✨ Welcome back 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 and railway journalist - Daniel Puddicombe. 

We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!

Where are you based?

Middle of nowhere Devon. 

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

I wear a couple of different hats. The most relevant for Travmedia is my travel writing hat. My byline has appeared in the likes of The i Paper, The Telegraph, The Sun, Women's Weekly and the New Zealand Herald among others for rail-related stories: in the last year or so, these have included a trip right across America on an Amtrak sleeper train, crossing the narrowest part of Mexico aboard a Navy-run passenger train, brilliant Italian and German steam-hauled charters and a 135-year old former presidential train in Portugal. 

Sense the theme? I'm a railway journalist - and one who is very much an enthusiast at heart - to the extent that I carry a GPS device in my rucksack at all times. Not because I am a hiker (I've never climbed a mountain in my life and I'm unlikely to do so) but because it has a trip computer function. I've set it up so it can record and log data every quarter-mile whenever I am travelling behind (or on occasion on the footplate of!) a steam locomotive on the main line. Since 2016, I've covered at least a thousand miles a year (and often several thousand!) behind steam locomotives on main lines all around the world.

Trains and railways fascinate me and I love to tell stories not only about the locomotives and rolling stock, the fabulous scenery that countless railway lines travel through, the charming destinations and stops en-route (I've been to some amazing places purely because there's an interesting rail hook) but also the people who are either travelling with me (I've made so many friends that I'd never encounter otherwise simply by striking up conversation on a train in the back of beyond) and the folks who make trips happen. 

My number one passion is steam on the national networks but beyond that I have broadchurch of interests: of course luxury rail journeys are lovely but I'm just as happy travelling on cheap - by UK standards - services full of locals if the route and / or stock is quirky or unique. 

I also contribute to the railway trade press - mostly for Rail Magazine - and have done for years, while I've regularly broken exclusive news stories for the likes of The Telegraph and The Observer.

I only know about trains and railways so that's what I write about - for instance, I've never written a hotel review, I have no interest in wellness or spas, my knowledge of food and drink extends as far as offerings from onboard offerings on trains. 

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

Freelance.

What are your professional pet peeves?

An assumption that freelancers in particular are able to attend events in London at any time but even more so at the drop of a hat. While I am happy to hop on a train to the capital, there is a cost to it (even more so if a night a hotel is needed), so I am very selective about what I sign up for to make sure it is worth my while. It's why events such as WTM and IMM are so valuable as half the industry is in the same place at once. 

The other thing I'd mention (and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying this) is mistargeted story pitches from PRs, especially soon after an article appears in a national. I have a very clear area of interest and if trains and railways aren't at least a substantial focus point it's unlikely I'm going to be interested. 

In your past professional life you were …

For three and a half years (until autumn 2017), I worked at BusinessCar and What Van? magazines as a news reporter. Never had an interest in driving vehicles (indeed, I don't hold a driving licence) but I've always had a fascination with the industry and news and I loved breaking stories about the exciting world of company cars and LCVs. I still retain an avid interest in the automotive sector but my heart lies with the railways. 

Where would you like to return to?

Svalbard. I spent 24 hours in Longyearbyen in the summer of 2023 as part of a very silly trip. A couple of friends and I booked to see a snooker tournament in Nurnberg - another passion of mine - and I jokingly said we should start the trip in Narvik with an Interrail pass, purely because it is the northernmost railway station in the world.

A few weeks later, a thought occurred: if I'm going that far north, I might as well go the whole hog, so I spent a day in the wilderness. I booked onto a whale-watching tour, ended up seeing a blue whale three times, a pod of humpbacks circled the boat for half an hour and I ended the night at half one in the morning in one of the northernmost pubs in the world, surrounded by lovely folks that I'd just met. 

The scenery is spectacular, the people are brilliant and the archipelago is fascinating. I'd love to go back there. 

What's on your bucket list?

It's something of a cliche but Japan really interests me and I haven't made it out there yet. Yes, of course there's the Shinkansen network but there's also oodles of slow and unique trains which are different to anything else in the world. Plus, the culture is very different compared with ours. 

Steam-wise, I'd love to travel behind Big Boy No.4014. The Union Pacific machine is going to run coast-to-coast for the first time ever this year. I'd love to join the loco for part of the adventure, however remote a chance that might be!

Where do you travel for fun?

I've travelled across a good chunk of the UK by steam and over the years my interest has expanded to other countries - German main line steam is a lot of fun, for instance - but otherwise, I love to pick up an Interrail pass and plan a wacky route across Europe. A couple of years ago I realised I'd booked to see snooker tournaments in Berlin and Llandudno two weeks apart. The obvious solution would be to travel home between them but boxes are boring and I much prefer to sit outside them. Therefore, I bought a 15-day pass that was on sale and ended up going to Llandudno via Sicily and a lot of Switzerland. It was mega.  

Wolsztyn is a very happy place and no doubt I'll be back there as and when the scheduled steam services resume once the locos are overhauled.

Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …

There are far too many to mention and some stories I probably commit to print. I was on a week-long tour of Germany with steam last year - for a story - and one of the overnight stops was Dresden. Sat in the hotel before I was about to head to sleep, I looked at the timings for the next day and realised the train was due to leave at 11ish. "That gives loads of time to go to the depot and get some shots of the loco in its former home" I thought to myself as I started working out how on earth to get to the depot. 

While looking on the depot's website, I noticed the society was running a charter to Prague the same morning. "I've never travelled behind a DR 23" I thought as I consulted the timings. All I could tell was it was leaving Dresden at 0730 and it was due into Prague at noon. "There has to be a water stop somewhere between the two, I wonder if I can do a hop into the Czech Republic" I mulled, as I'd never had steam over an international border. After a bit more hunting around, I found the timings: a two-minute stop at Decin, just over the border, to pick up passengers at half nine. 

Looking at DB's website, an EC to Dresden was due half an hour later and arrived into the city 10 minutes before my charter was due to leave. A +10 isn't ideal, but I have to work with what I've got. 

The next morning, using very basic German / finding someone who spoke English, I managed to get myself onto the train and made my way east for 40 glorious miles, head out of the window of the leading carriage. At Decin, a couple of minutes down, I hopped off and thanked my new friends who for some reason never asked for any money for the leap. It was only looking at the departure board that my plan began to unravel: the EC was 40 minutes late, I missed the charter at Dresden and had to chase it across Germany all morning, eventually catching up at Leipzig to howls of laughter from the staff (most of who have known me for the last 10 years so were entirely unsurprised) and other passengers. Still worth it though. 

What advice would you give your younger professional self?

Follow your passions and keep on being persistent. 

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

A couple of things - it is so pleasing how freelancers tend to support each other and how having a good network to bounce ideas around and to sense-check things is invaluable. 

The other is a thank you to the PRs that support my wacky ideas. Often I'll ring or email and say "I've got this idea, can you help please?" Nine times out of 10, it is different to the norm and therefore requires a bit more effort compared with simpler things but I hope the end result makes it all worthwhile.   

How best should people contact you?

Email is best. daniel@danielpuddicombe.com. I'll also be at IMM for both days and I'd love to talk rail-related nonsense with folks if they're interested.