Field Notes, City Guides and Practical Travel Reads
This is where pitches are read and shaped. It starts with a 200-word outline and two links to published clips, sent to the editorial team, and from there the work is about reporting on the ground rather than from a departure lounge. Writers walk the route, time the transit, note the practical detail, and record the opening hours they actually found. Short dispatches, neighborhood walks, transit tips, packing notes, food stalls worth the detour, and interviews with people who live where readers are passing through all begin the same way: a specific place, a specific hour. The small failures that make a route better next time belong in the draft, not on the cutting room floor. Because the Spanish edition carries the same pieces plus local notes, every filed story is written with both readerships in mind.
Most of the questions that reach the editorial desk are not about the outline itself. They are about the edges: what counts as a clip, whether a filed piece can change shape after the first draft, and how the two language editions relate to each other. The notes below settle those points before you send anything, so the pitch can stay focused on the place and the hour.
Two clips means two pieces that have appeared somewhere a reader could find them, in print or online. Class assignments, unpublished drafts, and personal blogs without a public archive do not count toward the two. If you have only one published piece, say so in the pitch and describe what else you have reported on the ground.
We read the outline to see whether the piece has a walkable shape: where it starts, what time of day it happens, what you expect to find, and where you think it might fall apart. A general theme with no location and no hour is hard to commission. A specific corner, a specific platform, or a specific stall is easy to work with.
A filed dispatch is expected to carry what you actually measured: walking distances, transit details, opening hours as you found them, and the practical detail of what you ate. If a plan did not work, that belongs in the draft. The small failures are often the most useful part for a reader planning the same route next season.
The Spanish edition runs the same articles as the English one, with local notes added where they help. That means a filed piece is written with two readerships in mind from the start. It does not mean two separate commissions, and it does not mean the piece gets rewritten for one audience and shortened for the other.
This page explains how a pitch is read and what the reporting is expected to contain. It is not a submission form, and nothing sent through the site creates a commission or a scheduled place. Guidelines, deadlines, and response times are not published here, and a pitch that arrives does not carry an implied acceptance. If you want to send an outline and two links to published clips, use the contact page and include the location, the hour, and what you plan to measure.
Readers who are not pitching can still write in with a correction, a route that changed, or a stall that moved. Those notes go to the same desk and are read the same way, though they follow a different path than a commissioned dispatch.
The workshop is where outlines get read and shaped. Every route, packing list, and stall interview starts the same way: a specific place, a specific hour, and a writer willing to walk it before writing it.
Send a 200-word outline and two links to published clips to the editorial team. The outline should name the place, the hour, and what you expect to find there. Two clips show how you report, not how you write press releases.
Once a pitch is accepted, the work moves to the ground. Walk the route, time the transit, note the practical detail, record the opening hours you actually found. Short dispatches, neighborhood walks, and stall interviews all follow the same habit.
Drafts keep the small failures that make a route better next time. Pieces are written with both readerships in mind, since the Spanish edition carries the same work plus local notes for readers sharing it with family.
Not sure which format fits your idea? The home page lays out how sections are organized by rhythm of trip.