✨ Welcome to our series, TravMedia's Travel Writer of the Week! ✨
Each week, we'll be shining a spotlight on one of the incredibly talented, passionate, and inspiring Journalists or Editors from our amazing community.
This week, we'd like to shine the spotlight on Robin McKelvie - award-winning travel writer, author and broadcaster.
We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!
Where are you based?
On the sunny banks of the Forth in a garden office with views of those Forth Bridges, close to Edinburgh; even closer to EDI.
What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties?
Been travel writing since the 1990s and have written for most newspapers in the UK and myriad newspapers and magazines across four other continents. Have visited over 100 countries and write over 200 articles a year. I make 20-30 trips a year too, as this is my only job – I live and breathe travel. My main outlets this year have been the Telegraph, Independent, I Paper, Sun and Wanderlust. I also have regular travel slots in The National and The Herald and do a lot of talking travel on the radio; TV too and I'm the author of over 30 travel books.
My audience tends to be monied singles, couples and families looking for authentic, quality experiences. Off the beaten track destinations interest them, but also places they know well that I can look at differently. I average four-five articles a trip, which helps when I'm setting up press trips. Also very active on social media, with 30,000+ followers across Twitter and 6,000+ on Instagram.
I cover all travel, from wee boutique hotels in unheralded Spanish cities to wild adventures in my native Scotland, through to all sizes of cruise ships, great rail journeys (been on them all) and luxury hotels sparkling with Michelin stars. I look at every project afresh and give them all 110%, whether it's writing a lead piece for a national or advertorial for a travel magazine. I'm a pure hodophile as my work shows.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
Freelance.
What are your professional pet peeves?
People not doing what they say they will, being liberal with the truth and – ultimately – letting me down. Life is way too short for time wasters. Basically not a fan of people who don't treat me on a project how I would like to be treated and how we should all be treated – with professionalism and honesty.
Unnecessarily bad press trips (to good places done badly). Imagine your Michelin-starred chef pal insisting you must come for an amazing dinner and experience at their house. Then when you finally accept they ghost you for months, ignoring all your questions. And then when you arrive it's BYOB, they insist on showing you all their bedrooms in detail even though you've not been invited to stay and the food is just cheap stodge due to them 'being on a budget'. You leave trying to be polite, but then they harangue you for months to tell your friends about the amazing Michelin dinner you didn't have. That is what press trips can feel like. I suggest either make press trips quality we can write about (in the publications PRs and their clients want to be in), or cut the number of days and make the experience better. I realise how hard a job PR is (I really don't think I could do it, even if I wanted to), so hope this is taken in the spirit of being helpful for us all that it is meant in.
In your past professional life you were …
A traveller. A beloved hobby grew into a career.
Where would you like to return to?
Indonesia – speak some Indonesian, love the food, culture and just feel so alive there. The Hebrides – my favourite place in the world I get to as much as I can. The archipelago is beyond magical and seriously life-affirming.
What's on your bucket list?
Living to see my daughters get married and be securely set up in life. Trying hard on the latter despite the vagaries of freelance; happy to leave it a few years on the former. Travel always plays second fiddle to family. Travel writing would be a vacuous and rudderless career without them.
Where do you travel for fun?
Scotland (most underrated country in the world). Canaries (Scotland with sunshine).
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …
Funny for you perhaps; harrowing for me. I walked into my hotel bathroom half-awake in the wee small hours in Venice in my birthday suit to find the receptionist in there. I was rightly outraged, but had to reevaluate my reading of the situation when there was also a couple from Wyoming trying to check in to 'my bathroom'. Being Scottish, backing down completely wasn't an option, so I asked what time breakfast was, as if strutting up to hotel receptions naked was perfectly normal for me, before sloping off back to my room to find the door locked. I may finish story for you if you buy me a stiff whisky next time we meet. I need a dram even thinking about that awful morning.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
Never burn bridges unless you are absolutely certain they deserve burning. This usually involves sleeping on it and then checking with colleagues “it's not just me”. If they do need burning, burn them with no regret.
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
Actually do what you like to do when you travel. I often get asked what exactly people should do and the first question I ask is, “what do you like doing?”. Sounds obvious, but if you can think of nothing worse than wasting a weekend trawling around museums in London, why do you think you would love it in Frankfurt? Go and do something you might actually enjoy instead. I can lead people to the water in my work, but cannot make them drink and nor should they feel they have to. Of course you should absolutely go and see the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but don't waste your entire trip ticking off a prescriptive list of things you won't enjoy.
How best should people contact you?
Check the dreaded X for what I'm up to – www.twitter.com/robinmckelvie. Then email robinmckelvie@hotmail.com. Please only send ideas you've thought through; no general press releases please. I'll always get back to anything that catches my eye, so bear that in mind and please don't follow up if I don't. Thanks!
