Contribute
Share your trip
Just back from somewhere worth writing about? Write it up on TravelPen. You don’t need to pitch us, and you don’t need to have written anything before. If you have been looking for a travel site that accepts contributions from real travellers, you are in the right place.
Start writingThe idea
Every story is tagged by where you went and why you went
Take Prague. Search for things to do there and you get pub crawls, shooting ranges, beer spas, a strip club or two and a rundown of the biggest superclubs in the city. All of that is genuinely useful if you’re going for a stag do or a lads’ weekend.
It’s no use at all if you’ve booked a quiet few days with your partner and what you want is a good walk, an ice cream by the river, somewhere decent to eat and a spot to watch the sun go down. You read a top ten and maybe two things on it are for your trip. The other eight belong to somebody else’s.
Same story with a family holiday. Someone flying to Mallorca with a two-year-old doesn’t want a general Mallorca guide. They want somebody who’s just done that exact trip, with a child the same age, telling them what worked and what didn’t.
So we tag every story twice: the destination, and the reason you went. Write about your romantic weekend in Prague and it goes to the next person planning a romantic weekend in Prague, not to the stag party.
Which is why stories here start like this:
- We took our two-year-old to Es Canar for a week and stayed at an all-inclusive. Here’s what worked and what didn’t.
- Four of us rented a gite in the Dordogne for a slow week of cycling, markets and too much wine.
- I went to Bangkok solo for the first time. This is everything I wish someone had told me.
- We did a long weekend in Copenhagen as a couple. It was freezing and completely brilliant.
- Six of us went to Ibiza for a mate’s 30th. Not the clubbing version. The other Ibiza.
If one of those sounds like a trip you’ve taken, that’s the story we want.
Already published
A few that do it well
How it works
Five steps to published
Create an account
Takes a minute. No application form, no waiting to be approved.
Write your story
Write it straight into our editor. Save as you go and come back to it whenever you like.
Tag where you went and why
Pick your destination, then pick your reason for travelling from our categories: family holiday, solo, city break, road trip, backpacking, romantic, adventure and the rest.
Add your photos
A cover image and several more through the piece. Your own photos, taken on the trip.
Publish
That is all there is to it. No guest post pitch, no editorial gatekeeping, no waiting for permission. It goes live when you press the button.
Your story goes live straight away. Nothing sits in a queue waiting for approval and nobody stands between you and the publish button.
We do read everything that goes up. Anything that isn’t right for the site gets taken down by our moderators, so there’s nothing to be gained by posting rubbish and hoping it sticks. Keep doing it and the account gets blocked.
Otherwise it stays on your profile for good. It’s yours.
The brief
What makes a good story
Picture the reader as somebody planning the trip you’ve just come back from. Same place, same reason for going, maybe even the same month. Write it for them.
Write it in first person
You went there. Write about how it actually went for you, not what a guidebook would say about the place.
Be honest
If somewhere was disappointing, say so. If it was brilliant, say why. Nobody planning a trip is helped by a review that liked everything.
Be specific
Name the hotel. Say what you paid. Mention the place on the corner that did incredible pasta, and the one you queued forty minutes for and regretted. Detail is the part people actually use.
Use your own photos
A cover image and several inline. Phone photos are fine. Stock images are not, and we can tell.
Give it room
Around 1,000 words is roughly where a trip review starts being properly useful. Much shorter and you end up summarising the holiday instead of telling anyone what it was like.
On photos
Photos are how a reader knows you were actually there. Yours don’t have to be any good in a technical sense. A phone shot of the pool, the room you booked and the plate of food you ordered beats anything you could buy from a stock library. Pictures with you in them are better again.
Not a fit
What we don’t publish
- Listicles with no personal angle
- AI-generated writing
- Anything already published somewhere else
- Stock photography
- Sponsored content or advertorials dressed up as stories
For writers and bloggers
If you want a link to your site
Write the story and publish it first. Then email admin@travelpen.io with a link to your published story and the link you’d like in your author bio.
Expect editorial feedback. If you want a do-follow link, be ready to make changes and add detail where the piece is thin, and your own photos from the trip have to be in it. That one isn’t negotiable.
A link isn’t automatic and plenty of submissions won’t reach the standard. The story has to be genuinely useful to the next person planning that trip. That’s the whole bar.
We don’t take pitches for link placements, sponsored posts or paid contributions. If you’re here for a link, the route to one is the same as everyone else’s: write something worth reading.
FAQ
Common questions
Is this a guest post site?
Not in the traditional sense. Most guest post sites exist so writers can place a backlink somewhere with some domain authority. TravelPen exists so real travellers can share trip reviews tagged by destination and reason for travel. If you have a genuine story about a place you have been, you can write for us. If you are looking to place a generic article about the top 10 things to do in Lisbon that you have already sent to six other sites this week, this is not the right fit.
Do I need to be a professional travel writer?
No. Most of our contributors have never written for a travel site before. They went somewhere, had a good trip or a bad one or a complicated one, and wanted to write about it. Clear writing and honest detail matter more than credentials.
Can I get a backlink from TravelPen?
Yes, but you have to earn it. Write your story first, publish it on TravelPen with your own photos, then email admin@travelpen.io with the link to your published story and where you would like the backlink to point. We read it, and if the piece meets our editorial standard we will add a do-follow link to your author bio. We do not accept paid link placements or sponsored posts.
What kind of travel content do you accept?
First-person trip reviews. You went somewhere for a specific reason, a family holiday, solo backpacking, a city break with your partner, an adventure trip, a group holiday, and you write about what it was actually like. We do not publish listicles, city guides with no personal angle, or anything AI-generated. Every story needs your own photos. The destination guides in our editorial articles are written in-house, so we are not looking for more of those.
How long should my story be?
Around 1,000 words minimum. That is roughly where a trip review starts being detailed enough to help someone planning the same trip. There is no upper limit.
Can I write about anywhere in the world?
Yes. We publish stories from everywhere. The destination matters far less than how well it is written and how useful it is to the next person going.
Do you accept articles about gambling, CBD, crypto, adult content or similar?
No. TravelPen publishes first-person travel stories. We do not accept content about gambling, casinos, CBD, cryptocurrency, forex, adult services, supplements, or anything else unrelated to travel. If your pitch includes any of these topics it will be ignored. That includes articles that are technically about travel but exist to link back to a site in one of those categories.
Do you pay contributors?
No. TravelPen is free to use. Your story stays on your profile permanently and we help the right readers find it. If it meets our standards you can also get a do-follow backlink to your own site.
Ready? Start writing.
Create an account, pick where you went and why you went, and tell us how the trip actually turned out.