# EP 8: Years of Pitching. Then National Geographic Said Yes Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-travel-writing-7841307/ep-8-years-of-pitching-then-national-geographic-said-yes Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-travel-writing-7841307/ep-8-years-of-pitching-then-national-geographic-said-yes.md Podcast: [Inside travel writing](https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-travel-writing-7841307) Published: 2026-06-16T14:05:00+00:00 Episode link: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/podcasts.helloaudio.fm/download/m3wq4dhmq3/ad214c23-f655-4180-821d-9364681e36b8.mp3 Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/podcasts.helloaudio.fm/download/m3wq4dhmq3/ad214c23-f655-4180-821d-9364681e36b8.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/inside-travel-writing-7841307/episodes/ep-8-years-of-pitching-then-national-geographic-said-yes Duration seconds: 1839 ## Resource From Silence to National Geographic and BBC Travel: Jade Raykovski's Travel Writing Breakthrough For years, Jade Raykovski pitched without seeing much success. Rejections, when she got them, were rare - mostly she heard nothing at all. Then something shifted, and in a relatively short space of time, Jade went from wondering if travel writing was ever going to happen for her to landing commissions with National Geographic, BBC Travel, and a growing list of other publications. In this episode, we unpack exactly how that happened. We talk about: How a seven-week solo trip to Europe, taken just days after Jade quit her job, turned into 10+ commissioned articles The moment a small mention of a local festival in a pitch became the seed for a National Geographic commission How a rejection on one story idea led to a BBC Travel commission on the same idea — and what changed in between What it actually feels like opening an email from a major publication's editor If Jade's story resonated with you and you'd like support building this kind of momentum in your own travel writing, applications for The Travel Writer Accelerator (TWA) are open now. Apply here to join The Travel Writer Accelerator ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/inside-travel-writing-7841307/episodes/ep-8-years-of-pitching-then-national-geographic-said-yes/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/inside-travel-writing-7841307/ep-8-years-of-pitching-then-national-geographic-said-yes.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.