Showing posts with label travel writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel writing. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Where do travel writers fit in?
Tourism Industry Update
where do travel writers fit in?
This is the subject of the talk in Wellington by Ann-Marie Johnson, PR with the Tourism Industry Assocation. Ann-Marie, longtime member of the Travel Communicators’ Association, was a major organiser of the mammoth Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand (TRENZ) event in Queenstown in late May. TRENZ brings together around 270 New Zealand tourism operators and a similar number of international travel and tourism buyers so it is an incredible organisational challenge. Ann-Marie will suggest how tourism and writers can help each other.
Time: 6pm on Monday, 27 June.
Place: Museum Hotel, 90 Cable Street (near Te Papa). Street parking available.
Meeting place: The bar on the third floor of the hotel for socialising and drinks/nibbles. Presentation starts in Agostini Room (4th floor) about 6.30pm.
Cost: Travcom members $10; non-members $15.
Register with and send cheque to: Helen Davies, Travcom administrator, at 2B Pukehana Avenue, Epsom, Auckland 1023. Ph: 09 624 5707 or email: helen.davies@clear.net.nz if you’d like to use internet banking or have any queries. Register by Thursday 23 June.
The event has been organised by the Wellington branch of the Travel Communicators’ Association.
Further info: Sarah Bennett (sarah@bennettandslater.co.nz); Judith Doyle (judith.doyle@clear.net.nz) and Heather Hapeta (heatherhapeta@orcon.net.nz)
where do travel writers fit in?
This is the subject of the talk in Wellington by Ann-Marie Johnson, PR with the Tourism Industry Assocation. Ann-Marie, longtime member of the Travel Communicators’ Association, was a major organiser of the mammoth Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand (TRENZ) event in Queenstown in late May. TRENZ brings together around 270 New Zealand tourism operators and a similar number of international travel and tourism buyers so it is an incredible organisational challenge. Ann-Marie will suggest how tourism and writers can help each other.
Time: 6pm on Monday, 27 June.
Place: Museum Hotel, 90 Cable Street (near Te Papa). Street parking available.
Meeting place: The bar on the third floor of the hotel for socialising and drinks/nibbles. Presentation starts in Agostini Room (4th floor) about 6.30pm.
Cost: Travcom members $10; non-members $15.
Register with and send cheque to: Helen Davies, Travcom administrator, at 2B Pukehana Avenue, Epsom, Auckland 1023. Ph: 09 624 5707 or email: helen.davies@clear.net.nz if you’d like to use internet banking or have any queries. Register by Thursday 23 June.
The event has been organised by the Wellington branch of the Travel Communicators’ Association.
Further info: Sarah Bennett (sarah@bennettandslater.co.nz); Judith Doyle (judith.doyle@clear.net.nz) and Heather Hapeta (heatherhapeta@orcon.net.nz)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Culture shock when you return home
The holidays are over. You have returned home and now reality bites. Post travel distress is about to attack.
The symptoms are vague but disabling. People you thought were friends don’t ask how the holiday went, or if they do they don’t want to stop and listen to your hour long discourse on the rooms with a view, the wonderful (or terrible) food you ate, the funny train you travelled or the boat you fell from. About the only thing that whets their appetite is talk of a fabulous French lover.
The memories start to fade with the suntan, work acts as though nothing has changed despite your new skills you have added to your CV while teaching English in Tibet, waited tables in Athens or negotiated your way through the London A to Z and learnt how to use the subway system. read more on "my other blog"
The symptoms are vague but disabling. People you thought were friends don’t ask how the holiday went, or if they do they don’t want to stop and listen to your hour long discourse on the rooms with a view, the wonderful (or terrible) food you ate, the funny train you travelled or the boat you fell from. About the only thing that whets their appetite is talk of a fabulous French lover.
The memories start to fade with the suntan, work acts as though nothing has changed despite your new skills you have added to your CV while teaching English in Tibet, waited tables in Athens or negotiated your way through the London A to Z and learnt how to use the subway system. read more on "my other blog"
Monday, April 19, 2010
How to run away from home
‘how to run away from home and reinvent yourself’
- Start as a child with a love of reading. I was the hero between the covers of every book I read.
- Add, listening to far away, static-crackling voices in languages I didn’t understand on my brother’s crystal radio, and dream of exploring those lives, and there you have it!
- Cover, and leave that bowl of imagination to infiltrate through life’s ups and downs, keep reading, keep dreaming until life and circumstances add more ingredients.
My extra ingredients included: the deaths of a 20-year old son, and my husband, recovery from alcoholism, and too many birthdays. In my late forties, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Perhaps I could play catch-up with the traditional Kiwi penchant for travel. That germ of an idea, like all living things, divides and multiplies as it sits on the bench of my mind.
I put a sign on my notice board, ‘AGING DISGRACEFULLY’. A list forms, Italy ; Scotland ; Ireland ; Alaska ; Zimbabwe , Turkey
Now, choose more ingredients so you too can reinvent yourself – my choices were:
Travel solo
Travel solo
Travel for a year
Make no plans or bookings
Enjoy yourself so much that you cry when you get home in 12-months – you know there is so much more you want to see and do.
Then add:
Two years hard work and saving
Take a short writing course
Have an article about canoeing down the Zambesi published
Sell more travel stories; add the dollars to the travel fund
Buy another international airline ticket
Travel for a year in different countries
Don’t cry as you arrive home; you now know it’s possible to do it again
Publish a book about your travels
Repeat the above as many times as you want to travel; keep writing every day; keep publishing travel stories; accept invitations to visit countries; teach others how to write great travel stories; keep adding to list of dream destinations, and ensure AGING DISGRACEFULLY is on notice board as my (your) constant goal.
This recipe is never finished yet you can cook it, eat it, and share it daily.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Get paid to travel? Really? Yes!
They pay you to do what?Fiji
by Heather Hapeta, the kiwitravelwriter
And, of course, you will use the same skills for creating a setting in a novel or short story, and to greatly improve your blogs, letters, and emails.
Early bird discount of $500 for participants who pay by 30th April (for this course only)
More details here http://kiwitravelwriter.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/kiwitravelwriter-in-fiji/
Phone Heather Hapeta +64 3 353 4677 or email her - heather.hapeta@clear.net.nz
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Emotional danger of travel
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Once again I see the dangers of travel. Not the rare physical danger of airline or vehicle crashes; not the occasional danger of being robbed or becoming sick, but the every-day common danger of your heart getting to know people and places. People we would not usually met. Each week, hearing of train accidents, deaths in the Middle East, and riots in India, bombs, wars, earthquakes, or floods I am very conscious of that emotional danger.
Geography was of more interest than history at school. One could have a stab at answering questions if I knew a couple of other facts. Distance from the equator could give clues to temperatures and climate. Mountains, plains, rivers all added up to some understanding of a place that dates and historical facts didn’t - well for me as a teenager.
Now travel has given me a different perspective. Geography remains important, history helps with understanding people and the two, combined with travel experience, gives me a sense of, not exactly ownership or belonging, but something rather like kinship, I’m attached - I leave a bit of me in every place, and take some of the place away with me
To me this feeling of human-oneness is particularly acute at times of high emotions; small countries achieve a goal; overcome an obstacle; a national team wins; and in particular, really acute in times of national pain.
My first real experience of this came after I’d been to Ireland when shortly afterwards ‘the troubles’ began again. I was devastated that the wonderful little city of Londonderry (or Derry, depending on the map consulted) was yet again the centre of violence. Streets I’d walked down were now dangerous. That people I had maybe spoken to or walked past were now dead or injured had me crying in front of the TV or newspaper.
Turkey and Greece had earthquakes, people in Israel and Palestine killing each other, years ago London had rubbish bins removed from the street for fear of terrorism, New York and the New Yorkers I love were devastated and traumatised, monsoon floods happen in Asia, and in Egypt, fabulous country and generous people, is grief stricken with deaths from buildings collapsing, and Indian pilgrims die during a festival.
What ever the cause, I think of the diverse people whom I have come to know, love, judge and compare and empathise with their pain. Yet what can we do to ease that pain? Nothing. The one thing that would help - having loved ones live again - is way beyond anything we can do.
However maybe travel-writing that gives the texture, flavour and smells of a place helps bridge that gap between us and them. After all scenery and monuments are the same on everyone’s photos. It’s our experiences that provide the difference.
Travelling, or reading about travelling, help us realise people are not like those presented in the headlines of our papers or in the sound-bites of radio or television. Young or old, male, female, Christian, Pagan, Muslin, or freethinker as a Japanese friend describes herself, we’re all part of the human family and when a family member is in pain we feel it.
Geography was of more interest than history at school. One could have a stab at answering questions if I knew a couple of other facts. Distance from the equator could give clues to temperatures and climate. Mountains, plains, rivers all added up to some understanding of a place that dates and historical facts didn’t - well for me as a teenager.
Now travel has given me a different perspective. Geography remains important, history helps with understanding people and the two, combined with travel experience, gives me a sense of, not exactly ownership or belonging, but something rather like kinship, I’m attached - I leave a bit of me in every place, and take some of the place away with me
To me this feeling of human-oneness is particularly acute at times of high emotions; small countries achieve a goal; overcome an obstacle; a national team wins; and in particular, really acute in times of national pain.
My first real experience of this came after I’d been to Ireland when shortly afterwards ‘the troubles’ began again. I was devastated that the wonderful little city of Londonderry (or Derry, depending on the map consulted) was yet again the centre of violence. Streets I’d walked down were now dangerous. That people I had maybe spoken to or walked past were now dead or injured had me crying in front of the TV or newspaper.
Turkey and Greece had earthquakes, people in Israel and Palestine killing each other, years ago London had rubbish bins removed from the street for fear of terrorism, New York and the New Yorkers I love were devastated and traumatised, monsoon floods happen in Asia, and in Egypt, fabulous country and generous people, is grief stricken with deaths from buildings collapsing, and Indian pilgrims die during a festival.
What ever the cause, I think of the diverse people whom I have come to know, love, judge and compare and empathise with their pain. Yet what can we do to ease that pain? Nothing. The one thing that would help - having loved ones live again - is way beyond anything we can do.
However maybe travel-writing that gives the texture, flavour and smells of a place helps bridge that gap between us and them. After all scenery and monuments are the same on everyone’s photos. It’s our experiences that provide the difference.
Travelling, or reading about travelling, help us realise people are not like those presented in the headlines of our papers or in the sound-bites of radio or television. Young or old, male, female, Christian, Pagan, Muslin, or freethinker as a Japanese friend describes herself, we’re all part of the human family and when a family member is in pain we feel it.
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