Being a travel guidebook writer, many will tell you (especially if you are a guidebook writer) is the ultimate combination of free travel and creative writing.

But is life as a guidebook writer as peachy as it sounds? Or is it just one more of those jobs that sounds superb in spirit but is, like so many professions, plain hard work when it comes down to it?

Travel writers will invariably tell you that on-the-road research isn't as much fun as it sounds: that it ain't all fast cars and loose women.

Fast food and loose bowels are more likely if researching an off-the-beaten-track destination.

And sheer, stone-dead boredom is the other possibility if you're travelling through, say, Finland.

But when the alternative to this kind of roaming lifestyle could be being deskbound for 50 hours a week, thumping the footpath for a guidebook publisher day-in day-out could just be a promising alternative.

Don't think this gig is a walk in the park, though. A typical day for the average researcher can be decidedly gruelling.

Both Rough Guides and Lonely Planet have useful info on their sites about what you need to do to join their army of researchers.

Lonely Planet advocate taking a long look at what they already do before submitting anything.

Rough Guides are always on the lookout for new researchers, and keen to take on board curious travellers capable of digging out even the most arcane information for their readers.

The larger publishers receive hundreds of unsolicited proposals and writing samples each day. Getting past the first point of entry, where most correspondence is either binned or returned to sender, is the hardest bit of this search for the dream job.

If you're interested in becoming a travel journalist, the Times, Guardian, Independent and Daily Telegraph all have impressive travel sections.

The top tip on becoming even a travel hack, let alone a highly sought-after freelancer with papers sending you on regular jaunts to the south of France to review five-star hotels, is: do your research into the types of stories they publish.

But the best advice about launching a travel writing career is simply start small: write for a small magazine, local newspaper or student newspaper – freebies are always keen to try out rookie writers.

Guidebook publishers love to see relevant experience and clippings that attest to your ability to research and write. And smaller magazines and local newspapers are often lacking in travel content.

All this advice is straightforward and common sense, but publishers have said again and again: the people who think travel writing is a doddle are often the least straightforward and have the least common sense.

— Clay Lucas 16.10.00

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