During a chat with an editor of a travel website, we received a valuable tip: writing about travel is an art, difficult to do well and all too easy to fall into mediocrity. And with this in mind, we try to produce the stories for our videos and written articles.
For this competition, apart from the video, we also had to write a piece of 200 words about our favourite place in Ireland. After all, this is the dream job, but it is still a job. And part of the work entails writing travel pieces for the Irish Times, a prestigious Irish newspaper co-sponsoring the competition along with main organisers.
The hardest part of this task was to choose our favourite place, since in Ireland there are no shortage of candidates for 'favourite' on our list!
Yet after much deliberation, we decided to write about our trip to Inis Oirr, one of the Aran Islands. After deciding on the location, the next problem was to summarise our thoughts into less than 200 words, on a place where you could easily write a book in a heartbeat.
For those who didn't have the chance to read the piece, here it is below:
For this competition, apart from the video, we also had to write a piece of 200 words about our favourite place in Ireland. After all, this is the dream job, but it is still a job. And part of the work entails writing travel pieces for the Irish Times, a prestigious Irish newspaper co-sponsoring the competition along with main organisers.
The hardest part of this task was to choose our favourite place, since in Ireland there are no shortage of candidates for 'favourite' on our list!
Yet after much deliberation, we decided to write about our trip to Inis Oirr, one of the Aran Islands. After deciding on the location, the next problem was to summarise our thoughts into less than 200 words, on a place where you could easily write a book in a heartbeat.
For those who didn't have the chance to read the piece, here it is below:
As the dramatic landscape of the Cliffs of Moher slowly receded, the smallest and nearest of the Aran Islands revealed itself. Dolphins followed our ferry on the 45 minute journey to Inis Oirr, and watching them frolic off the bow, we knew we were about to discover an enchanting place. Inis Oirr's turquoise waters received us with the view of a small white beach. On the walls of our B&B, some old pictures caught our attention. Cows were being placed into currachs (small traditional boats), and hoisted onto a larger boat. Owner Peader explained to us that not long ago, that was how everything would arrive and leave Inis Oirr. It was with this sense of history that we rented bicycles and got lost in the maze of pristine stone walls that cover the four square mile island. Rounding a corner on our way to O'Brien's castle, a local pony trap driver jovially remarked 'look out, the traffic lights ahead are broken!' As we laughed, we understood that apart from the astonishing scenery, it was the 250 inhabitants, the preservation of their language and culture, their resilience and their bond with the ocean that makes Inis Oirr so unique.
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