Archive for category Travel
Heritage Travel Writing Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Travel on June 18, 2018
The next Senior Travel Expert writing competition is now open for entries.
The competition calls for original travel articles on the theme ‘Heritage’ up to 750 words in length. Historical, cultural and natural heritage are all included under this theme.
Unusually for an article writing competition, entertaining fictional entries are also allowed. Entry is free.
The author of the best entry will receive £100 cash. Ten runners-up will each receive £10 Amazon UK Vouchers. The winning entry and runner-up entries will be published on the Senior Travel Expert website. Closing date is October 31st.
When writing your entry don’t forget that the Senior Travel Expert website is aimed at travellers aged 55 and over. And, as always, make sure you read the full terms and conditions.
Two Competitions
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Short Story, Travel on March 23, 2017
I’ve been busy novelling for the last eight months or so and haven’t had time for competitions. However, a couple have popped into my inbox lately and, since I can’t use them, I thought I’d share them with you lovely people. Fingers crossed, one (or more) of you might have what it takes to be a winner!
Travel Writing Competition run by Travel for Seniors
This is free to enter and offers a first prize of £100 plus internet publication. They want 750 words on the theme ‘Travel for Seniors’ and the closing date is 31st July 2017. Entries can be fact or fiction.
Details are on the Senior Travel Expert website.
The Fiction Desk Newcomer Prize for Short Stories
This is aimed at ‘new and emerging writers who haven’t already been published by us, and have yet to publish a novel or full-length collection of short stories on paper‘. There is an entry fee of £8 and a first prize of £500 and second prize of £250. Closing date is 31st May 2017. Full details are on the Fiction Desk website.
Good Luck!
Fundação Livraria Esperança – Madeira
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Travel on March 8, 2017
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover and don’t judge a shop by its entrance. Down a backstreet in Funchal this unpromising doorway led to a giant of a bookshop. There were books displayed in twenty rooms across several floors. It was an Aladdin’s cave – I only wish there’d been more than a handful in English!
This book shop is special because all the books are displayed by cover, not spine. So it’s possible to easily see the front cover of every book. The shop was founded in 1886 and has been within the same family ever since. There are around seventy different literary sections covering subjects such as Economics, Childrens, History, Education etc. etc. Even if (like me) you don’t speak Portugese it’s fun to wander around spotting best-selling author names such as John Grisham and the like. And the notices by the door are in English.
For more information see the shop’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FundacaoLivrariaEsperanca/
Win a Trip to Sydney!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Travel on August 4, 2016
Have you ever travelled via Heathrow Airport? Was it memorable in some way? For example did you meet your partner in the check-in queue or give birth in the departure lounge or were you en route to start a new life outside the UK?
2016 is Heathrow Airport’s 70th birthday and they are giving away some great ‘birthday gifts’ to the writers of the best stories. The stories will be judged according to the following criteria:
- Quality of story
- How the story shows personal progression/ development as a result of your Heathrow experience
- If the story includes Heathrow as catalyst for change
- How heart-warming the story is
The ‘birthday gifts’ up for grabs are many and varied. They range from a trip to Sydney through Gucci hampers to luggage tags.
Submit your story here and read the terms and conditions here. The competition closes on September 5th 2016.
Notes From A Big Country by Bill Bryson
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Non-fiction, Travel on July 14, 2016
If you want to learn the art of writing humour based on everyday life, this is the book to read.
It’s also the first book by Bill Bryson that I’ve ever read. It came into my hands not through choice but because members of the library reading group that I coordinate requested something by Bill Bryson.
Notes from a Big Country is a collection of Bill’s columns about life in America that appeared in the Mail on Sunday‘s Night & Day Magazine in the late 90s. Despite being twenty years old the topics addressed are still interesting today, things such as the death penalty, Americans driving everywhere instead of walking, the devastating effect of a skunk spraying in your home, the history of diners (they came in prefabricated kits on the back of lorries) and how low key Christmas is in the US compared to here.
Bill Bryson has a wonderful turn of phrase and this quote made me smile in particular: My father, who like all dads sometimes seemed to be practising for a world’s most boring man competition.
I read the book straight through from start to finish because of our looming reading group meeting but I would advise others to dip in and out so that each column can be savoured like a favourite chocolate.
I had another American connection this week when I was congratulated on Twitter for my article in the Washington Post. Unfortunately I had to be honest and admit to never having written for the Washington Post and explain that the article was probably written by my doppelganger, the US sports writer Sally Jenkins. This is the second time I’ve been mistaken for my more famous counterpart. A couple of years ago I was contacted by someone who wanted help with their autobiography following ‘my’ success ghosting Lance Armstong’s It’s Not About the Bike. Perhaps one day the US Sally Jenkins will be mistaken for me!
Travel Writing Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Travel on May 26, 2016
Steve Hanson from Senior Travel Expert has been in touch to tell me about their ‘Off the Beaten Track’ travel writing competition. It’s free to enter and has a prize of £100. 
Entries should be “about a fascinating, relatively unknown place near to where you live or that you came across by chance when travelling around, or it may be a totally fictional place”. The winner should “persuade readers of the Senior Travel Expert website that the place you describe is somewhere they would very much like to visit”. The closing date is September 30th 2016.
Often when you’re on holiday the things you stumble across by chance turn out to be the most interesting. I’m just back from a holiday in Madrid and Barcelona. One evening we sat in the window of a cafe in Madrid and above me was hung a display of books (see picture on the right). The next day we spotted a grand building that turned out to be The Society of Authors building – which I think is something like ALCS but please correct me if I’m wrong.
And remember, you don’t have to travel to enter this competition – your destination can be purely fictional.
Sociedad General de Autores de Espana
Thoughts from Madeira
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Travel on February 28, 2016
I’m just back from a week in Madeira.
Before I went I selected a brand new empty notebook from my stash and packed it in my suitcase – ready to fill with wonderful words as I basked in foreign climes. The notebook has returned completely empty. I didn’t write a single word.
But I’m not counting that as a failure. We also took far fewer pictures than usual on holiday. I’d like to think that instead of making a point of recording everything in pictures or words, we were actually living in the moment (and enjoying it!). I have returned with memories of some of the emotions I felt whilst on holiday and I’m hopeful that I can draw on these to add depth to my fiction when trying to imagine how a character might feel in a particular situation. For example:
- The nausea I felt when the pilot tried to land at Funchal airport in high winds (the landing was aborted 3 times before we diverted to Faro). The plane was buffeted from side to side and I had to locate the sick bag, just in case!
- The claustrophobic fear that overcame me when we walked through a 1.4 km long tunnel. It was pitch black, the low, rough ceiling forced us to bend over and we had one tiny torch between us. My husband banged his head and had blood trickling down his face when we finally emerged into the light and … realised we’d gone the wrong way – we should have turned down a path before the tunnel.
- The respect and admiration that was due to the native Madeirans who are trying to eke a living by farming small plots of land on the steep hillsides. They have to walk a long way along steep, rough paths to get to their land and then pay for water from the levadas to irrigate their crops.
It can be good to relish the moment and store away those feelings to pull out a later date.
What about you – do you write whilst on holiday?
Travel Writing Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Travel on August 23, 2015
I’m just back from a holiday walking in the Yorkshire Dales.
We covered about 100 miles in a week and it was typically British. We saw sheep, cows, rabbits, moles (dead), enjoyed cooked breakfasts in hospitable B&Bs and made a bee-line for tea and cake in any cafes we passed. There was also some British rain.
So, it was rather appropriate that on my return I found an email from Steve Hanson of seniortravelexpert.com announcing their latest travel writing competition. The theme is ‘Travel and Water’.
Steve says, “The theme ‘Travel and Water’ is deliberately wide and we accept fictional as well as factual entries. In our last writing competition – ‘City, Town or Village’ – one of the winning entries was fictional and one of the runners-up was a poem. It is free-to-enter, has a prize of £100, maximum 750 words and closing date December 31st, 2015.”
Ten runners-up will each receive a firstwriter.com voucher worth £10, allowing them to take out a free subscription to firstwriter.com, providing access to details of hundreds of publishers, literary agents, writing competitions and magazines.
So what are you waiting for? Most holidays involve travel and water in one form another. All the competition details are here. Get writing!
Walk the Cleveland Way – Accommodation, Attractions and Advice
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Lifestyle, Non-fiction, Promotion, Self-publishing, Travel on November 25, 2014
Regular readers of this blog will know that I enjoy walking, especially long walks. 
Getting outside in the fresh air for the day is a great way to unwind and a complete contrast to sitting in front of the computer all day (which I do for my ‘day’ job, as well as when I’m writing).
In August 2013, my husband and I walked the 109 mile Cleveland Way in North Yorkshire over ten days. It’s a fabulous route because the first half meanders over the deserted moors where you’re lucky to even find even a solitary tea shop but, in contrast, the second half is along the coast through bustling resorts like Whitby and Scarborough. This path is also great for beginners because the signposting is excellent – so you are unlikely to get lost (but a map is always advisable, just in case …).
I may like the fresh air but I’m definitely not a backpacker. We stayed in comfortable guest houses and small hotels and had our luggage transported. So we carried only day-sacks and our suitcases were waiting when we arrived at the next overnight stop. All we had to do was hop in the shower and wash away the weariness of the day before changing for our evening meal. And there was always a great cooked breakfast to look forward to the next morning …
Being a writer, I carried a notebook for the 10 days we were walking and I jotted down everything about our trip, from details of the English Heritage properties we found along the route to the tea shops providing good cakes and the display of knitting we found on Saltburn pier. It seemed a waste to keep all this information to myself – it’s all stuff we would have found useful when deciding if this was a holiday we would enjoy and would have helped us in the planning too.
So, I typed it all up into a coherent format, used one of the photos from our trip as the basis for the cover and published it on Kindle.
It’s now available for you to gaze at in awe, ‘look inside’, borrow for free (if you’re in Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited) or even purchase. Simply click here.
If you fancy returning from holiday with a clear head, feeling fit and strong (despite eating many cakes and cooked breakfasts!) then I recommend the Cleveland Way to you.
Senior Travel Expert Writing Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Travel on November 18, 2014
The Senior Travel Expert Writing Competition will open for entries on November 20th 2014. It’s free to enter and the prize is £100.
Don’t panic if you’ve been nowhere exotic. The theme is ‘City, Town or Village’ and the brief is:
“Submit up to 600 words, non-fiction or fiction, which will persuade the readers of this site to go and visit the city, town or village you have chosen.”
We’ve all been somewhere that we could write 600 words about – even if it’s only our home town. So pick up that pen and have a go!
Visit the Senior Travel Expert website for full details, which should be available once the competition opens for entries on Thursday 20th November 2014. At the moment you can just see a brief paragraph if you scroll down the page.
Good Luck!
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