The Hawaii Travel Writing Contest was the first time we ran a niche-focused competition. All the stories had to have taken place on or been about one of the Hawaii islands.The contest was also open to women and men.
We weren’t sure of the response. Would anyone submit? Would the stories be high quality? Would we be proud to publish them on the site?
The answers are Yes, Yes and Yes!
After reading through and sorting the nearly 80 entries, our ace editor, Nancy Mueller (who blogs on WanderBoomer), sent along her top picks to me. I made the final choice, reading through the cream of the crop without knowing the authors.
A big mahalo to the Hawaii Island Visitors Bureau (find them on Facebook or on Twitter @HawaiiBigIsland) who sponsored this contest and arranged for the Grand Prize of a 5-night stay at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort and Spa (find them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter @MarriottHawaii). Value of that little getaway (which includes lots of extras) is $3,282! How fantastic, eh?
Category Winners walk away with a pair of sandals from KEEN 🙂
So, what am I waiting for… here are our winners:
Grand Prize Winner
Burning a Hole in the Sky by Ashley Cultra
Category Winners
Earth – Wavering on the Fiery Edge by Nancy Kerstetter
Sky – Falling Up by Adam Kotlarczyk
Sea – My Kauai Merman by April Nelson
Congrats to the winners and thanks to ALL who took the time to enter. It’s always really difficult having to choose just a handful of the top stories as so many were wonderful and really fun for us to read.
*****
And if you missed out on entering, we have just launched our annual WanderWomen Write Travel Writing Contest.
Travel Well,
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