Has anyone ever been around the travel publishing industry? I see various "opportunities" to write about your travels and make money from publishing and savings from "discounts" for travel writers.

I suspect there is not much to these things, but never hurts to ask ...

Must be a hard life getting paid to travel around the world and getting a few dollars from the owners of establishments to write a good article.

While I would not expect to get all expenses paid, if there are a few baht to be had by doing a little sideline work, might be worth it. Problem I see is identifying when some arrangement is reasonable vs. a rip-off.

Mr Cummings lives up in Chiang Mai and he would be the man for advice if you could find an e-mail address by googling.

Not many real writers here in these forums, would be my guess. And Joe gets tons of such queries, so don't expect an answer anytime soon... Try the newsgroups, would be my advice. Look and see what the real writers and wannabe's like you are talking about.

Good luck

Contact the local magazines. I write for one of the local magazines doing the travel and the restaurant reviews. Got mine by just contacting the editors and submitting my writing. Don't expect too much money though - about 1000 baht an article. Though you are right about the perks. Travel and good food! But better to have a real job as you can't depend on the income from this.

Travel writing is not as easy as it may look.

First question: what do you have to say that is original, interesting and readable about a place you have been to?

Travel writing is not as easy as it may look.

First question: what do you have to say that is original, interesting and readable about a place you have been to?

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I think that's a great place to start. Like a narrrative of your experiences... Here's a letter I wrote to an Aussie GF in 1989, shortly after recently parting company, about an accident I'd had recently. http://asiarecipe.com/Diary/lettersara1a.jpg . I've recently begun to put my scanned journals online.

I've always felt myself the frustrated wannabe writer, but minus the real skills to entertain well enough, I think. Plus, my spelling and grammar sucks, clearly not befitting my position

I like writing too - although while travelling .... not enough time mostly.

Thanks all for your posts. If I could successfully write (and there is the likely killer in this whole thing), being able to reduce travel expenses is a big plus. After I retire, my wife and I want to travel extensively, spending about 6-9 months of the year in Thailand and the Asian area, and the rest in the US and Europe.

Stephan -- what you do sounds right up my alley. I'm not looking for a job or enough income to live off of -- mainly just travel discounts. Can I ask you to give me a rough idea of the kinds of discounts you have experienced (PM might be better)?

JohnnyK -- so right! Frankly that is probably my weakest point. While I can write from a technical and managerial perspective, I have not tried to write descriptively about places and experiences. Since I still have a couple years before starting on my retirement adventure, I have determined to start keeping a journal about travel and dining experiences with a goal of being my biggest critic on style and content.

Ajarn -- your piece was very descriptive and captured the moment with enough detail for me to imagine it. Keep up the writing!

Thanks again -- keep the comments coming!

Oh, I even have an illustration for the story...

Taking the pics myself helped to keep my mind off the lack of anesthetics