Writer’s Guidelines for Real Food Traveler
We pride ourselves on providing well-written, insightful, and entertaining food and travel articles, profiles, and reviews for people interested in authentic travel and regional and artisan foods that represent their area. If you’re interested in writing for us, here are our Writer’s Guidelines to give you a better idea about the experience and process.
Want to write for Real Food Traveler?
What do we mean by authentic travel? We feature stories about the things that make a region unique, wherever it is in the world – whether it’s nature, architecture, history, festivals, museums, or interesting activities or people, our pieces authentically represent an area.
What about regional and artisan food? Our readers love great food and our mission is to celebrate terrific foods of different places worldwide. It might be a story about street foods like bugs in Cambodia or “oil down” in Grenada. Or it may be about the traditions of “going running for gumbo” in New Orleans, or the three best places to stay in Portland, Maine. The key is it’s got to be about great food that really represents the area you’re writing about. And it’s got to have information (like addresses or contact information) readers can use.
We publish several different types of food stories – destination pieces that talk about what to do and where to eat in an area, restaurant and eatery reviews, profiles of chefs and other interesting food people (e.g., farmers, cheesemakers), recipes, food tours and classes, and food festivals/events. We also review cookbooks and food-traveler books.
What about photos? You’ll see from our site that we’re all about photos. After all, we eat with our eyes first. Stories should be accompanied by great photos that make readers want to lick their computer screens! If your story doesn’t have photographs, it’s unlikely we’ll be interested.
How long should articles be? Stories can be short or long, depending on what it takes to tell the story. Generally speaking though, I aim for stories in the 1500-2000 word count with 3-4 photos.
And now, some nitty gritty writer’s guidelines for Real Food Traveler
What do you get out of writing for RealFoodTraveler? Good exposure, another clip, fair and respectful treatment and professional editing by our editors, and membership in our family of contributors, including a photo, bio, and links to your web or blog. You also retain all rights to your stories and photographs. We are open to working with new writers but will require writing samples and evidence of strong writing, grammar, punctuation, and attention to detail. Our writers often win awards through professional associations including SATW and NATJA.
Are we able to pay you what your work is worth? Unfortunately, no, not at this time. Running a website of our size and caliber is quite expensive. However, as realfoodtraveler.com’s fortunes rise, our intention is to pay our loyal contributors fairly.
What’s the best way to pitch a story? Simply email Courtney Drake-McDonough, the publisher and managing editor at Courtney@realfoodtraveler.com. You can send a story idea or a finished manuscript. Be sure to let us know about photo availability. (We require at least two high quality, horizontal/landscape photographs with each story for the homepage slideshow feature.)
