The No B.S. blog about Travel and Writing for Life.

Posted by Devin on May 6, 2012

In Photos: Old Town Talinn, Estonia

In Photos: Old Town Talinn, Estonia The old town of Talinn, Estonia, surprised me. Not that I had any particular expectation. I didn’t. But these photos of Talinn, Estonia , speak for themselves. I was not planning for something that rivaled the well-preserved old town of Sweden’s Stockholm. Old town Talinn, Estonia, is a compact walkable city with lots of incredible history and numerous...

Posted by Guest Post on Mar 25, 2012

The Modern Muslim Woman

The Modern Muslim Woman Just tuning in to listen to the daily news one can’t help but be struck by the bombarding array of fear associated with Muslims; the terrorist plots, the Sharia Law, and the fact that Muslims, and in particular a Muslim Woman who wears the hijab (Islamic headdress), can’t really be called “modern” as they are choosing not to assimilate. That is what I see each day while...

Posted by Devin on Sep 21, 2011

The Art of the Interview

Sthu Zungu, the President of South African Tourism in North America, met me for a last second interview a couple of weeks back at a small-ish trade meeting in Beverly Hills. It was a last second opportunity that I wormed in between her other appointments. Normally, I would cut down a general interview about a destination like South Africa down to 2-3 minutes, but I left this one unedited, because Sthu was...

Posted by Devin on Sep 4, 2011

Failed Writer? Novel Writing with a Bucket

Novel Writing with a Bucket I don’t mean to start this post off about novel writing with me whining already, but I don’t have loads of time. 40+ hour a week day job. Married. Toddler and teenager in the house. Plus I’m one of those terrible people who needs to sleep in order to function. And then I’m a writer. I just sold one novel and I’m in the midst of working on another...

Posted by Devin on Aug 26, 2011

Travel. Write. Live. Relaunches!

Travel. Write. Live. Relaunches! So I blew it. I wanted to develop Travel. Write. Live where I could talk about travel and writing that fell outside of a traditional travel article, something that explored the art of writing and included thoughts about how travel and writing pertained to life, but I blew it. It was not that I ran out of creativity or topics. Instead, I started worrying about social media...

Posted by Devin on Dec 13, 2010

Bhutan Gets the Word Out

A few months back I made a list of my top-ten list of countries I want to visit. The tiny green country of Bhutan did not make the list. Moreover, on ITKT, there are some 5000 stories with exactly ½ story about Bhutan (a single blog entry, sans photo). For those who have never heard of Bhutan, the country is nothing more than a forested green dot smushed between neighboring super-powers, China and...

Posted by Devin on Nov 29, 2010

Get Your Travel Writing Published Now: Be Interesting

Thoughts about Better Travel Writing Earlier in the year, I wrote a series of posts about avoiding travel writing rejection. My reasons for doing this were two-fold. First was my sincere desire to help other writers get published more often. I believe that we always need more people travel writing, and writing well. The second reason is more personal. As the editor of a large travel site that publishes...

Posted by Devin on Nov 20, 2010

The 5-Star, 2-Star Conundrum, part two

From my last article, I probably left the impression that the better cultural experience is likely found by staying at a two-star hotel, rather than in fancy five-star digs. This is reasonable assumption for a reader since I bashed the new Westin in Santa Fe in Mexico City (I had my reasons) and did not counter with a better five-star examples. Trust me, there a loads of great five-star places worth...