Natalie Compton is a travel reporter for the Washington Post. Originally from California, she has covered travel, food, and alcohol from every continent.
How did you get started traveling?
My dad did a lot of domestic travel for work (very George Clooney in Up in the Air) and my mom was always happy to tag along. From birth to after college, we went all over the place: Pensacola, Florida; Kansas City; Vegas; Hawaii; Aiken, South Carolina; and a couple times abroad to Hong Kong and Russia.
Between those business trips and spending my adolescence tied up in travel sports, I knew my way around a continental breakfast pretty early.
My mom also started working again when I went to junior high so we could take a big two-week vacation to Europe (almost) every summer. Those trips really expanded my world view; Europeans loved food! They had walkable cities! They took long vacations and napped in the afternoon!
It was such a privilege to have parents who made travel happen, and took us with them. Both types of travel planted a lifelong thirst and appreciation of my own. I started taking trips as soon as I had any money to go somewhere.
How did you get started writing?
Not from the womb, but very early. I have memories of writing for fun (journals, letters, short stories) from childhood. It was what teachers told me I was good at. I took every writing and journalism class I could through high school. Then I pivoted to law, too worried that a degree in English or journalism wasn’t marketable. Then I pivoted again, (law looked … not for me) and pivoted to a general communications degree.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
My first job out of college was in public relations for a firm that represented hotels and restaurants. That taught me how to find editors’ email addresses, and figure out what they were interested in covering. Once I started trying to write freelance, I used those skills to pitch editors my own assignments. I landed a few early stories that way, but my first big break was sending a story idea to “info@vice.com.” Someone miraculously replied. With a no. I sent back a handful of other ideas and they accepted one. That ignited a years-long relationship with the publication.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
Staying calm during the trip. It’s easy to get whipped up into the frenzy of traveling and chasing a story — both can feel completely out of your control sometimes. But I’m more likely to self-sabotage in the pursuit of perfection than to be overcome by any actual obstacles. I can hyper-fixate on “have I talked to enough people? Is this story actually interesting? Did I see enough?” and doubt myself in the moment, which leads to other mistakes because I’m in a toxic mood. But if you hang on, stay calm, and do your best, you can always work it out in post.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
Time. Or accepting that there’s not enough time to make every story your best work. We have all of the information in the universe available on our devices. There is always more you can learn for a story, more research you could have done before a trip. But there’s not enough time to do it all justice. I have a boss, he has a boss, they expect me to turn in a story or two a week. You have to let go of the idea that your story will be the definitive piece on a certain topic, place. As they say, don’t let perfect be the enemy of done.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
I’m lucky to have one of the few staff jobs in travel media. It feels like being a polar bear in a climate change documentary. We’ll see if newspapers can keep adapting to survive in this economy. For now, I’m trying to stay relevant, keep learning, keep practicing, keep working hard and hoping it works out.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
In my earliest freelance days, I was still working a corporate job (doing public relations for a hotel startup in Bangkok), then later, when I moved back to Los Angeles, I worked at a restaurant while I got my freelance life started stateside.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
I’m obsessed with The Atlantic’s recent travel coverage, like Caity Weaver’s dispatch from Paris and Gary Shteyngart’s ride on the world’s biggest cruise ship. Almost everything David Sedaris writes ties back to travel, and his Me Talk Pretty One Day captures the awkwardness of being a foreigner abroad so well.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
You can write whatever you want, but you have to remember the reader if you want anyone to appreciate it. Make it worth their time!
Otherwise: keep reading! Keep writing! More people say they want to be writers than actually do the writing. Just start and don’t let up.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
Having an excuse to be curious. I love having a “reason” to be in a new place. It gives me courage to try new things, get access to forbidden places, ask outlandish questions. It’s like getting a cheat code to living a more interesting life.