Last month I was in Italy with a few other writers, talking travel misconceptions while tasting sparkling wine. (One perk of traveling with others in the biz is that no one touches the wine until everyone has taken a boomerang of the bubbles). At least one of us posted a photo with the caption, ‘It’s a hard life, but someone has to do it #research,” or something along those lines. And it’s true. Our jobs are awesome. We get to travel and eat and learn all the time.
But they’re also not quite as awesome as Instagram makes them out to be. Behind the scenes we’re struggling to get publications to accept our stories, taking frantic notes, writing on deadlines while on “vacation,” and trying to survive on a writer’s salary while making our lives look glamorous. As one writer put it: “You’re not a traveler who’s writing, you’re a writer who’s traveling.” Another said, “One major misconception is travel writers get paid to travel. No, I get paid to write and edit, so I’m usually losing money while traveling because it cuts into work time.” But I’m not trying to get you to feel bad for travel writers (I still wouldn’t trade this job for anything, despite how un-glamorous it actually is). I’m trying to get you to see why you should feel bad for yourself.
You’ve been duped, you see. You’ve fallen into the trap of travel writing. We’ve convinced you places are “off the beaten path” even though they’re published in a national magazine. You’ve bought into the idea that someone can travel for free and be on vacation 24/7 without any real work. You’ve gone to restaurants we’ve recommended but have never been to ourselves; shelled out thousands to stay in places we could only ever stay in thanks to generous media discounts (or comps, with hopes of a good review); you’ve lined up for coffee because someone on Instagram said to, even though it’s just as good across the street; and you’ve gone on your honeymoon to places you read about in an article written by someone who definitely visited solo. “I don’t drink alcohol but I write about wine and spirits like the best of them,” one writer told me, in an example that sums it all up. And we haven’t even gotten to “influencers” or the fact that places can buy reviews.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust travel writers–we’re not lying to you on purpose or recommending places we haven’t been just because we can. We do our research, and we try our best. I wrote a guidebook about Chicago and it was impossible to visit every one of the 170 hotels, so I relied on online reviews and calls to hotel staff. That’s what most other writers do, too.
I’m just saying you should take what you read with a grain of salt. Not everything is as easy–or as accurate–as it appears on Instagram or in print. That’s why we try to only hire local writers, or those with extensive expertise in an area, here at Curiosity Magazine. The more you know a place the easier it is to write truthfully, but if you’re visiting somewhere for a weekend then writing a city guide or top 10 list, you’re going to rely on research and an amalgamation of other, previously written articles. That’s part of the reason the same places show up again and again on lists, even when they’re not that good.
I’m looking forward to sharing an article full of interviews with travel writers and influencers on this topic next week as part of our ‘Dark Side of Travel’ week. We’ll also be talking about places like Venice and Dubrovnik and asking the question, ‘are travelers ruining the places they love?’
Throughout the rest of the month we have stories from Malta (bread!), Mozambique (fishing!), and Mexico (politics!), and a slew of stories on superstitions and Halloween traditions around the world. This week, we transitioned out of Middle East month with stories from Turkey and India.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to taking you behind the scenes next week! Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter for more links related to our coverage, plus travel tips (actual good ones, I promise) from our writers, and special deals for subscribers. And for the record…I really, really love my job.
–Rebecca
