“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Ellen Parr
For more information about getting started with travel writing, visit greatescapepublishing.com/start/travelwriting.
Great Escape Radio host, Jody Maberry, and Director, Lori Allen, introduce us to Mary Charlebois.
For Mary, getting started with travel writing was a solution for avoiding a boring retirement.
She has always loved traveling, ever since she was a child, earning her the nickname “Mary Go” from her mother. So after retiring as a technical writer, she decided to combine her two loves—writing and traveling.
But an injury prevented her from getting started as fast as she would have liked.
“I retired early—before the usual retirement age—with the plan to travel. But in less than a year, I broke my neck. That took my time and money,” Mary shares.
She regained her health but she was broke and bored, with no money to travel. Her friends kept pushing though and in September 2015, she borrowed the money to attend the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop in Denver. There she saw all kinds of people from all walks of life and that set her on fire.
“I believe all things come to be in their own time, we have to believe in ourselves in our own time. I really thought that you had to be somebody who is a world traveler. I believed I wasn’t a good enough writer. I didn’t really think I had the ability to write about the exotic destinations I thought I had to go to.”
But all she really had to do was walk out of her front door and start writing about her hometown.
As Mary says, you should, “Grow where you’re planted. Start where you are.”
Since that Denver event, she’s now had over 100 stories published, and each new byline is as exciting as the first.
Listen in as Mary shares her experiences and adventures that have taken her retirement years from boring to fun!
For more information about getting started with travel writing, visit greatescapepublishing.com/start/travelwriting.
