Why subscribe?
A journalist, author and playwright, my travel writing has taken me to more than 90 countries. I’ve written more than 2500 articles and more than 10 books on subjects including property, health, the arts, careers, education and technology, as well as travel.
I started this Substack because many of the things I want to write about are so difficult to place in the mainstream travel press. When I started in journalism, there’d be 2000-word travel articles on somewhere quite obscure (but nonetheless very interesting) like Mali or Mongolia: nowadays many travel pages want short articles and ‘top 10s’ on the best Spanish villas or adventure holidays or suchlike, which seldom go into great depth.
Anything too negative or controversial could scare away advertisers, and often personality and individual style is edited out of a piece so it blends in with everything else.
Again and again I’ve visited a destination and take copious notes about it that I knew the mainstream travel press wouldn’t dream of publishing. I plan to share much of that here, along with more conventional articles and also tips I’ve learnt about travel along the way, whether to save money, reduce hassle or make trips more rewarding.
New Substack posts will be published whenever possible, usually several times each month. However, they take considerable time and research to write - and therefore every paid subscriber makes it more and more possible for them to be written.
If you sign up as a free subscriber, you’ll have access to some posts, as well as a sample of paid articles. Paid subscribers get access to all articles.
If you subscribe, not only will you keep me writing, but you will allow me to provide free articles to those who cannot pay. A paid subscription equates to about two sips of cheap wine in a London pub per week or a coffee in a cafe a month.
I think Substack is an exciting platform because of the freedom it gives writers – and that is only possible because of you, the subscribers.
I will always welcome your thoughts, so please get in touch.
Thank you for subscribing, and I hope you enjoy Travel - the inside track
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