GoNOMAD Is No Longer Publishing New Travel Stories

Below are our writers’ guidelines. GoNOMAD prides itself on providing excellent, entertaining, informative, and unique travel articles and research about destinations, activities, and experiences.

No glossy magazine fluff, no standard guidebook descriptions, no promotional hype; just honest, accurate, well-written and detailed articles and destination guides that speak to an educated, curious, and well-traveled audience.

TIP! Read the stories and our writer’s guidelines we have up on the website and format your story the same way. We like short paragraphs, subheads between every few paragraphs, and photos with detailed captions.

Search your idea or destination on our site, see if we’ve already covered it. You might be able to bring a new perspective or find something that wasn’t covered that’s interesting.

Here is a recent interview about what we publish and tips on getting your story on our website.

GoNOMAD is always looking for talented, dedicated travel writers, photographers, and researchers to join our team.

We are NOT LOOKING for guest posts. We aren’t interested in short ‘listicle’ articles.  Contact us if you are looking for a way to promote your blog, website, or travel business.

Use these as examples of how to write for GoNOMAD.

Our Ten Best Stories of 2023

Our Ten Best Stories of 2022

Our Ten Best Stories of 2021

Our Ten Best Stories of 2020

Our Ten Best Stories of 2019

Our Ten Best Stories of 2018

We welcome queries and articles from professional travel writers and travelers with a strong writing style and something unique to share with our audience. We prefer articles that are high quality, informative, and provide useful guidance for a future traveler.

TIP! If you have a website, add a link to GoNOMAD’s writers guidelines or to a story on GoNOMAD that you like. If you query us and show us a link you’ve put up, we’ll move you to the top of the list.

And the list is long, so bear with us if it takes a while to see your story published.

We also encourage you to be creative: send us a photo gallery and travelogue about an exciting trip; shoot a short video that we can place next to your story, and develop a new theme about our kind of travel. We also use audio clips, and podcast-style commentary to go with the story.

We’re open to ideas and can work with you to create a great-looking feature story. We can also include your email so that readers can contact you with their feedback, and are happy to include links to personal websites and mention any books or publications you’ve written for.

TIP! Subscribe to GoNOMAD’s monthly newsletter to keep up with what we’re publishing and so you’ll know what we’re all about.

Please read these Writers’ Guidelines carefully before submitting stories to us. If you have any further questions, please e-mail the editor.

PLEASE DO NOT CALL WITH QUESTIONS. Really.

GoNOMAD CURRENTLY ACCEPTS FREELANCE ARTICLES FOR OUR FEATURES DEPARTMENTS

FEATURE ARTICLES

Feature articles must cover a unique aspect of the cultural or natural environments of our featured destinations. We want up-to-date destination guides about fascinating places. Start with where you live…if you can write a good guide to your neck of the woods, that is the perfect start. Read the site, pick up the style in which we present our ideas, and follow suit.

Details are important.

TIP! Specifics are very important. Don’t generalize, give us the names, addresses phone numbers, prices, and websites. Give us the details we’ll need if we want to go there.

Want to Get Published Even Faster?

We are looking for interesting new features about the following destinations. Think of a more narrow approach with a feature or an aspect of visiting these places that is new and different. We like railroad stories and other transport modes, we like to feature new technology that’s changing travel. We like keeping up with new infrastructure projects like the giant tunnels being drilled around the world and the marvelous new transit systems coming online.

Europe:  Barcelona, Normandy and Brittany France, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man,  Belarus, Albania, Belgium, Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, Slovakia.

United States: We need stories about Mammoth Lakes, Joshua Tree, Sequoia and other National Parks, Texas, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kansas, Indiana, and Washington DC.

Caribbean , Grenada, Haiti

Africa Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Benin, Angola, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tunisia, Senegal, Algeria, Egypt.

Asia  Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Papua New Guinea, North Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Armenia

Australia, Tasmania, other cities, Perth, Adelaide.

Middle East: Oman, Qatar, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Emirates

Women’s travel, Family Travel, Bike touring

Festivals and Happenings around the world with destination information too. New travel trends, very unique hotels.

Someplace we’ve never heard of, that you have discovered!

Stories should be anywhere from 1700 to 2200 words long. Try to stay focused on the main theme, but don’t hesitate to include interesting asides. The only limitation should be the reader’s interest. It’s better not to lump a bunch of destinations into one story, instead, give us details of one place.

Specifically, we are accepting queries and articles that fit within the following departments:

• Journeys
  A first-person account of a unique journey
• Destination guides to your favorite region/city.

• Go Local
  Know of a way to get close to the local culture or environment of a destination? Tell us about learning, volunteer or other alternative travel opportunities that engage you with the local culture. With sidebar contact.
• Destinations
  Tell us about a specific destination, including travel details sidebar (lodgings, getting there, tours or activities, restaurants, markets, arts, health, and safety, etc.) Follow the format of some of the articles on the site, and features about great travel experiences.
• We are not as interested in long descriptions of your trip, but of a highlighted event, place or lodging that would really make some else’s trip better had they known about it.·
• All sidebars must include names of businesses mentioned in the article along with contact information, prices, availability, and amenities. Please include as many relevant websites as possible.
• Museums. We like shorter stories that comprehensively share a museum experience, with good details, and good photos.
• Hotels. We love hotels, and especially details about hotels, and destination context….why go there? What did you love about it? Tell us more details about the property. Meet the manager.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES

Queries

For features, send the complete story with a one-page or shorter email describing the proposed article, dates of trip, writer’s background and/or writing experience, which department the article is for, date of delivery, and whether or not the article has been published elsewhere. Don’t send us a query that is too long.

Please send us the MSWord file, lots of photos, detailed photo captions, a headshot of yourself and a one-sentence bio to accompany your story. You can also paste the text of your story in the email.

Please send us the MSWord file or Google doc, lots of photos, detailed photo captions, a headshot of yourself, and a one-sentence bio to accompany your story. You can also paste the text of your story in the email.

Tell us about your publications credits, and indicate the availability and format of photographs. Queries are accepted by e-mail, fax or mail. NO PHONE CALLS. Queries must include your name, address, phone, and e-mail. Response time for queries is 2-3 weeks. But very often you might hear from our editor that day!

Unsolicited Articles

GoNOMAD.com accepts unsolicited feature article submissions, but read our guidelines carefully! Please submit documents as MSWord or text-only attachments with your name, address, phone/email, and word count.

Include a cover letter describing the enclosed article, which department the article is for, when your trip took place, how the information was researched, your background and/or writing experience, and whether or not the article has been published elsewhere.

Photographs are Very Important

Include photos with your submission. If requested, photographs should be sent via e-mail, if possible, in.jpeg or.gif formats. But DO NOT SEND US HUGE FILES, send low res versions of your images. Don’t submit a story without photos, they are essential.

We prefer to have the photos submitted in the form of a link to an online photo gallery, try Google photo albums, that’s a preferred method of sending the photos. Put in captions and include your headshot in the album. We can also accept Dropbox but we need to have the captions included with the photos.

TIP! Make the file names of the images the subjects of the photos NOT just numbers and letters.

TIP! The reason we turn down many submissions from writers is that the photos are not compelling, or aren’t specific to the article. Photos of buildings are, frankly, boring, and too often writers don’t get close enough to the subjects and don’t shoot enough shots with people in them. Remember this when you submit!

BE SURE THAT YOU OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY PHOTOS YOU SUBMIT! GoNOMAD will not be liable for any copyright issues regarding the unauthorized use of photographs. It is up to you to make sure that we have permission to reprint any other person’s photos.

It is best to shoot your own photos and submit only these or obtain permission from tour operators and tourist boards so that any photos sent to us can be legally used on our site.

Please indicate the name of the photographers so that we can put photo credits next to all images.

All photographs must be clearly marked with the photographer’s name, names of subjects (if possible or applicable), and descriptions of people and places and activities in the photo. In some cases, photographs of people must have subjects’ permission for publication. Proof of permission may be required.

Include a  one-sentence bio of yourself with your submission, including where you’re from, your occupation and your passions.

Contact

Queries and submissions may be sent to us by email or mailed to:

Max Hartshorne, Editor
GoNOMAD
P.O. Box 4
9 Mountain Rd.
South Deerfield, MA 01373

RIGHTS

GoNOMAD purchases First Worldwide Electronic Rights. GoNOMAD retains the right to archive and reprint all articles and guides for four years after the initial publication. We will occasionally purchase reprint rights for material that has not appeared previously in another publication or website catering to our audience. Simultaneous submissions should be noted.

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