About Travelmag

Travelmag's fifteenth year of operation. Our early launch in 1994 seems a long time ago, and thanks to Redbone's fantastic web design, lately improved by some inspired tinkering by Boss Cat Web Design, we still think we look young. Most importantly, the new site is a lot less labour-intensive for the Travelmag's editor, Jack Barker (me).

Travelmag correspondents travel well beyond the guidebook routes, illuminating little-known corners of the globe and, occasionally, revealing a bit about themselves as well. We put up the features we find interesting, usually because they're good, but sometimes because they're outstandingly bad. Newspapers and print magazines won't tell the everyday tales of travel in the developing world, print individual takes on particular places or run stories that might upset the advertisers paying for space on the next page. We don't worry about any of these things. The travel writing here, unlike those filtered by more conventional media, reflects the huge variety of individual travel experiences.

As ever we're totally dependent on the excellent contributions that come in from readers and travellers worldwide. Sometimes our writers are experienced journalists who use the Travelmag to air their riskier features, about destinations or activities too esoteric for mainstream print publications. Others are starting out travel writing, learning the craft and looking for markets for their travel stories. Still more simply want to share their travel experiences with a wider audience.

Whatever your motives, if you're interested in submitting your own travel tales, check out our guidelines below.

Till then, take a surf around, look over other people's travels to see how they compare with your own, and add your thoughts through our new travel forums. Happy Travels!

The first question we’re usually asked is about payment, and sorry, the answer is no. We don’t pay contributors for their stories or photos. Nor, however, do we assume copyright, which stays with the author. Until recently Travelmag has not taken any rights to articles submitted to the site but this has caused sales to fail, as we try to negotiate between publishers on a deadline and correspondents on the road. For this reason contributions posted after September 15th 2009 will be taken as giving us the right to license the copy to third parties. We don't often get such requests but if we do we will charge as much as we possibly can and remit 50% to the copyright holder (ie author). It's not likely but if it happens payment will be by paypal.

You will still retain copyright and we will still whip your features down from the site if you make an independent sale and the buyer requires first publication rights.

Please confirm that you have read, understood and accepted these terms when submitting features to the Travelmag.

We like to see anything you’ve taken the trouble to write but value originality. If it reads like a brochure it's heading for the bin. We want to hear what you saw and what you felt, get a sense of place and a taste of drama. We like funny and we appreciate the aware. Don't try to cover a world tour in one article: focus in a single place, experience or theme and bring it to life.

Features can be sent over as attached files in word, rich text format, or notepad, or in the body of emails. Pictures always help liven up features, but please don’t send them embedded into word documents: they should be sent over as jpeg attachments, preferably low-rez. 

A good length for a Travelmag feature is 2,000 words. This doesn’t mean you should stretch shorter pieces – usually the little gems shine all the brighter for their brevity. We do publish some super-long epics, but – with a few exceptions - these would be improved by being broken up into individual features or boiled down dramatically.

Though we will correct simple typos we don’t, in general, edit features. The articles you read are the views and the viewpoints of the authors.

All clear? Fine. Write away. Please email contributions to ed@travelmag.co.uk, and - Thanks.

Jack Barker
1 Long Drove
Burbage
Nr Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 3AH
England