Ketti Wilhelm writes the sustainable travel blog TiltedMap.com, which helps people minimize their environmental footprint, support locals with their travel budget, and live more sustainably at home. (She’s a former freelance journalist who decided to go even more rogue and publish independently.) Ketti has a Master’s Degree in Sustainable Business and Energy, and has lived in China, Italy, France and Spain. She’s currently based in Boston.
How did you get started traveling?
The earliest memories I have of wanting something are of wanting to travel. Even though North American road trips were the extent of our family’s travel when I was a kid, I would sit at the kitchen table, spin my parents’ globe, stop it with my finger and announce, “Mom, I’m going to go to Mozambique!” Or wherever.
During college, I spent two summers backpacking around Central America, then a semester studying political science in Spain, and when I graduated, I took a job in China – just as excuse to go see more.
I think I was addicted to being outside my comfort zone.
How did you get started writing?
I grew up in a family of readers, but I have no idea where the writing part came from. I think I’ve always loved logic, and finding ways to express ideas really clearly. (Clearly enough to win whatever argument I was in, if I’m being honest.)
I also had an excellent English teacher in high school. He told me I was a great writer but was capable of doing better – so he gave me the only B of my overachieving high school career. A couple of years later I was majoring in journalism.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
Moving to China after college. Ostensibly, it was for a job teaching English at a university, but in reality as an excuse to do anything but work at a small town newspaper, as most of my journalism school classmates were doing. Not that there’s anything wrong with newspapers, but I had been-there-done-that, and truly the only thing I wanted to was to move abroad again, by any means necessary.
That move was the beginning of my break. That’s where I started blogging (before I knew what SEO meant, or how to find out how many people were reading my posts) and it’s where I started pitching freelance travel pieces to magazines.
For the latter, living in China gave me an edge on account of having something unique to bring to the table. I was able to get a few decent commissions writing about tattoo culture, train travel, and coffee culture in China. Then an editor asked me – I still remember exactly how he phrased it – if I would be interested in being his “China correspondent.”
The offer ended up fizzling out, as I soon left the country and moved into a van in New Zealand, but that was the moment when I realized I could actually do this.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
This is probably more of a business challenge, but it’s knowing when to quit. I’ve always just loved diving into research, and interviewing people, and getting lost on tangents of a story or a topic. But I don’t always have time for that anymore. I’m still trying to train myself to be more selective, and realize I can walk away when I have the story, instead of going into a truly excessive level of detail.
(I call it a business challenge because efficiency is a necessary evil to earn a decent living at this craft.)
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
Sitting down to do the work.
I am terrifically skilled at finding other things to do – even other things that are still part of my business – but writing is the only thing that actually drives the work forward.
That might be the hardest part about not selling my writing to someone else. Even though I love having many and varied tasks, they tend to create distraction and excuses. Since my job isn’t limited to the writing, I can always do tasks that are less important and still call them “work.” (Marketing, social media, brand outreach, tweaking my media kit, accounting, trip research, SEO research, photography, photo editing, email marketing…)
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
When I realized that I didn’t actually want to be a freelance writer – rather I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and run more than just the content side of my creative business – that’s when everything changed for me. I enjoy it so much more now that it’s such a multifaceted job.
But my biggest business challenge right now is knowing when to hire help, and finding the right people. I’m at a point where I don’t have time to do all of the projects that I could be charging for, or write all the articles I have ideas for, but I can’t quite afford to hire someone who could take big, important tasks off my plate.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
Ha – when have I not done other work? I’ve been a barista, a horrifically under-qualified college English teacher in China, a travel guide in Nicaragua and Guadeloupe, a translator in Italy, and a marketer in France (probably my only real desk job).
I’ve taken every single one of those jobs, first and foremost, to be able to travel to where the job was. And I still maintain a couple of clients, who I do marketing and copywriting work for. It’s a nice cushion.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
Some of my biggest travel writing influences aren’t even technically travel writers.
Michael Pollan is one of my favorites. Everything he writes about food feels like a journey. Same goes for Sara Roahen, who wrote Gumbo Tales about New Orleans cuisine.
I, Rigoberta Menchú (by Rigoberta Menchú) isn’t a travel book, but it is one of the most transporting books I’ve ever read, immersing you in Guatemala’s recent civil war.
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong is about politics and culture, but it makes you feel like you really understand the country.
In terms of real travel writing, Rolf’s anthology Marco Polo Didn’t Go There has been a huge inspiration to me lately.
Abroad by Paul Fussell is an entertaining overview of decades of British travel writing. It also highlights the colonial perspective this profession was founded in, which makes it easier to notice when we fall into the same lazy habits as travel writers today. (By looking at places and cultures exclusively as products for consumption by the wealthy, for example.)
Tahir Shah is an absolute joy to read. The Caliph’s House made me want to move abroad yet again while I read it – even though I was still living in Italy at the time.
And I adore Paul Theroux for the places he goes and the way he writes about politics and history when he’s there. But his writing also reminds me of what I want to avoid – writing in a way that’s long-winded, and occasionally pretentious. Even though I love his books, I don’t want my readers to need a dictionary as often as I do when I read them. I think there are more effective ways to be interesting than by being complex.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
If you’re serious about it? Quit your day job.
If you don’t quit, you might never have that fire that you’ll need to work through the constant neglect of your pitches, the overwhelming tech troubles and underwhelming page views of starting your own blog, and those first, un-livable paychecks for your words either way.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
How can I possibly answer this without sounding trite? Everything.
I get to enjoy my life and be excited to do my work. I get to learn from people all over the world. I get to travel however I want – with my husband, with friends, or by myself, sleeping in luxury resorts, hostels, tents, or my converted Chevy van. And I can always find a way to make it into a paying project.
Beyond that, I get to help people, and influence them to actually travel more sustainably.
Every time I read a comment from a reader who took the train instead of a domestic flight, loved a plastic-free product I reviewed, or stayed at a locally-owned hotel instead of a Hilton because of something I wrote, I feel immensely accomplished.
I can’t imagine loving any other job as much.
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