*The Portugal stories by 2024’s mentees are now published on Adventure.com.*
A couple of years ago, I took part in Intrepid Travel’s first Diversifying Travel Media (DTM) trip to Croatia alongside fellow mentors Lottie Gross, Shafik Meghji and Georgina Lawton. It was an enlightening week with mentees Chau-Jean Lin, Kira Richards, Sakhita Sharma and Queenie Shaikh—who impressed us with their questions, curiosity and ambition. When you bring together writers from different walks of life, you see first-hand how many perspectives come from one experience. It’s brilliant to see, it’s important to do, and that’s why we champion it here at Adventure.com.
The second DTM initiative, this time to northern Portugal’s lesser-visited Côa Valley, saw a new cohort of mentors and mentees Jessica Heather, JD Murphy, Toyo Odetunde and Liseli Thomas travel by train to Porto for a similar trip with new mentors; exploring the region, talking to conservationists, chefs and curators to find great stories, and taking part in travel writing workshops. On their return, I met the mentees to flesh out their ideas for Adventure.com.
It’s fair to say travel writing is a competitive, and sometimes closed, industry; some publications appear to take on few new writers, low pay in some quarters can make it unviable (for the record, anchor gigs, stable side hustles or other work are increasingly common), and getting a foot in the door can feel challenging. And these factors are often multiplied for writers from marginalized backgrounds; be that age, disability, race, religion, neurodivergence, sexuality, or anything else.
But there’s work out there and a career to be had—with support and legwork. And that legwork isn’t just for writers; it’s on publishers, publications and editors to open that door, improve pay, and understand that diversity equals variety equals sparkling stories…..