Low-cost, International Airfares: You Can Find Them Here...

Today:
*** Low-cost, International Airfares: You can find them here…
*** Practical Writing Prompt of the Week: Turning the Off-season into an Opportunity
*** Reader Feedback: Good Writer v. Bad Editor – How to Work with an Editor who Changes Your Article in Ways You Don’t Like

Dear Reader,

Last month I gave you a few recommendations for finding low-price international airfares (More Cool Gadgets and Discounts for Travelers), and several readers wrote in with even more suggestions…

“Dear Lori, In the newsletter, you had mentioned opodo.de, presenting it as a German travel engine. Readers might get more use out of the true “English” version of the site, www.opodo.co.uk. In addition to low prices, the English Opodo has a newsletter which delivers early alerts about newly arrived low-cost carriers as well as tips and sales. One caveat for the opodo sites, however, is that they have some residency restrictions, especially if your ticket is going to be the old-fashioned paper variety. The transaction will not go through without a valid in-country address.” — Jen

“Hi Lori, I just booked a very inexpensive flight to Glasgow from Vancouver, BC ($429 before taxes, etc. and $704 total, round-trip). You can check out this website and see if there is anything there that works for you or the other folks who receive The Right Way to Travel: www.jubileetravel.com.” — Sara Blum

“Lori, Last year I found this consolidator site after I bought my tickets to Paris, and my wife used it to get her fare for $300 cheaper than mine, even though she bought it weeks later: http://www.etn.nl/. What it does is takes your request and sends it to discount travel agents who buy tickets in bulk. These agents usually specialize in one destination or region of the world.” — David Morgan

I hope you’ll save these recommendations and check them out before you book your next trip — I know I will. In fact, you may not know it, but we have all sorts of excellent time-saving, penny-pinching, travel-enhancing ideas like these in the “Cheaper/Better Ways to Travel” section of our website.  

OUR 300TH ISSUE OF THE RIGHT WAY TO TRAVEL

In just over a month, we’ll be publishing our 300th issue of The Right Way to Travel. To celebrate, I’d like to include as many success stories from you and your fellow readers as possible.

If you’ve got a success story to share — an article published, a photo sold, or an import/export goal reached — and you’d like to be included in our round-up of stories, drop me a line: lori@thetravelwriterslife.com.

Be sure to include your full name, email address, city, and state (in case I need to reach you — I won’t publish that information).

Speaking of success stories, here’s one I received this past week…

“Lori, I just wanted to drop you line to let you know that I received a call from the Orlando Sentinel today saying they would publish my travel article, and possibly the photo, in the March 4th edition of the travel section. The travel article was about a place I visited while in Egypt this past December. It’s my first attempt at writing so I am beyond happy. I can’t wait to refine my capabilities with what I learn from AWAI.” – Kimberly Beckley

Congratulations Kimberly!

I hope to hear more stories like this one over the next few weeks. Please do send yours along. I’m eager to hear from you.

— Lori
Lori Appling
Director, Great Escape Publishing

[Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel.]

PRACTICAL WRITING PROMPT OF THE WEEK

Last summer, when most local magazines here were running articles about day-trips to destinations outside of D.C. (to the Delaware beaches and nearby Maryland and Virginia vineyards, for instance), I picked up a copy of Washington Flyer magazine and read an article titled something like, “50 Reasons to Stay in D.C. and Stay Cool.”

The article profiled everything from indoor swimming pools to local martini bars and ice cream shops. You could easily write an article like this about your own hometown.

Think about a time when most people leave your town to vacation elsewhere.

Now, I live in D.C., and so this piece has already been done. But I grew up on the beach in Delaware. And so I could easily write a piece titled “15 Reasons to Spend the Winter at the Beach” for a magazine or newspaper based there locally.

This weekend, take some time to think about how you could tweak this idea for readers near you. And remember, most publications want season-specific articles several months in advance. Check a publication’s Writer’s Guidelines for the lead time editors like. It may already be too late at some publications to pitch a spring or summer piece. (For something like that, you may have the best luck approaching a newspaper. With weekly travel sections, they often have more flexibility and a shorter lead time.)

READER QUESTION: Good Writer v. Bad Editor – How to Work with an Editor that Changes Your Article

“When I get articles published they sometimes change my stories and make mistakes with facts and grammar. Are they legally allowed to do this? When people read my stories and see the mistakes what will they think if they see my name? And now I’m wondering about keeping the clips and showing them because of the mistakes.” — Barbara Lang

Dear Barbara,

Jennifer Stevens here. Lori passed me your question. Here’s what I’d suggest…

Unless the editing mistakes in an article make you sound like a bumbling fool, I say you should still use it as a clip. I promise — an editor is not likely reading all the way through every clip you send. She just wants to see that you can write. And she can discern that from the first few paragraphs of the first clip she picks up.

The clips serve to give you credibility and show that you’re a professional. So as long as a piece is well-written (even if a fact is incorrect) you can still use it.

Now, in terms of recourse — there’s not much you can do. If a factual error has been introduced into your piece, you may want to alert the editor and offer the correction. (If you’re working with an online publication or a print publication that will archive your piece on its website, they can make the change to the posted article.)

You can, certainly, vow to never work with that particular editor again. But by doing so you may be closing a potentially lucrative door. That’s really up to you.
If the editor likes you and your work and offers to take additional stories from you — that is to say, you now have a working relationship with this editor — then I think you’re certainly within your rights to ask (politely) if you might see your pieces before they go to print.

Now, this won’t always be possible, given tight production schedules. But I think you could politely acknowledge that and say something like, “I know there’s invariably a time-crunch when an issue is going to bed, but if you have a minute to shoot me the final version of my story before you print it, I’d be happy to give it a once-over and get it right back to you.” You’re not guaranteed to see it, but there’s certainly a chance the editor would send it along.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Jennifer Stevens has spent the balance of the last decade gallivanting through Latin America and the Caribbean — to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, and beyond writing about the best locales for overseas travel, retirement, and investment. She is the former editor of International Living and is author of AWAI’s Ultimate Travel Writer’s Program]