Jan 12
17
An Interview with Kevin Wierzbicki
Kevin Wierzbicki is the kind of travel writer who has successfully merged his two passions, travel and music, into a career. Kevin, who specializes in travel stories with a music angle, has published over 200 articles in many diverse publications such as USA Today, Desert Living Magazine, and The Arizona Republic. Check out his website and a list of clips here!
Let’s talk a little bit about your interest in combining music and travel. You’ve written about everything from international music festivals, to the best places to find jazz music, to Elvis-themed honeymoon destinations. Do you think that having a specific niche like you do has helped you place more articles?
Yes, definitely. I don’t know that specializing in a particular area is necessary but the music angle has really worked for me. There are all kinds of niches within the travel writing genre, unlimited really. I think the two most popular are food and wine but people specialize in everything from golf to history to haunted houses. I had about a five year span where in addition to music related pieces I also specialized in luxury hotel properties that featured modern architecture and for the past couple of years I’ve specialized in writing about the Riviera Maya area of Mexico. If you like rock collecting or antique hunting or searching for the perfect martini then these topics can be incorporated into travel pieces just like I do with music. If you write about things that you think are fun, things that bring you joy, then that feeling will transfer to your readers, and that’s what it’s all about.
How did you “break in to travel writing”? What have been the keys to your success?
My background is in various aspects of the music business. Music (listening to, unfortunately not performing!) has always been a major passion for me and I worked for many years in various music-related jobs. I started as a small town DJ in Delta, Colorado then subsequently worked as a buyer for a major record and tape distributor, as a street promoter for concerts, as the do-everything guy at a live music nightclub. At one point I even dabbled with my own record label, releasing music from a few Arizona-based acts. There came a time when I was between pursuits and I got the wild idea to see if I could put all this esoteric music-related knowledge rattling around in my head to some kind of good use and I approached a couple of small town newspapers about writing a humble 
little column concerning music news. I won’t go fully into how that snowballed; suffice it to say I wrote my first piece about fourteen years ago and in 2011 I’ve published around 200 music-related articles.
About ten years back I wrote my first travel piece without realizing it. I was on assignment for Campus Circle, a big Los Angeles pop culture weekly paper geared to college kids, covering the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. I flew there from my home in Phoenix and spent four or five days attending the festival and otherwise nosing around Austin then came home and wrote about my experience. It was a few months after that piece got published that the light bulb went on over my head about this thing called “travel writing.” So I took my credentials as a music writer and just started putting myself out there in travel writing circles. I started going to the networking conferences like Travel Media Showcase and Travel South Showcase; my first one was an event the Bay Area Travel Writers organization put on in Oakland in conjunction with SATW and PRSA.
Where do you see your career as a travel writer being three years from now? How will your income mix change and what are you doing to adapt to the changing media landscape?
Well, I wish I had a crystal ball so I would know! I would be quite happy in three years to be doing the same amount of travel as I do now, which at about 60-75 days a year is kind of low compared to some of the real road dogs out there. I really don’t desire to go more than that; I don’t write on the road so I need time in the home office and I also have family responsibilities. What I really need to work on is the reselling of my articles; I’m very inspired by folks who sell a piece a dozen times or more and I’m working on getting right up there with them. This is really where I see the income mix improving for me in the next few years. I already have an open mind as to the media landscape; I don’t have blinders on that limits my work to just print, or just Internet, or whatever and I’m willing to make the necessary adjustments as things change. I take all that one opportunity at a time and try to avoid self-imposed negativity. I’ve never written a travel book but I won’t tell myself that I can’t do it. Obviously I hope that three years from now, whatever medium I’m publishing in and however often, that I’ll be a better writer and have more people enjoying my work.
Knowing what you do now, if you were starting from scratch today to become established as a freelance travel writer, what steps would you take to ensure success? In your opinion, is it still feasible for a freelance travel writer to expect to make a primary income selling his or her articles?
I’d pretty much follow what I laid out in my preceding answers since it worked. I started with nothing and now here I am! I’d work it harder from the beginning though; in my early years I wasn’t sure anything substantial was going to happen and that maybe caused me to be a bit timid about broaching some opportunities. I’m a perfect example of how you don’t have to have a formal education in journalism to be successful at travel writing, but if I could hop in a time machine and go back to my 20s I might consider J-school. Boy, there’s a travel story, huh? As to the income, it’s like any other goal, if you believe you can achieve it then you can. Travel writing is by no means a get rich quick scheme, though, at least not monetarily. Once you get into the realm of taking press trips all over the world, paid for by someone else, you have an amazing opportunity for personal enrichment that you can’t put a price tag on. The Catch-22 is that you have to be able to sell articles in order to get the press trips. I think every travel freelancer finds a happy medium of monetary income and the intangible wealth that’s accrued through the act of traveling. I don’t want to come across as a Pollyanna in these tough economic times but there’s no reason why a good writer who works hard shouldn’t be able to make some good dough.
In your opinion, what makes a solid piece of travel writing? What suggestions could you offer to writers still trying to “get their feet wet?”
The best travel writing makes you desire something; a trip to the place that’s being written about or maybe an experience elsewhere that’s similar to the one you’re reading about. Even armchair travelers who have no intention of getting on an airplane are made desirous by a well-written piece; they’ve been entertained and would like to read more of the same. I write in a lot of different styles and some pieces are just meant to be brief descriptions of a destination’s highlights but when I have the leeway to do a more in depth feature what I am aiming for is that the reader will read the whole article and then go “wow, I want to go there” or at least “Uncle Bob would love this place!” Writers who are just starting out don’t need to worry about going on exotic trips to find a story—that’s great if they can do but there’s plenty to write about in their own backyards. No matter where you live there are other folks who want to know about that place. Then there are lots of outlets, websites in particular, that will publish these pieces so the beginner can start building their credentials. Most of these places don’t pay but they have value as tools to move forward. Type “travel writers wanted” into a search engine and you’ll find plenty of opportunities to sort through. Then it’s always a good idea to obtain and read each outlet’s writer’s guidelines, often available on line; these will tell you things like how many words a piece can be, if the outlet wants photos or not, if they pay or not and if so when you can expect payment. Again it’s a matter of arming yourself with the right tools. Then go for it and keep going for it!
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Kevin Wierzbicki spent two years in Malawi when he was a pre-teen and that experience instilled in him, early in life, the value of travel. It took a few decades for him to be again in a position where he could seek out people, places and things that are different from what he was used to and then to find a few folks who actually wanted to read about these adventures. He is absolutely thrilled to get on the airplane (or train, or…) and it doesn’t matter whether he’s headed for Malaysia or Milwaukee; he knows he’s going to have fun and feels blessed to get to relive those moments every time he writes an article. Check out his full profile here at travelwriters.com.
Interview conducted in January, 2012 by Travel Writing 2.0 author Tim Leffel and Kristin Mock.
