There were more than 200 entries submitted this year for the 6th annual WanderWomen Write Travel Writing Contest.
Each story had to fit into one of four categories: Passion, Food & Drink, Adventure or Spiritual.
Overall, I’m pretty certain the quality of stories submitted this year was higher than in years past. Which made for some great reads. But it also made it more difficult to select winners.
Before I announce the winners, a huge thanks to Kristin who read through each and every story and had the unenviable job of sorting excellent from good (and good from, well, OK) and forwarding those onward to our judges. It’s a difficult process but she did an excellent job.
The top stories were then sent off to the five judges who scored them in each category, producing the winners. The five judges (thank you, thank you!) were:
- Harriet Baskas, Travel Writer
- Rosalind Cummings-Yeates, Travel and Culture Writer
- Angela Nickerson, Writer, Photographer, Traveler
- Lauren Van Mullem, Travel Writer, Photographer and Wanderlust Website Manager
Note that all stories were sent to Kristin and the judges without the author’s name attached assuring total anonymity as they read through the stories.
Also, huge huge thanks to our sponsors: Expedia and Briggs & Riley. Both of these companies were instrumental in making this contest happen because they supplied us with our prizes.
The Grand Prize winner, courtesy of Expedia, will receive a six-night stay for two at the Westin Golf Resort and Spa in Playa Conchal, Costa Rica. Value of this prize is $4,080. WOOT!
In addition, each category winner will receive a Briggs & Riley TORQ carry-on bag valued at $479. WOOT WOOT!
So, now that you know who’s doing what behind the scenes… here are the winners:
Grand Prize, Rebecca Myers for Missing the Best Shot
And the four category winners:
Adventure: Maureen Fisher for Tale of the Toilet Frog
Food & Drink: Jan DeGrass for Toasting the Tuscan Kitchen
Passion: Sarah Katin for The International Expiration Date
Spiritual: Shara Johnson for My Only Prayer
Congrats to all the winners and THANK YOU to everyone who submitted a story. Trust me when I say it was very difficult for all involved to choose a winner.
If you weren’t among the winners, don’t give up! Please, keep writing and, more importantly, keep traveling. I believe that learning about the world at large helps us to build our tolerance, compassion and understanding about the world just beyond our front door. And we could all use a bit more of that!
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Travel Well!
Beth
Photo credit: I Won by Search Engine People Blog
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