Zoey Goto is a journalist and author covering culture and travel, all things Americana, vintage style, musical icons and mid-century pop culture. She is the US travel specialist for The Times and a regular contributor to National Geographic Traveller, plus writes for titles including BBC Travel, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Wallpaper, Lonely Planet, Vogue, Architectural Digest, AFAR and many of the UK’s newspapers. She’s written cover stories for National Geographic Traveller, Nat Geo Food, Times Travel and GQ. Over the course of her writing career, Zoey has camped out in Elvis’ teenage bedroom, slept in Dolly Parton’s dinky pink bed on her tour bus, and interviewed Priscilla Presley on life at Graceland.
How did you get start travel writing?
It all started with Elvis Presley. I became an overnight Elvis fan twenty-odd years ago and travelled to Memphis to write my university dissertation on his Graceland home. Arriving in Tennessee from Britain – and this was my first trip outside of Europe – felt like I’d finally found my spiritual home. This led to me writing a book on Elvis and becoming a US travel specialist. It all happened very organically, there was never a grand plan to be a travel writer, but I found writing and travelling through an obsession with Americana culture, in its many guises.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
I received an email out of the blue from an editor asking me to cover a story. I’d had some bits published beforehand but this was the moment when things picked up and I started to think of freelance writing as a viable career.
Most writers seem to have a series of breakthrough moments dotted throughout their careers – that email or chance meeting that in hindsight became a game-changer. I still remember an email pinging into my inbox from National Geographic Traveller about four years ago asking me to some pitch ideas. I danced around the kitchen with joy! Things became less of an uphill struggle from that point.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
There’s sometimes a wariness about speaking to journalists, so gaining people’s trust is something that I’m sensitive to. I think having a website of work to show that you’re legitimate, combined with a gentle approach helps things.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
I write at a snail’s pace. I’ve given up on finding hacks to speed up the research and writing process – creative work just requires time and there’s no real shortcut. My solution is just to put the hours in, work long days and sometimes open my laptop up again in the evening when my kids are asleep if the deadlines are looming.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
Negotiating with tourist boards can present a challenge. Sometimes it’s a breeze organizing a trip but there can also be an unspoken tussle between getting the story that your readers will find genuinely interesting, and the expectations of an organization that’s funded the trip regarding what the end result should be.
These days, I often try and travel independently as much as possible, using air miles for flights and writing a prolific amount of articles to keep in profit. The question of how travel writers maintain integrity in their work, how they can be a trusted voice to the readers and find unique stories, while also figuring out the behind-the-scenes logistics of how to fund these trips, doesn’t get aired too much in the industry but it’s ever present.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I’ve been a freelance writer for twelve years now, and for many of these I supplemented journalist reporting with advertorial articles and copywriting. Recently though, I’ve pretty much phased out all the commercial work and just write straight editorial features for magazines, newspapers and websites. I keep the show on the road financially by making every trip count. For example, I’m visiting California next week and have 13 assignments in the bag. Some are travel related but there are also some design and interview stories thrown into the mix. In full transparency, however, it should be pointed out I am often teetering on the edge of exhaustion! But while the hustle can sometimes feel intense, I do still get a kick out making writing work as a full-time career.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
I always enjoy reading articles by Stanley Stewart and Imogen Lepere, both of whom have a lovely poetic quality. I recently read Sara Wheeler’s book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, which is a masterclass in metaphor. And if I feel that I need to loosen up my writing style a bit, I’ll dip into Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, to sharpen my focus on the rhythm of the words.
I try to read widely outside of travel literature, particularly great feature writing from the archives such as vintage GQ and Esquire articles. I’ll spend hours decoding these features, thinking about how the writer used structure to keep the reader’s interest, the length of sentences, pace, how quotes were used and what the bigger themes that it taps into are. It means I’m always learning but, on the flip-side, reading now rarely feels relaxing. I’ve just started reading Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain, the debut book from Aniefiok Ekpoudom. His prose is fresh and inspiring.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
I think it’s helpful to think about the knowledge or qualities that you personally bring to the table, that may be lacking at the staff desk of a publication. You may, for example, know a particular region really well, having spent childhood holidays there and have witnessed a recent transformation with your own eyes. Or perhaps you once studied what initially seems like an unrelated subject, that actually allows you to look at a destination through a very specific lens. Use this as your calling card when you pitch stories to editors.
Also try to think about a destination in terms of the sections in a magazine or newspaper and pitch beyond just the travel pages. A solid feature writer can turn their hand to most subjects, so being versatile and wide ranging is the key to making a serious career out of freelance writing. A long-form interview feature every few months can really help to keep the wolf from the door financially!
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
I’m aware that being welcomed into people’s homes to see a snapshot of their lives and be trusted to tell their stories, is a real privilege. For the curious, it’s an endlessly rewarding job.
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