Digital Global Traveler Updated Submission Guidelines (March 2024)
A few key clarifications for future submissions in 2024 and beyond
Hi, everyone. It’s an honor for me to finally get to update the submission guidelines for Digital Global Traveler. The Write for Us story was written when we first started more than two years ago in January 2022. Since then, we’ve added hundreds of writers and have gained over 1,100 followers. We’ve also published thousands of stories and are closing in on a million views all-time.
One point of clarification over the name
“Digital? Global Traveler? Why is it Digital? Are you looking only for Digital Nomads or people who are traveling digitally? I don’t understand this.”
Okay, so here’s the thing, I wanted something that would stand out from the rest of the travel publications. I also wanted to give it a name that no one else was using. And I didn’t want to focus on just the travel. Hence opening it up to the subjects of culture, history, geography, and languages to bring our world closer together.
I started this publication during the middle of the COVID-19 restrictions and wanted to give people a chance to have a place to share their past travels and/or their own culture from home because many of us couldn’t travel or were more restricted in that regard. The Digital part is just that we are viewing your stories and your culture through a digital lens. I hope that clears up any confusion about the name that I get consistently.
Quality standards for our Boost Nominator Pilot Program publication
Especially considering that we became an official Boost Nominator Pilot Program publication back in October 2023. Things won’t change around here drastically. I just want to clarify exactly what we’re looking for and have always looked for. We also want to outline things we will publish and encourage and won’t.
My editors,
, and are on board with the changes and are supportive of focusing on publishing quality stories at Digital Global Traveler. That only benefits the loyal readers and writers at this publication and will continue to foster and support the amazing growth the publication has seen.We’d prefer your own photos for your stories but we won’t push it on you
I’ll start with some preferences. We would love for you to include at least one personal photo in your story. After all, our publication is about promoting travel, culture, history, languages, and geography. We think that having a personal visual aid will help draw readers into your story better.
We are not making this a hard requirement going forward. I don’t even meet that requirement sometimes. Some of us are just more private than others and I respect that. Just make us feel connected to you through your writing. I won’t put undue pressure on anyone that doesn’t include their own photo.
Personal stories are the goal
Another thing that ties into the personalization through personal imagery is personal story. Many of you send us wonderfully narrated and personal stories. If there is a lack of personalization in the story itself, we will be likely to reject it on that basis.
That’s not to say we won’t take it.
If you decide that you can add something to it that will give it that personal touch after the fact, feel free to send it back to us when you are ready to. We just don’t want to read entries that read like Wikipedia entries.
You can write informational pieces. We just want to find your connection to them. It’s possible to give us that information and find a way to weave in your connection to the information. Also, listicles are okay but they shouldn’t be overused. If you can send listicles with meaningful dialogue, more power to you. We all love an occasional listicle but listicles can quickly become robotic and impersonal.
Hard line against artificial intelligence in stories
Speaking of being robotic, I am now making a very clear stance on this topic. Digital Global Traveler is NOT a home for stories created by artificial intelligence. I get that it is not Medium’s hard line to exclude these stories and has its own standards for how to disclose the use of the technology.
It’s just that the mechanical and impersonal nature of artificial intelligence very much clashes with the goals and ideals of this publication. I am personally a strong opponent of the use of artificial intelligence technology in writing. I will leave you a note once starting now. I encourage my editors to as well.
We will warn you against the use of artificial intelligence in the first instance. The second instance will not be a warning or even a note. It will just be a removal from the publication as a writer. I will coordinate with my editors to make sure no one is erroneously removed from the publication based on this rule. I understand that false positives come up and I will give everyone a chance to at least defend their work.
Accusing someone of AI writing can be a bit tricky and touchy so I get if you tell me you didn’t use it or explain why you did. We will not publish anything that comes up as strongly AI.
No blatant self-promotion or spam
Another story that we are not looking to publish is centered on self-promotion. What I mean by this is blatantly promoting yourself and centering the story around that. I don’t mean don’t talk about yourself. We expect you to do that.
These are your personal stories around travel, culture, geography, and languages after all. I mean a story that just feels like one giant self-promotion. Like a call-to-action that is the whole story trying to get us to subscribe to your YouTube channel, travel blog, or other external sites.
A link here and there to your socials and blogs is great. Continue doing that if that’s a part of your writing journey. I’m not going to knock anyone’s side hustle. It just shouldn’t be the dominant part of your story.
Your story should be the selling point. For your writing. It’s okay if you want to send stories from your blogs or websites. You just have to state it at the bottom and include a link and the date to the original piece. Just make sure that the story meets all of the other criteria.
These ideals line up with the Boost Quality Guidelines
I get it. Not all of us want or need to be boosted. That’s great. I’ve been boosted only twice on the writing of this update. It’s just that we would like to present ourselves as a place that at least wants our writers to keep the guidelines in mind.
If you are unclear on what the basic guidelines are, you can read them here. We have so many great writers already in the publication and I’d love to boost them all but as you know, boosted stories are a special privilege. As long as we are mindful of what is considered top quality, we should all be able to stay within those guidelines and keep Digital Global Traveler moving in the right direction.
What I want our readers and writers to take away from this update
I will continue to be welcoming and inviting to everyone in our community. I will ensure that I engage as much as I can with all of you. I don’t want this to sound harsh or like I’m only going to be picky and exclusionary going forward. I’ve always been a welcoming editor and publication owner.
When I look for boost nominations, I ensure that I spread myself to people I’ve never read before. I just want Digital Global Traveler to continue to be seen as a destination for quality personal stories within the framework of a global community.
We want to understand your experiences and feel your excitement, pain, joy, and all of the emotions you want to convey. I feel very good about the writers we’ve published over the years. I want to thank the community for your continued support. I just needed it to be much clearer on what we’re looking for so that there’s no confusion.
One more thing…
Take a look at
’s story about formatting, tags, and title/subtitles as well. These are essential writing tips that will help refine your pieces and make them easier to read.Now that we’ve made our guidelines a bit more clear, I welcome people to comment on any concerns or any words of support for the updates. Also, if you’d like, I will take new writer submissions through here after you read this if you like what you see.
Contact us
Follow us on social media at (X) Twitter. https://twitter.com/DGT_mediumpub.
We also have a Facebook page as well. I haven’t used that one as much these days. You can feel free to share your own stories in there if you’d like. https://www.facebook.com/groups/344313004322231.
As always, you can also reach out to me personally at the publication for the email: digitalglobaltraveler@gmail.com.
Until next time, Digital Global Travelers.
