GLOBETROTTERS | WRITING TIPS | TRAVEL STORY

2023 Tips to Help You Write a Great Travel Story For Globetrotters

What we require from writers moving forward.

Happy New Year Globetrotters!

Well, as usual, a New Year brings a fresh new start. We now number over 3.1k followers, and we are growing by leaps and bounds. So, while we have already been successful with the publication, we do know that there is always room for improvement. This year we want to tighten our submissions up and continue making this the best travel publication on Medium.

I will start out by apologizing for the large tag bomb. We editors mulled it over and decided that we would do it because it seems that many articles that directly affect the publication aren’t getting read. This was made evident to us over Christmas when 3 of us wrote articles mentioning that the publication would be closed over the holidays, yet the submissions kept coming in. It’s not that big of a deal, but it is an indication that our information isn't getting through, which is unfortunate.

By tagging all Globetrotters writers in this post, we hope to reach the majority of you with this information.

So, without further ado, please read on to learn about our new requirements for the wonderful travel stories you will submit to us in 2023 and beyond.

Changes To Article Content

In the past, we have accepted articles in many different genres in relation to travel. Whether it was packing lists, travel tips, ex-pat information and how-to articles, we pretty much accepted it all.

However, in the latter part of 2022, we started to notice a lot of articles that could have been AI-generated. For those that don’t know, AI articles are written by artificial intelligence, namely, robots. A user simply has to enter a prompt into an AI-generating website like “Write a 500-word article about why people should visit France.” The AI bot then searches its database, which is made up of all other relevant information that has EVER been written on the subject across the world wide web, and then creates an article from that information.

The ‘writer’ simply has to check for some glaring grammar problems, and maybe some run-on sentences then hit the publish button.

While there is heavy debate about whether or not these sorts of articles are acceptable, or not, in the online world, we have come to the conclusion that we do not want them in Globetrotters. Plus, I’m sure you can agree, writing AI articles is basically stealing words from past writers, and is simply a modern version of (largely accepted) plagiarism.

While all of this was unfolding in a big way last year, we had many conversations about how we would tackle this while trying to distinguish which articles were AI-generated or not.

Listicle-style articles, ie. 10 things that are necessary to pack for a week-long trip, are super easy to write with AI. As are many others along these same lines.

But articles that are hard to properly recreate, even for AI, are personal experience stories.

We came to the conclusion that personal narrative travel stories are hard to replicate. Not impossible, mind you, but certainly more difficult.

New Requirements

As we try our darndest to keep AI content out of Globetrotters, we will move forward in an attempt to eradicate stories that even hint at being written by AI. Therefore, our main requirement for ALL articles being submitted to Globetrotters from here on in is that they will require a personal story related to whatever it is that you are writing about.

• Even if you want to write about your tips for packing. Bring your own experience into the story that has to do with the things on your list. Tell us how such and such item came in handy and why and where you needed it.
• If you try to eat healthy while traveling, tell us a story about how you went out of your way to find the only vegan restaurant in a city. Or write about how you brought a homemade picnic with you to enjoy out in nature.
• If you have ideas for how to travel easily with kids, tell us your story of your own trip with your children and what you personally did to make it enjoyable.

There are many ways to wrap your own stories into helpful articles that will impact others. In the end, we are all human (and not robots) and we can relate better to each other when we learn from others’ experiences.

Of course, you also don’t have to write ‘how to’ articles and we love to hear about your travel experiences in whatever shape or form they come. Tell us about the food you ate, the bus you missed, the waterfall you swam in, or the birds you sighted.

It all comes together to form your unique story of travel.

Other Important Suggestions

While we have not made the items on the list below requirements, we do HIGHLY suggest the following:

• In order to make your article look professional and stand out, use a Title and a Sub-Title (both properly formatted) followed by a photograph placed directly below them. (A kicker is recommended for SEO strength but is optional.)
• Break up large paragraphs into smaller ones to make for easier readability.
• To increase engagement, tag articles of fellow Medium writers that relate to the topic that you are writing about. (Note that our monthly challenge submissions do now require this!)
• Use your own images as much as possible. This shows us that you actually took the trip, or lived the experience, and helps our AI defense system to back down a little. AI-generated articles almost always use stock photography.
• READ OTHER WRITERS' ARTICLES! We can’t recommend this enough! Medium rewards engagement, the more you read, highlight, clap and comment for other writers, the more you will have engagement on your own articles.

Mandatory Requirements

These items are requirements of Globetrotters and if they are not met your article will be rejected:

• The article length must be no more than 10 minutes.
• No ALL CAPS of the title.
• ALL photos must be properly credited. Please read this article to learn more.

Please read the general guidelines for submissions to Globetrotters before submitting your first article:

A Bright Future

We editors, Anne Bonfert, JoAnn Ryan, Adrienne Beaumont and I, Jillian Amatt, are so proud of how far Globetrotters has come in the past year! We have accumulated an astounding amount of great travelers, let alone great travel writers. We have all really enjoyed reading your stories and cheering you on as you move across the planet, and we are committed to bringing you the best travel content on Medium.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for writing. And thank you for traveling. You are all impacting the planet, in one way or the other, by daring to step out of your comfort zones.

Step by step we are creating a better world.

With much love and a ton of optimism for the future of Globetrotters, Medium, and our planet, we wish you all well and hope that 2023 is your best year yet!

Crystalgamet, Carol Lea Clark, Joey Kay, Jerome H, Michael Johnson, Monica Ray, New York Area, OnYourFeet, Randyduke

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