✨ 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 freelance travel writer - Dom Tulett. 

We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!

Where are you based?

I'm in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. Close enough to London to get into town for any events kind people might like to invite me to...

What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties?

My work's turned up most frequently in National Geographic Traveller, The Sunday Times and The Independent. Two young kids steer me towards family travel (often with a flight-free angle), but I'm also a sucker for adventure, wildlife, film locations and city guides/weekend breaks, particularly if there's an interesting historical and/or archaeological angle.

Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?

Freelance. But I've always wondered what it'd be like to work in-house. Maybe one day.

What are your professional pet peeves?

Industry gate-keepers. I've come across a few who've made the industry pretty hostile for anyone starting out who might dare to not share, or fit into, their own world view. But they're in a tiny minority - so many people have been overwhelmingly positive and supportive and generous. When I was starting out, I had absolutely no idea how things worked: pitching, press trips, PR relationships. A lot of people have been extremely patient with me and helped guide me through. They're good people.

In your past professional life you were …

For about twenty years I worked in university admissions, paying (some of) the mortgage and getting to travel to far-flung places in the name of recruiting international students. Before that, I earned my first wage working in a fish and chip shop in Norfolk, which I only set fire to on one occasion. I've also spent a bit of time as a cricket coach, and once painted a warehouse for a witch. So, all sorts.

Where would you like to return to?

There are so many places. Nepal, Belize, the Philippines. Sri Lanka is a special place for me. However, I'm very conscious that the experience I had in every place I have visited was locked into that specific moment in time. My first visit to Sri Lanka was in 2008, whilst the civil war was still raging across parts of the country and the scars of the Indian Ocean tsunami were still raw. I returned in 2017 and found a very different place. My next visit, whenever that might be, will no doubt show me something different again.

What's on your bucket list?

It's Bhutan. Nowhere else is close. I'm neither going to confirm nor deny the rumour that I spend long evenings on the internet, staring at pictures of Paro Taktsang, rubbing my hands together and whispering 'My preccciousss!'

Where do you travel for fun?

I love the Middle East and north Africa. But I'm also fond of varying my trips - having recently returned from the heart of the Sahara, deep in Algeria's south-eastern corner, I've now got a hankering to head off somewhere cold. Longyearbyen has caught my eye. After that, I'm sure I'll be keen for somewhere tropical. Then a mountain. Then a small island.

Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …

The most harrowing was that Sri Lanka trip in 2008. The civil war was coming towards its end. Up until that point most of the violence had been confined to the north and east of the country, or directed at military and political targets. My driver worked out of a tourist office attached to Colombo Fort station, which was then bombed 24 hours after we'd left on a multi-day tour around the island. We stopped at Kandy's Botanical Gardens, which also suffered a bomb attack 24 hours after we'd passed through. Then Dambulla - another bombing 24 hours later. The same with Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura. Our car was the only one that didn't get searched at the frequent army roadblocks we encountered - my driver would wind down the window, point at the white guy sitting in the back, and get waved straight through. When news of another bombing broke over the car's radio he appeared not concerned, but excited. I often wonder what became of that driver. This forms the basis of a book I am slowly writing.

What advice would you give your younger professional self?

Don't be afraid to ask questions. I probably stumbled around not knowing what I should be doing for much longer than I needed to, fearful that asking a stupid question would expose me as an imposter. When I did summon the courage to ask questions, people happily gave me answers. As I mentioned earlier, I've found an overwhelming proportion of travel writers to be wonderfully generous and supportive.

What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?

I'm not sure this is really a nugget, but to say how much I enjoy reading other writers' work. I used to read pieces with envy, cursing that that writer had travelled to a place I longed to visit. Perhaps now that I feel I have a better chance of visiting those places myself, I've been able to park that envy, and it's lovely to read colleagues' work at face value. There are so many incredibly talented folk out there.

How best should people contact you?

Email always works best for me: domtul@hotmail.com