A Week to Change Your Travel Writing Life in the Catskill Mountains of New York
In a singular departure from our hyper-focused, intensive, action-oriented weekend retreats, this fall, from the evening of Sunday, September 17 through the afternoon of Saturday, September 23, a small group of travel writers will have the unique opportunity to kick their magazine travel writing career into a different place of existence.
You won’t just learn during the Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp from Dream of Travel Writing. You will change your habits. Change your way of looking at the world. Change your way of approaching your work. And, most importantly, change your income.
We will mix learning with doing–both in a classroom setting in our light-filled retreat center or outside in the garden when the weather is just right as well as in the field, as we set out each afternoon to practice what we’ve learned in the morning and discuss how to actually, effectively, and realistically implement best practices in formulating article ideas, interviewing and researching pieces, and writing them up.
The extra time afforded by the week-long format allows us not only to focus on the techniques of successfully researching and generating ideas on the road, but opportunities to write and revisit pitches and short articles over the course of several days with fresh eyes and multiple rounds of edits.
The retreat includes twelve modules, each with multiple exercises to make sure you put what you’re learning into action and walk out of the workshop with pitches ready to send to travel magazine editors. Attendees also get:
- 3 months of our coaching lite program following the event to help you stay on track to reach your goals including daily freelance travel writing inspiration, weekly accountability check-ins, one coaching check-in call each month, and full access to the Travel Magazine Database, with breakdowns of hundreds of travel magazines that spell out which sections of each magazine are open to freelancers, how to pitch them, and the direct emails for the editors you need to reach ($300 value).
- Two private coaching sessions with Gabi during the weekend to polish your portfolio, pitches, and proposals and plan for your travel writing success after the retreat ($250 value).
- A shared room with writing desk and the opportunity to stay on at the retreat center the following week as many days as you’d like to continue working on your pitches in a focused writing space ($150 value).
- Wholesome, organic meals, beverages and snacks throughout the retreat ($250 value).
- A print copy of The Six-Figure Travel Writing Road Map…plus you’ll skip the shipping. We’ve already paid that for you ($25 value).
What The Freelance Travel Writing Bootcamp is All About
Location:
Rosewood Writing Retreat Center
Catskills, NY (1.5 hours northwest of New York City)
The workshop includes twelve modules, each with multiple exercises to make sure you put what you’re learning into action and walk out of the workshop 100% prepared and confident to come up with dozens of magazine article ideas and successfully, efficiently, and effectively translate them into pitches and articles:
- Module 1: Why are we all here? What sort of magazines need writers today? Which ones are worth working with? Why and how are editors using freelancers today?
- Module 2: What do you each as individuals have to bring to travel magazines? Who should you be targeting? The magazine landscape and your place in it.
- Module 3: How magazines are laid out; how to analyze them on your own or using the Travel Magazine Database; what sections to target, why, and when.
- Module 4: How do you know when you have a good article idea? One that editors will buy? And how to make sure it happens every time with a proven fit-check formula.
- Module 5: Finding stories in the real world; how to approach our daily outings and your own research on the road to find the most and best stories.
- Module 6: Journalistic detail; the secret to stellar pitches and stories and how to get it.
- Module 7: The secrets of outstanding interviews; how to be the one who gets much better information than everyone else on your trip every time and turn each interview into a dozen stories.
- Module 8: The components of the perfect three-part pitch; don’t bury the lead. Once you’ve got the process for finding it in the road down, you won’t shy away from this “difficult” part of pitching again.
- Module 9: The components of the perfect three-part pitch cont.; the “easy” parts that write themselves.
- Module 10: Journalistic detail; finding the feature thread and why you don’t need to shy away from pitching these “big fish” pieces.
- Module 11: Letting your pitch and research write your article for you; structuring front-of-book pieces and departments.
- Module 12: The speedy professional’s way to piece together a feature based on things you’ve already “written:” interview notes, scenes from trips, and background research. The secret formula’s that let these pieces write themselves.
And you’ll also get:
- 3 months of our coaching lite program following the event to help you stay on track to reach your goals including daily freelance travel writing inspiration, weekly accountability check-ins, one coaching check-in call each month, and full access to the Travel Magazine Database, with breakdowns of hundreds of travel magazines that spell out which sections of each magazine are open to freelancers, how to pitch them, and the direct emails for the editors you need to reach ($300 value).
- Two private coaching sessions with Gabi during the weekend to polish your portfolio, pitches, and proposals and plan for your travel writing success after the retreat ($250 value).
- A shared room with writing desk and the opportunity to stay on at the retreat center the following week as many days as you’d like to continue working on your pitches in a focused writing space ($150 value).
- Wholesome, organic meals, beverages and snacks throughout the retreat ($250 value).
- A print copy of The Six-Figure Travel Writing Road Map…plus you’ll skip the shipping. We’ve already paid that for you ($25 value).
You can get all of this (a nearly $1,000 value!) for $599.
Our Money-Back Guarantee
Our Travel Magazine Database has a pretty crazy guarantee.
If you use it, and pitch regularly for three months and don’t hear back from any editors, we’ll not only give you your money back, you’ll also get a private coaching call and three query critiques to get your pitching up to snuff so you start getting responses.
We’re going to extend that guarantee to the full price of the workshop.
If you attend the workshop, go home and send pitches regularly, and haven’t gotten any responses in three months, we’ll refund your entire fee and give you the private coaching call and three query critiques for free.
FAQ
How is this different from other writing retreats?
Dream of Travel Writing has the privilege of holding writing retreats in its own private retreat center, which has been set up explicitly for writers. There are a wide variety of writing spaces, including a desk in each room, writing desk with expansive view of the garden and forest, multiple outdoor writing spaces, library stocked with travel magazines, textbooks and travelogues, and more.
Where is the food coming from?
Gabi has a food background (her first blog was around 30-minute dinner parties and featured recipes from all over the world), has often catered events in the 100-200s over the years, and has a certificate in plant-based nutrition from Cornell University (the same one as Tom Brady’s personal chef!) Expect everything to be healthy, primarily gluten- and dairy-free so we can all enjoy the same great food with lots of vegetarian options and many vegetables from our own mini-farm or other farms right in our village.
How do the rooms work?
For this retreat, to keep things more afffordable for attendees, all rooms are shared. The retreat center includes ample public space for working–enough that everyone can work somewhere entirely by themselves.
Individual beds are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, and there won’t be more than three people in any room (and that’s just one very, very large room with an en-suite bathroom).
If you want to have your own space and like the outdoors, you are also welcome to camp on the property; just make sure to let us know that is your preference when you book.
If you absolutely must have an individual room, please contact us before you book to understand the pricing for that option if available at the time of your request.
Where is the retreat center?
The address will be released to attendees after registration. It is in a village in the town of Warwarsing, New York.
How do I get to the retreat center?
There are two ways to reach our location:
- Private vehicle (1.5 hours from Manhattan)
- Direct bus from Port Authority in Midtown West to the town of Ellenville (2.5 hours, departing 5:30 from Port Authority and arriving right in time for dinner on Friday)
What is the schedule for the weekend?
Sunday:
- Afternoon: Optional additional coaching time or free time to work in the house or make use of the library.
- 5:00 pm: Guests arrive, tour the house and amenities; reception with cocktails and snacks.
- 8:00 pm: Dinner, introductions. Module 1.
Monday:
- 9:00 am: Breakfast and exercise on breaking trips into ideas
- 9:30 am: Module 2
- 10:30 am: Bathroom and coffee break
- 10:45 am: Module 3
- 11:45 am: Bathroom and coffee break
- 12:00 pm: Lunch
- 1:30 pm: Module 4
- 3:30 pm: First round of individual one-on-one’s to set individual plans for the week and focus pitch market research
- 7:00 pm: Dinner and decompress after a long day of learning with travel stories, games, or the sauna!
Tuesday – Friday:
- 9:00 am: Breakfast and exercise on breaking trips into ideas
- 9:30 am: Module 5 / 7 / 9 / 11
- 10:30 am: Bathroom and coffee break
- 10:45 am: Module 6 / 8 / 10 / 12
- 11:45 am: Bathroom and coffee break
- 12:00 pm: Lunch
- 1:30 pm: Research outing (Winery, nature photo walk, botanical preserve, historic site)
- 6:00 pm: Debrief from the day’s outing.
- 7:00 pm: Dinner and decompress after a long day or finish up assignments.
Saturday:
- 9:00 am: Breakfast and continue working on pitches
- 9:30 am: Group reading and feedback on your favorite pitches and articles from the week. Celebrate how far you’ve come.
- 10:30 am: Second round of one-on-one’s and continue workshopping pitches and pieces with peers.
- 1:00 pm: Lunch
- 2:30 pm: Where do we go from here? Fitting idea generation, pitching, and regular research outings into your daily life.
- 4:00 pm: Departure for guests not staying for additional retreat days (transport to bus to Manhattan provided).
If you’ve been thinking about pursuing travel writing as a part- or full-time, PAYING job, why haven’t you reached your goal yet?
If you’ve read this far, you need additional help or information to reach that goal. There’s only a handful of spots left for the workshop. Don’t let someone else grab yours.