This is, believe it or not, post number 600 on this blog. A lot of water has flowed under the virtual bridge since I started it in 2008, and travel writing itself has become more challenging in terms of extracting an income from it.
However, for this post I'd like to reprise what I did for post 400 and post 500 - that is, to dissect a particular travel writing journey and show how my travels are converted into specific stories. At the end I'll add a summary of profit and expenses.
For this post I'm looking my 2016 trip to Europe, travelling through Germany, Denmark, Poland and Ukraine over four weeks in May-June that year.
Are we sitting comfortably? Then let's begin...
Sunday 8 May 2016
Fly from Melbourne to Hamburg via Dubai.
Monday 9 May 2016
Activity (from Monday to Wednesday): Visit the Speicherstadt Museum, Speicherstadt Kaffeerösterei and the Coffee Museum, as well as contemporary cafes, in Hamburg, Germany.
- Resulting story: An article about Hamburg's coffee history and culture for Lonely Planet's website.
Activity: Join Hempel’s Beatles tour (in which the guide plays a ukulele!) through the St Pauli district of Hamburg.
- Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about the tour here at Aerohaveno.
- Resulting story: An article about Germany's spa culture for Traveller.
- Resulting story: An article about Germany's spa culture for Lonely Planet's website.
Activity: Visit Café Niederegger, famous for its locally-manufactured marzipan, in Lübeck, Germany.
- Resulting story: An article about Lubeck's marzipan for Lonely Planet's website.
- Blog Post: A post about the museum here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Catch train from Lübeck to Copenhagen, Denmark (including ferry crossing).
- Blog Post: A post about the journey here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Take Nordic Noir tour (featuring The Killing and The Bridge) in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Resulting story: A 'Postcard from Copenhagen' article for the Spectrum (culture) section of The Age newspaper in Melbourne.
Activity: Take a guided tour of the counter-culture enclave Christiania in Copenhagen.
- Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about the (surprisingly interesting) museum here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Visit Kronborg Castle (Shakespeare's Elsinore in Hamlet), in Helsingør, Denmark.
- Resulting story: An article about the castle for Traveller.
Activity: Catch bus to Ystad, Sweden, then overnight ferry to Świnoujście, Poland (arriving Wednesday, connecting with train to Warsaw).
- Blog Post: A post about the journey here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Day-trip to Łódź, Poland by train, to join a tour of the city's post-industrial and cinematic sights.
- Resulting story: An article about the city for Lonely Planet's website.
- Blog Post: A post about the city here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Taking a tour focusing on Warsaw's architectural highlights.
- Resulting story: An item about the city in an article about less-crowded European destinations, for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about the city's architectural oddities here at Aerohaveno.
- Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including a Warsaw bar mleczny and other items from later in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Train to Gdańsk, visit the city's new Shakespeare Theatre.
- Resulting story: An item about the theatre in a list of Best Travel Finds of 2016, for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including a historic local restaurant and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Tour of Malbork Castle, near Gdańsk.
- Resulting story: An article about the castle and its restaurant for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including the castle's restaurant and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.
- Resulting story: An article about walking the city's historic heart for Lonely Planet's website.
- Blog Post: A post about the centre here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Visit Wilczy Szaniec (Wolf's Lair), Hitler's Russian Front HQ during World War II.
- Resulting story: An article about the eerie site for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about the site here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Driving to Bohoniki and Kruszyniany in eastern Poland, to visit their historic mosques.
- Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including traditional Tatar cuisine of Kruszyniany and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Taking a tour of Białowieża National Park in eastern Poland (where bison still roam!).
- Resulting story: An article about the park for Lonely Planet's website.
- Blog Post: A post about the park here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Overnight sleeper train from Kraków, Poland to Lviv, Ukraine.
- Resulting story: An article about the rail journey for Traveller.
Activity: Exploring cafes and other attractions of Lviv, Ukraine.
- Resulting story: An article about the city's cafe scene for Lonely Planet's website.
- Resulting story: An article about the saucy Masoch Cafe for Traveller.
- Blog Post: A post about the city's attractions here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Joining a tour of communist-era architecture and history in Kiev, Ukraine.
- Resulting story: An article about the tour for Lonely Planet's website.
- Spiked story: An article about the tour for an Australian magazine which was cancelled (for which I received a part-payment 'kill fee').
Activity: Two-day tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine (sleeping over in Chernobyl).
- Resulting story: An article about the tour for Lonely Planet's website.
- Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.
- Resulting story: An article about how to visit Chernobyl for Lonely Planet's website (ahead of the Chernobyl TV series).
- Spiked story: An article about the tour for an Australian magazine (for which I received full payment).
- Blog Post: A post about the tour here at Aerohaveno.
Activity: Overnight sleeper train from Kiev, Ukraine to Warsaw, Poland.
- Blog Post: A post about the rail journey here at Aerohaveno.
Writing output, financial income
By my count, the trip produced a total of 25 paid articles for various publications (include two spiked articles I received payment for), and 14 posts on this blog. I've also delivered (so far) two paid talks about my 2016 Europe trip to audiences at public libraries.
I calculate the paid articles earned a total of $12,905.52 (all figures here are in Australian dollars) for both words and photos, before adding any applicable sales tax. This includes the fees from the library talks.
The blog posts don't earn any direct income, but drive traffic to Aerohaveno and thus contribute to the occasional small payments I receive from the Google Ads running on my blog.
Expenses
The Polish government covered my flights and most expenses for my Poland stay, and the German National Tourist Board likewise hosted me in Germany. In Denmark I received a public transport and museum pass from Visit Denmark, but paid for my food and accommodation. In Ukraine I paid for everything except my hotel stay in Lviv (luckily Ukraine was breathtakingly cheap!).
I calculate my total expenses on this trip at $2,951.81, which leaves a profit of $9,953.71 (and whatever future income is derived from public talks about that trip).
Some trips have a greater return on outlay, others less so. What's worth noting is how long a particular journey can take to fully pay out. The first published of the 25 articles appeared on 22 June 2016, and the last on 31 July 2019 - quite a chronological spread!
Also, my Europe 2016 talk will continue to be delivered to library audiences throughout 2020 (I began delivering it in early 2019, and I generally change my headline public talk every two years).
It's not easy to make a living from travel writing; but my rule of thumb is to derive a published story per each day of travel on a particular trip. That quantity, if achieved, helps make it viable. That target was largely achieved on this occasion.
After this epic post, it's time for a break! Aerohaveno will be taking a rest over the holiday season, and will be back with you in early January. Have a great New Year!
Hi Tim
ReplyDeleteThis makes interesting and useful reading. I've only just discovered you have a blog. More distraction...
This is such a fantastic breakdown and so helpful. I'm curious (and will explore your blog more, maybe you've already answered it) how much pre-research you do for these trips (how many article concepts you have before you set foot on the ground) versus the ones you stumbled upon while you were there/came to you later--sometimes years later. As a travel writer myself, I'm still working on getting as much mileage as possible out of each trip.
ReplyDeleteIt's a mix. I line up a number of commissions first, in order to able to approach tourism orgs for assistance. Then I research more story ideas on the ground and pitch them afterwards. And I keep an eye out a few years after that for any places they might fit, eg a publication calling for stories on a particular destination.
Delete