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Horizon Guides is a celebration of travel less ordinary. Our guides, anthologies and features provide original insights and essential travel information for readers planning extraordinary travel experiences.

Our authors are a mix of talented professional journalists and destination-based experts, who can provide detailed, on-the-ground knowledge and insider insights.

Join our contributor mailing list for advance notice of our upcoming commissions and assignments, or read on for our pitch guidelines.

How to pitch us

Please read before pitching!

Before sending in your idea, please make sure it is the kind of pitch we'll consider. We are unable to respond to pitches that ignore the following guidelines.

Read some of our guides and look at our recent features to get a flavour for the places and themes that we cover.

We publish in-depth travel guides and long-form features that cover a particular aspect of a destination or a new way of looking at otherwise familiar places. We’re not trying to compete with destination guidebooks by covering the entirety of a country. Instead, we want to cover a specific facet or activity within a destination in as much depth and detail as possible.

Guides

Our guides typically focus on a single activity or experience in a given location. For example, our guides to walking in the UK or gorilla trekking. We don't produce general destination guides, we do aim to be exhaustive and definitive on a particular activity within the destination.

When suggesting a guide pitch, send us a paragraph or two describing why we should cover this aspect of a destination and the specific details that your guide would cover, such as routes, places or activities.

Do explain how your own experience and expertise matches this destination (we prefer in-destination authors or those with several years/recent experience in the destination). If you haven’t written for Horizon Guides before, it’s helpful to tell us a little about your background and writing experience, as well as links to previous work.

Features and interviews

We’re looking for stories (not necessarily "travel" stories) on people, places, events and interesting social/political issues.

We don’t run straight first-person/narrative accounts of your travel journey. Your feature should have an angle, people, a storyline and a payoff. In the vast majority of features, the writer will be the least important person in the story. Instead, it should focus on the people, place or issue you’re writing about. Don’t be afraid to be contrary: if your story goes against the grain of mainstream travel and tourism writing we’re especially interested.

The ideal pitch is just a few paragraphs long, quickly telling an editor what the story is, what makes it different and why Horizon Guides should cover it. We want a flavour of what the finished feature will be like.

We strongly advise you to show awareness for our website and readers. Before sending a pitch, check our website to see what we’ve done and covered on the destination in the past.

You can find a full list of our features here.

Writing for us

We think there's huge room for improvement in the quality of online travel publishing. In a sea of ephemeral, low-budget "content" we strive to treat our readers as adults who want genuinely useful insights and grown-up, nuanced perspectives on the world. And we depend upon our community of professional travel writers to make it all happen!

We've been freelancers ourselves and we know it's not an easy profession. We strive to reply to all pitches and provide constructive feedback (we're a tiny team so your patience is appreciated and please make sure you follow these guidelines!) and we promise to pay fair rates for your work. We pay equal rates to all contributors regardless of where you're based.

Rates & terms

Rates vary according to the brief but as a general rule of thumb we pay anywhere from £200+ for features and upwards of £400+ for guides, all depending on length. Our editorial team will be happy to discuss the scope of your pitch and brief further.

We pay up to 30 days upon acceptance of your piece (not upon publication). We prefer to pay via BACS to UK bank accounts or Transferwise to international accounts.

How to pitch

For all pitches, please email our editor in the first instance, labelling your email with your pitch headline and destination in the subject line. We attempt to respond to all pitches that follow our guidelines, but the sheer volume means this isn’t always possible. Please do not send follow-up emails to pitches if you haven’t received a response – this will only block up our system further.

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Why Horizon Guides?

Impartial guidebooks

Impartial travel guides

Our guides are written by the leading experts in their destinations. We never take payment for positive coverage so you can count on us for impartial travel advice.

Expert itineraries

Expert itineraries

Suggested itineraries and routes to help you scratch beneath the surface, avoid the tourist traps, and plan an authentic, responsible and enjoyable journey.

Specialist advice

Specialist advice

Get friendly, expert travel advice and custom itineraries from some of the world's best tour operators, with no spam, pressure or commitment to book.