These are the six characteristics we look for in Matador writers.

Photo by Steve Langer

Respect means writers must write honestly and fairly about the destinations they describe.

If you wouldn’t want your sister, brother, father or mother to use your guide to plan their trip, you are not treating the reader with enough respect.

Humility means writers must always subordinate their creativity and ambition to the reality of the place they describe.

You’re writing a guide, not passing judgment, and if you worry that your guide will damage the place or the creatures that live there, please don’t write it.

Ego means writers must expect to become one of the best travel writers in the world - and write like it.

Intelligence means more than clean grammar. It also means our writers must approach the world with bright-eyed curiosity and relish a good conversation.

Passion means our writers must feel strongly about the places they write about, and communicate that passion in their words, so that readers feel it too.

Consistency means that although it’s no problem if our writers only check e-mail twice a year, in between trips to the Andes and Himalayas, they must deliver quality content on a regular basis to become part of our team.

The Matador Promise

From our end, we promise to treat writers and photographers with respect.

This means responding to e-mails as promptly as possible, making payments shortly after publication, always respecting copyright and generally treating people like we want to be treated.

We’re an independent community of passionate travelers. We’re building Matador because we’re in love with this magical world and we want to share our sense of wonder with as many people as we can.

We’re also very busy, so please take the opportunity to read through our archives, check out our open assignment list and sculpt a well-crafted pitch before sending us a query.

Please include a link to your Matador profile in your query e-mail. If you don’t have a profile yet, you can make one for free by clicking here.

If we don’t get back to you soon, please send a reminder.

Currently, we pay $25 usd per article, including photos. This is what we can afford right now.

If you aren’t able to write for $25, we understand, but please keep us in mind for the future, when we plan to raise our rates.

Thanks for your interest in Matador,

Tim Patterson, editor, MatadorTrips.com

hokkaidotim(at)gmail.com

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay
March 19th, 2008