A Conversation with Beverly Gallagher

Beverly Gallagher has worked as a freelance contributor for the travel section of the Central American publication, Tico Times, a hotel reviewer and country report updater for Northstar Travel Media and a hotel reviewer and feature story writer for Luxury Latin America. She has also published in the Travel & Traditions section of Fiberarts magazine and in San Diego Ranch and Coast, the city’s luxury lifestyle magazine.

How did you “break in to travel writing”? What have been the keys to your success?

When I decided I wanted to pursue a career in writing, I started by completing a year-long Certificate in Feature Writing at the University of California. I built a small online portfolio, started a blog and moved to a country where I could reduce my expenses and therefore have more time to write.

I had already traveled extensively around the world, so travel writing seemed right up my alley. I queried like crazy and got my first travel writing assignment with the local English newspaper. Though, what I think has really given me an edge is my life-long passion for travel and exploration. If there is one piece of advice I could give, it would be to travel.

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?

I see myself continuing to find innovative ways to share my passion for responsible travel. The changing media landscape is gifting us new tools on a regular basis. This is not only fun and exciting, but it is also giving us an opportunity to gain more independence in our field. Social entrepreneurship is the wave of the future for those comfortable with a certain level of instability, i.e. constant change and lack of a steady paycheck. Platforms such as Kickstarter.com are also helping writers and other creative types produce their work.

Part of the adaptation process demands honing one’s skills as well as developing new ones. I think a single defining characteristic many writers share is a love of learning. This sense of curiosity that propels us to explore will also benefit many of us as we find creative ways to adjust.

What advice would you give to someone near and dear to you who wanted to become a travel writer—assuming they had zero credits to their name. (Besides “Don’t do it”?)

I would encourage this person to travel for several months on a restricted budget while maintaining a blog. Travel writing requires familiarity with technology, Web writing and a mobile lifestyle. If they still found the lifestyle attractive, I would then suggest that they start marketing their writing.

How has living in a different country impacted your cost structure, what you write about, and the opportunities that come your way?

Living outside of the United States often allows you to reduce your cost of living. When you are relieved from having to work a 9 to 5 job in order to support your craft, you have more freedom to create. (It’s important to keep in mind that you will probably end up working more than eight hours a day to earn a living. However, when you love what you do, this is a pleasure!)

Living in a different country is also a source of constant stimulation. As you map out your new environment, you discover endless sources of material. This feeds creativity. The result is a product that attracts interest and therefore more work. The ability to offer local expertise also strengthens your portfolio.

You’ve written about luxury and you’ve written about traveling on a shoestring budget. What are the inherent pros and cons of each when a writer is on the road doing research?

Staying in a place you could otherwise not afford on a writer’s salary is one the pros of visiting luxury destinations! However, contrary to what many may think, they don’t always roll out the red carpet. These places see travel writers all the time, so the impact of your review, depending on who you write for, is often perceived as minimal. On the other hand, budget destinations come and go faster than a FedEx delivery truck. Your review can potentially make or break a place — this is both a pro and con, depending on how you look at it.

In both cases, it takes a lot of work to really put yourself in the shoes of the visitor in order to describe the location in a way that draws the right clientele. After all, your job is to help people make good travel decisions. You also need to accomplish this within a limited time frame. This means there is little time to “relax.”

All in all, it’s not whether or not the resort/hostel/tour operator/restaurant is good or bad; it’s who would most enjoy visiting the particular location. With an increasing number of people keen on reducing their ecological footprint, operators that strive to help visitors travel responsibly are attracting more patrons. With that in mind, the challenge in writing about luxury and budget travel is painting an accurate picture.

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Beverly Gallagher has fueled her passion for travel over the years by teaching English, studying abroad and writing. She has lived, studied and worked all over the world. She shares some of her early travel experiences in her first collection of short stories entitled My Journey to Ithaca: Metamorphosis, available on Smashwords. 

She received a bachelor’s degree in Communication and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She has studied Spanish in Spain (where she lived for five years) and participated in a study abroad program in Chile. After teaching English in the United States, Spain and Japan and working in communications (and taking a two-year stab at business management with Starbucks), she decided to combine three of her great loves: writing, language and travel.

Interview conducted in 2011 by Travel Writing 2.0 author Tim Leffel and edited by Kristin Mock.