You can really get to know a person over a good drinking game.
Irina, for example, can’t for the life of her count past 22 after 3 rice beers. And Andrey… well, I’m not sure how many soju bombs he had, but he always clapped when he should have counted… and he counted when he should have clapped.
It’s Day 3 here in Seoul on our Ultimate Travel Writer’s Expedition, and you’d think we’re a bunch of college kids the way we’re laughing and carrying on in front of our hosts. “Koreans use drinking games to encourage conversation,” they told us as they explained the rules of our next game. But some of us were laughing too hard to catch what was going on.
I love these trips because you really get to know people. And you get to know our experts, too.
They’re not the type to think they’re better than you… smarter than you… more privileged than you. Quite the opposite. They’re all quite humble and eager to share with you what they know.
And when it comes to soju bombs and rice beer, Travel Editor Kyle Wagner was right there with us. Laughing, telling stories, taking notes for future articles that might come out of our fun night out and, quite honestly, just being herself which makes us feel like the privileged ones.
And this is probably why so many people travel with us again and again. They like traveling with a purpose. But they also like traveling with like-minded people – people they enjoy being around. And it’s great to be on a first-name basis with experts like Kyle who genuinely care whether or not we succeed.
Here’s another tip I picked up from Kyle in the back of the room…
www.w3newspapers.com/usa/magazines — is a complete list of magazines in the US. Go there when you’re looking for editors to buy your stories. And don’t just focus on the travel magazines. All sorts of non-travel magazines publish articles about travel and you’ll likely find that pitching to non-travel publications means there’s less competition.
If you don’t know how this is done, join us at our annual Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop this year and we’ll walk you through it. You can find more details about how to sign-up on our Workshop page, here.
[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. Sign up today here and we’ll send you a report, Get Paid to Travel as a Travel Writer, completely FREE.]