it might drive you crazy sometimes.
- A decent command of the English language. (But you don't have to be a native speaker, as long as you get what's going on!)
Description
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Taught by a bestselling travel author, professional writing coach,
and former website editor for Rick Steves' Europe.
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Join longest running, highest rated travel writing course on Udemy:
More than 1,200 student reviews and an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars!
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Lots of people dream of becoming travel writers.
This course teaches you how to fulfill that dream.
Discover how to write travel tales readers (and editors) will love,
and sell your stories to newspapers and magazines.
Hi! I’m Dave Fox. I’m a freelance travel writer, a bestselling author, and writing and creativity coach. I’ve worked in more than 50 countries as a freelance travel writer, workshop presenter, and international tour guide. I help people write amazing tales about their journeys.
If you have dreams of becoming a travel writer – whether it’s so you can publish your work professionally, create a popular personal travel blog, or just write about your travels for the fun of it – I can help you achieve your goals.
Beginning travel writers: If travel writing is something you’ve wanted to break into, but you haven’t known how to get started, this course will teach you all you need to know to begin writing lively and exciting travel tales today.
Intermediate travel writers: If you’ve done some travel writing before, but you want to create more polished, compelling stories – stories that stand out in the crowded arena of aspiring travel writers – this course will help you hone your skills, and it will give you a clear understanding of how to succeed in the writing business and get published.
Follow these lessons, and I guarantee you will see an immediate improvement in your writing. You'll learn skills you can start using right away – and skills that will evolve and get even better over time as you keep writing. You’ll gain a clear understanding of the techniques professional writers use to write captivating travel essays, and you’ll discover your own, unique writing voice.
Some of the topics we’ll cover include:
Transforming your “rough-draft” travel diaries into compelling personal travel essays with attention-grabbing beginnings, streamlined middles, and meaningful endings – and why you must follow a very different writing style from your “on-the-road” journals when you write travel tales for others to read.
Spotting and capturing the details that make a story sparkle and writing about them in ways that make readers feel like they’re right there with you.
Bringing characters to life through quotes and vivid description, and navigating the ethical and legal issues that come with writing about other people.
Avoiding stale clichés that weigh down potentially great writing and coming up with fresh, original alternatives.
Getting started in travel blogging.
Pitching and selling your articles to newspapers, magazines, and anthology books. (Thousands of newspapers and magazines pay freelance writers more for a single story than you'll pay for this workshop!)
The most common beginners’ mistake that keeps many aspiring travel writers from getting published – and how to fix it.
And tons of other easy-to-act-on writing tips.
If you want to be a great travel writer, there’s another thing you must also be able to do. You must know how to have big adventures – because those adventures will spark your boldest stories. So I’ll also share my tips on how to make exciting things happen when you travel – how to find richer cultural experiences and more meaningful personal encounters in the places you visit. (Even if you’re an introvert!)
This course is different from other travel writing courses. It doesn’t just offer tips on how you should write; it also explains how you shouldn’t write.
Lots of people try to break into travel writing. Those who don’t succeed usually blame it on not being talented enough – but that’s often not their real problem. Their real problem is they have adopted a set of habits that are weakening their writing.
Over the two decades I’ve been teaching travel writing workshops, I’ve identified a series of common mistakes beginning writers make. These mistakes weigh their writing down, and hold them back from writing to their full potential. These habits are easy to fix once you know how to spot them in your own work. This course teaches you how.
Q: True or False: Only a few lucky people get to become successful travel writers.
A: False! Being “lucky” has nothing to do with it!
Talent doesn’t really work that way.
If you’re smart enough to understand this webpage, you’ve got all the brain-cells you need to become a successful writer. Doing it on your own is tough, however. Success will come more quickly if you have a teacher, a mentor, to help guide the way.
I love engaging with my students, and answering questions in our online forums. So ask me questions at any time! I’m here to help! (I also offer in-depth critiquing and one-on-one coaching for an additional fee – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If you’re just getting started, you’ll get the most value for your money if you begin with the basic course.)
I also believe that we learn faster when learning is fun. So I promise my lessons are lively, even a bit goofy at times, and never boring. (And if you don’t agree, if you don’t feel you have gotten your money’s worth after joining the course, Udemy offers a 30-day, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. You’ve got nothing to lose!)
We are each in this life for a finite amount of time. We owe it to ourselves to achieve our dreams during that time. If becoming a travel writer is one of your life dreams, I can help you make that dream a reality.
Also check out my other courses on Udemy:
Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!)
Deep Travel: Have Adventures No Guidebook Can Tell You About
Professional Humor Tricks for Writers, Speakers, and Other Misfits
The Writing Mind 1: Defeat Writer's Block & Write Confidently
The Writing Mind 2: Overcome Distractions & Get More Written
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"(Dave is) the best writing teacher I have ever had. Talented, funny, approachable, and structured."
– Leslie in Surrey, England
"People sometimes ask me how they can become travel writers.... Dave Fox's Globejotting would be a good place to launch a career as the next Paul Theroux."
– David Stanley, author of the Moon Handbooks: South Pacific travel guidebook
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Dave Fox's writing has appeared in books by Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, and Travelers' Tales, as well as a wide range of newspapers and magazines on four continents.
He has been featured for his travel and writing expertise on CNN Travel, The History Channel, Channel NewsAsia, National Public Radio in the USA, and ABC Radio in Australia.
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Among the thousands of courses on Udemy,
this travel writing course has been ranked #4 on Buzzfeed's
list of "23 of the Coolest Udemy Online Classes."
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Ready to get started? Sign up now and you'll get instant access to all the video lessons and other materials.
Too busy to start right away? That's okay. Once you sign up, the course is yours for life. You can watch the lessons whenever you like, as many times as you like, whenever it's convenient. And if the course isn't what you were expecting, Udemy offers a no-questions-asked, 30-day money-back guarantee. So join us today and start working toward your dream of being a professional freelance travel writer, or just a superb travel storyteller.
Who this course is for:
- Anyone who wants to break into freelance travel writing – beginning and intermediate travel writers, as well as advanced writers in other genres who want to expand their repertoire.
- Bloggers
- Storytellers
- Aspiring authors
- Local adventurers and world explorers
Featured review
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Instructor
- 4.4 Instructor Rating
- 3,743 Reviews
- 20,703 Students
- 6 Courses
Dave Fox is on a mission to help people tell scintillating stories. He's a professional travel and humor writer, a writing and humor coach, a chronic storyteller, and the author of two bestselling books. Dave thrives on stepping outside of his cultural comfort zones in search of adventures and misadventures. He also makes really good sandwiches if you ask him nicely.
Originally from the United States, Dave started travel journaling at age seven when his family moved to England for a year. During that time, he developed an obsession with foreign cultures, which eventually morphed into his travel writing career. He also developed a British accent, which eventually morphed back to a mostly-American accent, but he respects your right to spell "humour" with that extra "U" if it makes you happy.
Dave's love for humo(u)r writing evolved in early adulthood when he discovered office memos didn't have to be boring. He fled nine-to-five life in 2001 on a mission to expand beyond office memos, and published his first book of travel-humor essays three years later after winning the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop Book Proposal Contest. He has been teaching writing workshops for more than 20 years. He has been making sandwiches even longer.
Dave has worked as a Public Radio news anchor, a tour guide for Rick Steves' Europe, an international cruise ship lecturer, and an iguana groomer. (Okay, not really an iguana groomer. Iguanas get cranky when you try to groom them.) His work has been featured on the History Channel, Channel NewsAsia, and national radio broadcasts in the US and Australia. He has also been an opening speaker for Princess Märtha Louise of Norway. (True story: When the princess told Dave he spoke excellent Norwegian, Dave replied, "Thank you, Your Majesty. So do you.")
For 16 years, Dave guided tours around Europe for Rick Steves' travel company. He has lived in the US, England, Norway, and Turkey and Singapore. He currently lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he works as the Vietnam correspondent for TTG Asia and freelances for a variety of other publications including the Straits Times of Singapore, and Singapore Airlines' magazine and website. His work has also appeared in books by Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, Travelers' Tales, and the 2014 Moon Guide to Burma.
Dave's own books, Getting Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad, and Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!), have both been Amazon travel bestsellers. He is currently working on a new book, The Ghosts of Bui Vien Street, about modern life in Ho Chi Minh City.
Dave shares his travel tales, humor essays, and writing advice on his website. (Please see below for the link.) He is available for one-on-one writing and life coaching via Skype, phone, and in person.