Looking for a new hike route? Why not give Loughrigg Fell a go? Our team joined the DofE gang on this walk and this is what they had to say. Loughrigg Fell Hike We’d recommend an early start to be able park up in the minimal layby space available but the walk is absolutely worth it. We hiked the route in late August on what started as a mild day,…
With Christmas just around the corner, you might be starting to think about some Christmas gifts for outdoorsy people that you know. Stuck for inspiration? We can help you there. To get the ball rolling, we’ve created the ultimate guide to gifts for outdoor lovers, separating our ideas into three groups: walking enthusiasts, campers and ramblers. Fortunately, there are plenty of wonderful outdoor gifts you can treat your family and…
Taking notes ‘To lose a passport was the least of one’s worries: to lose a notebook was a catastrophe. In twenty odd years of travel, I lost only two. One vanished on an Afghan bus. The other was filched by the Brazilian secret police, who, with a certain clairvoyance, imagined that some lines I had written – about the wounds of a Baroque Christ – were a description, in code,…
By Daniel Nielson Think travel writing, and your mind skips immediately to magazines, perhaps books, but there are many, many styles of travel writing to get stuck into (and even make money from). Oral storytelling The birth of language, the teacher of lessons, the medium of exchange. The oral tradition of storytelling is really the history of human life. Before we coded the sounds we make into writing, we spoke…
By Daniel Nielson Before you write your first book it’s easy to imagine that the process is wonderfully romantic: locking yourself away in a tower (or beachside bolthole) writing reams of creative copy, allowing the words to spill from your keyboard like water from a tap. But then it happens. Reality starts to kick in. You realise that it is nothing like this. Worse still, it’s more akin to childbirth.…
By John Summerton The internet is a tool to wield. For some areas of travel writing, it hands-down beats print. For others, print will always win. Long-form journalism, in-depth reporting, travelogues and travel books, the inspirational, the picture-heavy, the complex, belong on dead wood. It is in the magazine and the newspaper where the skill of an editor is to position an article that you’d never reach for online but…
Words by Daniel Nielson A blog is not a passion, but the manifestation of one. The blog is a platform to explore what makes you feel alive, what gets you excited, what you want to share with the world. The blogs that we cover in this chapter are filed under personal blogs, ones principally written by no more than a couple of people Starting your blog A). Find a niche…
@danieljneilson In this blog post, we look at one of the most challenging areas of writing and especially travel writing, and that’s the elimination of cliché, of journalese, of the hackneyed, the superfluous and the empty. We're even going to give you a list of words to avoid! We look at the language editors abhor, common mistakes, the use of overly formal words (amongst, whilst), and also the use of…
Words by Daniel Nielson ‘A basic error with travel writing is assuming everybody’s interested. You have to work from exactly the opposite assumption: nobody is interested. Even your wife is not interested. You have to somehow make it so that they become interested.’ —Bill Bryson Every time we write – whether starting a book, beginning a blog post or even writing a quick update on social media – we always…
By Daniel Nielson In the latest blog post from the team behind the Travel Writer's Field Guide, we cover how to make the most of your time on the road, and the tools and gadgets to get the job done The road is where we become travel writers. The excitement of the new, the unexpected, the raw. The chance to wash your mind of the minutiae of daily home…
