Great Escape Publishing

Posted August 30th, 2014 by Margot Bigg & filed under Travel Writing.

A couple of weeks ago, while my friends were at their offices, I spent my morning on a long jog in the nearby forest. When I came home, I had an e-mail waiting for me from an editor, asking if I could squeeze in a quick, all-expenses-paid trip to a local resort town. By evening, my husband and I were on our way to a weekend getaway that didn’t cost us a dime. In fact, the brief report I submitted at the end of our trip earned me a few hundred dollars. I was able to take on this relatively lucrative last-minute assignment, because I’ve made an effort to be both adaptable and disciplined. I’ve made a point of keeping my schedule flexible throughout my career as a travel writer. Self-employed people often say that they are their “own boss,” and it’s no different when you’re a freelance travel writer. As my own boss, I create my own deadlines and then hold myself accountable to them. I worked as an editor for many years, and I always made a point of setting deadlines for at least a few days earlier than I actually needed stories filed, so that I’d have a buffer just in case a story fell through or got delayed. Now that I’m a freelancer, I give myself similar false deadlines. That way, if a last-minute opportunity to get on a plane comes up, or if I simply feel like going on a run in the forest, I’m able to go. Working as a travel writer also allows me to be more flexible with my free time. While I may sometimes have to miss social events because I’m off on a life-changing adventure, or just in the midst of writing up a story, I get a lot of opportunities to attend events and experience new things that I wouldn’t get if I were locked into a 9-to-5 way of life. Of course, the tradeoff is that I sometimes find myself hard at work late at night or on weekends, but when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. And while I adore writing, traveling the world, seeing my name in print, and getting paid for it all, the freedom that comes with being a professional travel writer is perhaps the biggest perk of all. Share on Facebook