Marketing yourself: do you need a portfolio to be a successful travel writer?
We all approach marketing ourselves as travel writers differently.
I have been incredibly lazy in recent years. My portfolio — this very outdated website — has been left to rot in the servers of Squarespace and it no longer encapsulates everything I’ve done, do or am trying to achieve. It doesn’t list any of my recent work; it seems I stopped updating that in 2022, and so anyone looking me up there right now will think I’ve been on a four-year career break. It has outdated descriptions of what I am doing with my life and career. And the photos are old.
I haven’t been doing nothing for four years, of course. I’ve been writing books (four in the space of 18 months, in fact — won’t be doing that again, thanks), penning articles for the Times, Telegraph, Countryfile, Good Housekeeping and many more, and I’ve even been on telly and radio a few times. So this begs the question: what is that ebsite really for? Do I really need a portfolio? Do you need a portfolio?
Despite the way it looks, I think the answer is probably yes. I have got away with my laziness because I’ve got a lot of existing relationships and a reputation that, for better or worse, sometimes precedes me. So while I might be doing okay without a proper portfolio, I’d say anyone newer to this game or with less experience or contacts may well want to keep their own version up to date — here’s why:
I have owned and populated various forms of that website for well over 15 years, and in that time it has genuinely brought me work. Back when I went freelance in 2018, one of my best-paying B2B clients — the nearly £1 per word kind of clients — came to me through that website after they’d googled “London travel writer”. And I still get fruitful enquiries through that form to this day, despite how outdated the website actually is.
I’m not the only one who’s benefitted from having my own portfolio, either. I know several writers who have garnered more work and commissions from their own portfolio websites.
But if you don’t have the time (or patience or inclination) to make your own portfolio, you can still fall back on aggregation tools. Muckrack can be a handy tool for collating your bylines, though there are some irritating bugs that may pull in irrelevant content or content from sites you may not wish to list work from, and Authory, which allows you to automatically pull your bylines from specific websites you choose (it took me five minutes to create this profile for myself).
Something I often get asked is whether or not you need a blog or a Substack to become a successful travel writer. And while I believe the answer is no, I don’t think it can hurt. Steph had great success with her own blog, Worldly Adventurer (which also provides her a passive income, too), and it can be a great place to put all those stories you never managed to get commissioned but still want to give the light of day.
Ultimately, all of this is about marketing yourself. And while we covered this a couple of years ago in a series in 2024, we’re going to explore it with a new lens and ask what really matters for travel writers in 2026. Here’s what’s coming up:
Do you need social media? — 9th June
Do you need to go to networking events? — 16th June
Editor interview: TBC — 23 June
Webinar 18 June: Press trips & PR relationships
Whether you take press trips or not (here’s some interesting intel from a writer who doesn’t), relationships with PRs are important — not least to keep abreast of the latest news in the areas you cover.
Post of the week
Spend a day in the life of a travel writer researching a story for a UK newspaper:
Who to follow
Lauren Jarvis, who was the subject of last week’s editor interview, is JRNY’s new editor.
Industry news
There’s a call for pitches here from Wine Cellar Door, which pays £0.25 per word and wants to hear from anyone — even those without bylines!
The TravMedia Awards shortlist is out and Lottie is on it — and no doubt so are some of you! See it here. Congrats to all.
Neurodivergence is a hot topic and there’s now a travel guide for those who are travelling with ADHD. Congratulations to author Becca Hallett for such an interesting spin on the traditional travel guide.
Using AI in your work processes these days? If you’re using Elon Musk’s Grok (we hope you’re not) or even ChatGPT, you might want to consider shifting to Claude; it all went a bit Lord of the Flies in this hilarious — but also sobering — research project that let AI models run a simulated society.
Finally, after 32 years at The Independent, Simon Calder has crossed the floor to take up the role of travel correspondent at The Telegraph, where he’ll be launching a brand-new podcast and penning their travel newsletter.
Don’t forget to check out Meera Dattani’s series of enormously useful webinars, and our own resources for travel writers, including the hugely popular Travel Pitching Index, which was updated and had a new publication profile added in May!
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "portfolio" and what you mean by "successful." I'll defer to you with regard to travel writing, since it's not my specialty, but I will say that since moving to France last year, I've managed to land a few travel writing gigs (Travel & Leisure, Business Insider) without any travel clips to speak of. That said, I do have other bylines that may have worked in my favor. As it stands, I couldn't make travel writing the exclusive means by which I earn a living, but it's supplementing my main sources of income, and it's fun. I don't have a formal portfolio, but I do have clips at the ready. Also, I'm starting to develop relationships with some travel editors, so I could see how that might build momentum over time. Anyway, thought I'd share my experience as a travel journalism neophyte.
I’ve been a silent reader for a little while, I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for being so informative as always, it really gets my inspiration moving as some *very* new to all this!!