Thread: Travel Writing Course in Panama City: Sept 20-24

VIVA Travel Guides (V!VA Travel Guides - Unbiased reviews and advice written by travelers, for travelers) are running one of their Travel Guidebook Writing courses in Panama City in September, from 20th to 24th.



For more info see: V!VA Travel Guides



Students hit the ground running with assignments, learn how to write guidebooks and have their work critiqued by seasoned professionals. This is a great opportunity for aspiring writers to gain hands-on travel writing skills and experience and get paid.



Upon successful completion of the course, Boot Camp graduates have the opportunity to stay on assignment as field writers and be compensated. Works will be published in the upcoming guidebooks for each country.


The cost of the course is $350, or $250 for Panama residents. Writers who perform up to standard, and who stay on assignment and produce more than 200 reviews will have their course fee refunded in addition to normal compensation.


To apply visit: V!VA Travel Guides

Sorry, but this sounds like a total scam to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what you seek:

1. Students to pay you $250 or $350 for your so-called "travel writing course"
2. You will give them Panama "assignments", which will be critiqued by "seasoned professionals". (Do you reserve the right to subsequently use these classroom assignments for your Panama travel guide, without compensating your students?)
3.

"Writers who perform up to standard, and who stay on assignment and produce more than 200 reviews will have their course fee refunded in addition to normal compensation."

This is just absurd! So basically, you can say the following to all students at the end of the course (after they pay the $250 or $350 fee, of course), "Sorry, but nobody performed up to standard so we are keeping all the fees and you can't write for us. By the way, we are going publish all of your assignments you completed for the course." Sounds like a sweet deal for Viva! Please let me know if I've missed something here...

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your comment. I would like to address your concerns. This in fact is not a scam. VIVA has run courses like this across South and Central America, and actually, we don't accept people who can't write onto the course - and on the course we develop their writing so that they can write effectively for guidebooks.

After the course, in 95% of cases, most people can stay on to write for us if they wish. Many of them have gone on to have been published in our guidebooks, with their name, photo and blurb in the front.

I'm sorry this seems like a scam to you, but it is actually a great way to get kick-started into the travel writing industry. Maybe sometimes opportunities really are genuine?

For anyone who is interested, I can provide emails of former boot campers who work with us now to check out how genuine this is, or otherwise.

Regards
Paula Newton
Editor in Chief, VIVA Travel Guides

Additionally we pay for all reviews written and submitted during the course :-)

Ok, thanks for the clarification, Paula. But I think there would be less skepticism if you didn't charge for the course.

You may be right, though we find that our approach generally has been working very well across most countries in Latin America. Thank you for your feedback.

V!VA Interviews Jo Sykes, Intern turned Freelance Travel Writer - V!VA Travel Guides

Interesting article, Paula. Good luck finding some travel writers in Panama...