Bart Schaneman is an editor at The Daily by Outdoor Retailer, focused on business news for the outdoors industry. He also covers the Colorado literary scene for the Boulder Weekly. Prior to that he was on the cannabis beat for MJBizDaily, the editor in chief of the Scottsbluff Star-Herald as well as national editor of the Korea JoongAng Daily. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, his work has also appeared in The Literary Review, Washington Post, Catapult and The Week, among others. He lives in Johnstown, Colorado.
How did you get started traveling?
I’ve always been a reader, and when I started reading novels about real people going to far away places, I wanted to live that way as well. Much like you, Rolf, my life as a traveler truly began when I first taught English in South Korea, where I ended up living for five years. That opened up the entire continent of Asia to me, and I saw as much of it as I could while I was there. My wife is from the Seoul area, so we still get back there fairly often, and I try to fit in a trip to another country when I can. We were on Phu Quoc, in Vietnam, for example, for a week last year as part of our trip to Korea.
How did you get started as a writer?
My career began at the University of Nebraska when I joined the school newspaper. I was studying English Literature and Psychology with the idea of one day writing novels in the back of my mind. Joining the staff of the Daily Nebraskan showed me that there were other people like me in the world who wanted to tell stories and write for a living.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
After I graduated from college I moved to North County San Diego with two of my friends. I started pitching the local alt-weekly newspapers to help with their arts and entertainment coverage. The first feature I landed was a story on the indie-rock band Death Cab For Cutie. At the same time, I was working in a retail shop on the Coast Highway, and a sales rep for the weekly newspaper in Del Mar came in trying to sell advertising. I asked if there were any reporting jobs at her paper. She said there was an opening, and I had the fresh clip from the alt-weekly so they hired me. That was how I started as a journalist and professional writer.
Twenty years and many gigs later, the job at the weekly in Del Mar was probably the best one I ever had. I only had to write a few stories a week, the office was a couple of blocks from the beach, and I could surf on my lunch break. If only it had paid well I might’ve stayed at it forever.
As a traveler and story gatherer/creator, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
When you’re always writing, there’s a tendency to experience everything as material, to be constantly evaluating the place and thinking about how you’ll write about it or photograph it. That can take you out of the moment and spoil the enjoyment of just being there. Of course, it’s important to document and capture what you’re doing and seeing so you can preserve it and keep it with you, but sometimes it’s best to put down the pen or camera or phone and look around and breathe it in.
What is your biggest challenge in the research, writing, and editing process?
As a freelance travel writer, I have difficulty with the pitching process, because I find it hard to explain to an editor what the story is going to be without having done the reporting. Pitching a story before the trip almost seems to ruin the experience of traveling. It can spoil the most joyous part, which is the discovery. And I’m not famous or well-connected enough to just ask an editor to send me somewhere and I’ll come back with the story. You can always pitch the story after you get back, but that means you’re risking spending your time and money on something they might not want. I guess this is the business side of it that we’re getting to in a minute.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I have a day job as a business journalist. That pays the bills, and I enjoy it.
What travel authors might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
I have always loved John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, for the simple premise of a man using a trip to reconnect to his home country. There are many writers who have written good books this way. I read Paul Theroux’s Fresh Air Fiend earlier this year and enjoyed how personal and vulnerable it was from one of our most prolific travel writers. Another book I love is Ian Frazier’s Great Plains, where the author visits the middle of the U.S., which on the surface isn’t a very romantic region. Frazier writes beautifully about the land and the people there.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
There are a lot of different ways to define travel writing, and the approach and definition continues to evolve. A hundred years ago someone like Jack London could make a living just by going to places on the other side of the world from his home country and writing about them. Most people couldn’t travel that far, and there was no other way to access current information about these places aside from the reports of adventurers and journalists. Now you can find Instagram accounts with pictures from most countries around the world. The internet gives us access to the entire globe. That’s shifted the thinking about parachute journalism and about travel writing as a whole. For example, if you look at the pitch guidance for the “By The Way” section in the Washington Post, they don’t want you to pitch stories about places far from home. They want local expertise. I like that shift.
Exploring places that aren’t traditionally featured in magazines or books can help set yourself apart and carve out a niche. My fellow Nebraskan Carson Vaughn has made a name for himself by writing about the middle of the country. His work shows he’s curious about places he hasn’t been in his region, but that he also understands the flora and fauna in a way that gives his writing authority and heft. I would suggest trying to strike a similar balance. Instead of thinking about going to some far off place and writing about it, try thinking about what someone who was visiting where you live should do and experience. It’s less romantic, maybe, but you’ll probably have a better chance of landing the pitch.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
You get to live out your curiosity, and it pushes you to explore. The world is an endlessly fascinating place. As the old saying goes, you get your first education in school, and your second education out in the world.
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