!I call myself that because I became a travel writer by accident. After spending many years in publishing, I decided I wanted to spend less time at the office and more time exploring the world.
But how could I make that happen? Well, quite by accident, I got a phone call from an editor at a newspaper, who asked me to drop by to discuss a “special project” he was working on.
I had never met the editor before, so I had no idea what to expect. When I arrived, he started asking about my foreign language skills and my educational background.
For example, how good was my Chinese and how much did I know about China. So I knew right away that the project was going to have something to do with China. And my initial assumption was that it must involve either business or education.
That was until the editor started talking about things like food and hot springs and sightseeing and hotels …
OMG! I tried to hide my excitement as I realized he wanted to commission me to write travel articles about China! And that was going to mean traveling to places I had never been to before!
So that is how my career as a travel writer got started. But my initial assignments were not as glamorous as it might sound. In fact, my first assignments were pretty grueling, with very long days and hardly a chance to catch my breath.
Since then, I’ve visited several cities in China and several other Asian destinations, including Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
I’ve also been to Brazil, Britain, Canada, Croatia, Portugal, and Sweden. And I live in Hong Kong.
What sets me apart from many digital nomads is I’m not interested in adding as many stamps in my passport as possible. Rather, I prefer to get off my horse and smell the roses.
As much as possible, I like to travel less often but stay longer. That means spending at least four weeks in a country. And if I fall in love with a place, I’m happy to make a repeat visit.
In addition to travel, my other two passions are food and sports. And I link them together as much as possible in my blog.
I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Chinese Studies from California State University, East Bay, and a Master’s Degree in English from San Francisco State University.
I have contributed to Ageless, Frequent Traveller, Business Traveller Asia, Hongkong Standard, the National, Prestige Hong Kong, ReviewAsia, Silkroad, the South China Morning Post, The Peak Hong Kong, and other publications.
Hi Admin,
I hope you’re doing well.
My name is Ashly Williams and I’m a blogger with 6+ years of experience. I’m dropping you a line to see if you’re accepting new guest bloggers. I write on travel topics and thought of an article which would be a good fit for your {{Domain}} .
The post will be 100% original, written just for your blog, and will not be posted anywhere else. I would appreciate an author bio with a live link back to my site. If you’re interested in this cooperation, please get back to me.
Thanks and Regards,
Ashly Williams
Hi Michael,
First off, I love the title, Accidental travel writer. I like your philosophy of going to a place for many weeks instead of many hours as cruise ship travelers have a sliver of time to see a gargantuan sized city such as Rome. When we travel abroad, we stay at least 5 days in a city. Even though I yearn to stay longer. Budget concerns. By the way we just came back from 5 days in Seattle which was a blast. Thanks for your informative writing.
Thank you very much for your kind words! I spent two or three weeks in Seattle visiting my nephew, who lives there, and I absolutely loved it! It’s a beautiful city. I especially loved the proliferation of flowers hanging from lampposts and the sides of buildings.
Glad you like Seattle. We need to go back. Keep up the traveling and writing. Thanks
I hope you enjoy reading my blog!