Peter Moore, Travel Writer

Just discovered Peter Moore's travel writer blog. He manages to do what so many people dream of - make travel part of his daily life and earn a living from it. He's a damn good writer too.

Felt a tinge of envy - wouldn't it be nice to be a full time travel writer rather than a part time one? But I just do not have time. If only I had several parallel lives running at once.

Having said that I'm just about to pack and go away today.

Press Trips

Anyone who works in the travel business will know about press trips, or "fam trips" as they're known in the travel trade. The idea is to get journalists out to a destination, be it Spain or Stow-on-the-Wold, and show them what that destination wants them to see.

So are they a good thing?

Some travel editors, specially in the US, are so against press trips that they won't take pieces based upon them. They say that being wined and dined by tourist boards is so far from the average punter's experience that it gives an unfair picture of the destination.

There's some truth in this, although in my experience it doesn't make as much difference as you'd think. Nine times out of ten a bad hotel or a lousy destination gives everyone (including journalists) a rotten time because it just doesn't know how to be good.

I'll be writing about particular press trips in future posts. But I'll end this post with a link to my other blog, which is about a book I'm writing on Lewis Carroll). On it, I posted a picture of a magical garden which I saw on a press trip the Portuguese Alentejo. It was like entering another world, and I'd never have discovered it for myself.

My First Blog Post - On the Road to Damascus

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How do you start a blog? Oh well, here goes.

I was already a freelance feature writer and doing quite well, when I had a "road to Damascus" moment and realised it might be possible to get people to pay me for going to see new places (like, indeed, Damascus).

So I became a part time travel writer. I never became a full time one, and I'm still not one but did lots of articles and eventually got together enough of a portfolio to join the British Guild of Travel Writers. It is a brilliant organisation, and what a bonus it is to be able to mix with top travel pros.

I've concentrated in the last few years mostly on Europe. But this blog aims to cover some of the curious quirky bits of travel both in Europe and outside it - little things that are part of the job of travel writing but don't always get into the final article. Not to mention a few things you wouldn't normally guess about the travel writing life - and some useful hints too, I hope.

In short, it's a glimpse of part-time, but (I like to think) very professional travel writing.

As for Damascus, that's a picture of it above, which I took from the roof of a house in the Christian Quarter. In many Arab countries, the roof of the house is a sort of open air attic.

I like it because it looks like a street scene at first glance, and then at second glance ... it doesn't.