How to Get a Free Trip

The mere act of typing out "How to Get a Free Trip" will shoot up my rankings, bring me even more people than those who confuse the spelling of slang for a certain part of male anatomy with half the name of the African antelope called the "dik-dik."

Not a month goes by when I don't get an inquiry from a stranger who wants to know: How do I get sponsorship to travel around the world.

The answer is simple and straightforward.

You don't.

You pay to travel around the world. If you can't pay, you can't travel.

Is there such thing as free trips? Yes and no. Some travel writers get paid trips to some locations. They do not, however, dash off an e-mail to an editor with a link to their blog and in return get offered a travel scholarship. Does. Not. Happen. Editors have dozens of working writers that they'd be happy to assign a trip to and are not waiting for a grand concept offered to them by a stranger. "I know! Send me on a free trip and I'll blog about it! No one ever thought of that before!"

So how did *I* get to travel around the world and blog about it?

I paid for it. Same as everyone else.

As for sponsorships, I do have a list of those on my site. But these were usually discounts of about 20 percent. Sometimes a small section would be free. For example, of the 52 days I spent on ships in 2001, 17 of them were free. That leaves an huge bill for the other 35 days.

Which I paid for.

I am grateful for the few complimentary trips I did receive, but many of the discounted offers turned out to be more expensive than other local offers at full price.

So why am I ranting about this today? I'm sorry. I don't mean to annoy everyone. I am happy to answer nuts-and-bolts questions about specfic aspects of travel. But I do get tired of the inquiries that basically say "I can't be bothered to read through the FAQ or Links on your site--just tell me, how do I get some of that action?"

Simple enough. I didn't and you don't.