CAITLIN FITZSIMMONS

The British Guild of Travel Writers had its annual general meeting in Malta today. Included on the agenda was ratification of new memberships. So as of today, I am a fully fledged guild member. It’s only for professional travel writers and to join, I had to have 12 published travel articles in the past year (authors of travel books are also eligible). The guild is known for its lively events and meetings and I hope it will be useful for networking.

The South China Morning Post, which is the English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, published my article on the Chinese immigrant community in Dakar, Senegal today. The online version is behind a pay wall but accessible by searching the SCMP.com archive. My editor has kindly given me permission to reproduce the PDF on my site.

I went to Dakar in May last year and wrote about the growing Chinese population and the city as a travel destination for Anyway magazine. I interviewed world music star Youssou N’Dour for Anyway as well. Since my trip there has been a government crackdown on street trade, which has exacerbated tensions, even sparking rioting in November. The SCMP article updates and refocuses the story to make it more newsy and relevant for Chinese readers.

This is the first article I have written for SCMP but I hope not the last. I would like to expand to write for other English-language newspapers across Asia and the world.