Staff photo by Jack Milton S am Bull fantasized about traveling to Vietnam or Hawaii and getting paid to write about it. And you don't always get to go where you want. While Bull dreamed of far-off places, he spent last summer driving around Iowa, Wisconsin and other Midwestern states. Kansas was one big misadventure . . . Every year, travel editors scour the country for people energetic or crazy enough to spend days or weeks on the road updating travel guides.
Most writers work for a stipend of only a few hundred dollars per assignment.
Unless you're writing about your own hometown or a nearby region, that won't cover much more than your meals and gas. It has to be a labor of love,'' says Deborah Washburn, an editor with Fodor's Travel Publications in New York City. Last year, Molly Sholes of Camden was asked to update part of a travel guide for Fodor's guide to India. She got the assignment because an editor at Fodor's knew she'd lived in India for seven years. It can be rewarding, but it can be very trying,'' says Nick Corman, a managing editor of the ''Let's Go'' guides, of which there are 30.