Travel Writing Courses:
Learning to Write All Over Again

This may be a no-brainer but if you can't put two sentences together you can't expect anyone to pay for your prose: you may need some travel writing courses. Inventor Thomas Alva Edison once said: "Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." The same can be said for travel writing.

If you're an accomplished and published travel writer, great - you're ahead of the game and travel writing jobs may be yours for the picking. But if, like most people, becoming a travel writer is only a far-off gleam in your eye, it's never too late to get started.

Your first goal is to learn how to write for the travel market. You can do that on your own, by working on your writing or reading a book or two.

I've certainly read my share of books and have dipped deeply into self-help. But I've also taken excellent travel writing courses that have helped immeasurably in honing my own travel writing skills.

There are many courses out there and while I certainly haven't taken them all, I'm familiar with a good range of them. I've found two that I would place at the top the list, although they are both quite different from one another.

The tried and true Ultimate Travel Writing Course is the Rolls-Royce of travel writing courses: prestigious, traditional and effective. Here's what I think of it:

• It's an excellent course for potential writers who are serious about their craft - writers who believe good writing lies at the heart of the publication process. 
• This is the course for travel writers who want to see their bylines on the cover of prestigious magazines. 
• If you like being guided through your learning step-by-step, this course will do that.
• It comes in ring binders so if you work better from print, this is a good option, although it was recently upgraded to contain some online content and podcats. Still, it's structured as a traditional course and some of you may feel more comfortable with this.
• This is the perfect course for beginners who want to learn how to write well and get published for money.

• What MatadorU excels at is teaching you how to market your piece and compete in a wildly crowded web environment. 
• If you're headed for a big-name travel writing reputation that starts with the Internet and spreads outward, this course is made for you. 
• It's also ideal if you have a good grounding in writing and don't feel you need to know how to build a story or tighten your prose. 
• This course is entirely online and difficult to print, so it's for those who feel comfortable doing everything on the web.

Benefits of travel writing courses

The other advantage is speed. You'll learn to avoid mistakes and write saleable copy far faster if you're systematically being trained.

But not everyone is ready for a full course. You may still be wondering if travel writing is for you, or if you have what it takes. If you still want to learn as much as you can about travel writing without investing weeks to do it, try my seven-day free travel writing course, which explores the essential skills you'll need to become a travel writer.

If you'd still rather go it alone, you'll need plenty of practice and patience. Reading a lot of good women's travel writing books should inspire you - these are exceptional women now, but most times they started life in an ordinary way, like you or me.

What you'll have to do is write, write, write. And then publish. In today's web-based society, article submission directories and websites are clamoring for content - so you have plenty of opportunity to practice, and then practice some more. Unfortunately, you won't know whether you're any good, because many websites will take anything that fills up their pages. Nor will you know if you're getting any better.

These few simple rules of good writing should help you submit copy that looks professional - they apply as much to the travel writer as they do any other kind of writer:

• Write tight - avoid extraneous words
• Write like you speak - reread yourself out loud if you're not sure
• Use the active (the dog bit the man) rather than the passive (the man was bitten by the dog)
• Use descriptive action verbs - the woman shrieked, not the woman screamed loudly
• Avoid the word very - it adds nothing
• Unless you're famous or newsworthy or the editor asks for it, leave yourself out the story - your personal experiences aren't half as interesting as what you're seeing on behalf of your reader
• Be perfect when it comes to spelling, punctuation and grammar - editors despise mangled prose
• One fact, one sentence
• Vary your sentence length - alternate short and long

If you manage to stick to these rules, your writing will already be in the top 10%. The rest is just polish.