Video and heritage travel in Australia

Chapter 6 explains the intersection between two growing trends. The first discusses travelers who book their trips online while the other is the audience for travel video. Chapter 3 then breaks down topic niches’ for travel journalism stories including the heritage niche’. Lonely Planet posted a video that intersects the growing online travel video trend with the heritage niche’ topic. Their video titled “Melbourne’s artistic underbelly” features a part of Australia’s culture that is often over looked because of it’s lack of mainstream luster: its street art.

The video depicts a growing niche’ topic for travel journalists to explore. The street artists in Melbourne are now taking it upon themselves, much like the advice in the text, to lead groups of tourists as tour guides of Australia’s most overlooked artistic gems. The relatively short video encourages visitors to engage with and participate in these street art tours. The tour guides highlight the fact…

Read more »


Handy travel safety tips

Chapter 4 briefly discusses the importance of being safe as you travel. Tom Hall of LonelyPlanet.com has compiled a list of warnings that travel journalists and travelers in general should heed. Among some of Hall’s warnings are watch out for fake police and police officers seeking bribes. Travel journalists should be able to count on local authority for not only safety but free reliable information as well.


Price for safety? Common sense

The Resources section of the text offers advice from 100 freelance journalists. Mark Broadhead of LonelyPlanet.com offers his advice on safety while traveling. According to Broadhead,

Scan your travel documents and email them to yourself. It was traditional to photocopy your passport and visas, travel insurance etc, and keep them in a separate part of your luggage. But that’s old school. These days, digital is best – that way your documents won’t go missing even if your bags do.

It may seem like a breeze, but be advised that teaching yourself to ride a motorbike or jet ski in a foreign country is probably unwise. In Thailand, for instance, 38 people a day die in scooter accidents. Nb some travel insurance policies won’t cover scooter-related injuries.