Freelance and Travel Writing Workshop
Bali, Indonesia
28 nights from $2950AUD
Known as the Island of the Gods, Bali’s rumbling volcanoes, rice paddies and warm-water surf have enamoured travellers for decades. With its strong culture, incense-laced streets and warm locals, the island is an enchanting gem in the Indonesian archipeligo.
Travel to the evergreen village of Ubud with Astray. Over the course of four weeks, you’ll live amongst the mountains in a locally-owned guesthouse and will attend daily writing workshops with a huge emphasis on storytelling, ethical reporting, sustainable travel, Balinese culture and freelancing. As well as penning one story that we’ll help you edit to perfection, as a team, you’ll be creating an eBook travel guide to the region which will be published as an eBook.
Outside of class hours, you’ll be frolicking from the reef to the jungle, bathing in waterfalls, admiring majestic temples, munching on delicious food with your hands and perhaps even zipping around on a motorised scooter. To break out of the tourism vortex and immerse yourself in the community, you’ll also be learning Indonesian from a crew of artisan teachers courtesy of Cinta Bahasa: a fantastic language school we’ve worked closely with for years.
Learn what you don't get taught at uni
This program provides practical, real-world experience, and has been designed to be a bridge between writing privately and entering the workforce as a freelance writer. Applicants vary in levels of experience — some are fresh out of high school, others are in the throes of a journalism degree, some are studying something super random and others have never been to uni. Maybe you’ve filled eight travel journals over the last five years; perhaps the only writing you’ve ever done is graffiti on the back of a toilet door. We cater to all ability levels, and though experience helps, it’s not at all necessary — we’ll teach you everything you need to know, and guarantee that you’ll have a wealth of new skills and confidence (plus a fantastic story worth pitching) by the end of the week. In fact, many students often keep writing for us on a freelance basis once the course is over.
What you get
Daily writing, editing and freelancing workshops. Classes go for between two and three hours each weekday. Click here for a subject breakdown.
30 hours of small-group Indonesian language classes
A half-day cooking class at a village-run organic farm in the mountains
Airport pickup
One month of twin-share accommodation in a Balinese bungalow
- 24-hour support, care and mentoring
Potential university credit via the Work Integrated Learning program: if you’re a journalism, media or communications student, enrolment in the program gives you the potential to receive a full subject’s worth of university credit. So far, we’ve had students from RMIT, Wollongong University, Charles Sturt University, Griffith University, La Trobe University, UNSW, QUT, the University of Queensland, Curtin University and more receive credit, as well as those attending schools in New Zealand, the UK and the USA.
Dates and Cost
Next programs:
- Saturday June 22 – Saturday July 20, 2024
- Sunday November 24 – Sunday December 12, 2024
Cost
- $2950AUD for a twin-share bungalow
Once you get in to the program, a $500 deposit will be required to confirm your place, and the rest will be due six weeks before the program starts. If we have to cancel, the program is fully refundable. If you have to cancel, the program is fully refundable less the deposit until four weeks before. Payment plans are available and can span up to six months after the program finishes.
Travel respectfully and sustainably
Tourism-related business makes up the vast majority of Bali’s economy, but bule (Indonesian for foreign person) have not been treating the island with respect. In addition to navigating the challenges presented by mass tourism and foreign migration – among them gentrification and neocolonialism – Bali is having to deal with bule driving dangerously, posing naked at sacred sites and breaching visa conditions.
This behaviour is unacceptable, and here at Astray, we hope to facilitate a completely different type of travel. As part of our commitment to this, all the businesses we work with are locally owned, from our drivers and videographer to our accommodation owners and visa agent.
By attending a workshop for a whole month, you get the opportunity to really immerse yourself in Bali: a slow approach to travel that emphasises meaningful connection and experience over rushing around and only scratching the surface of places.
Be prepared to learn a lot from locals: both from the village farmers who host us for a day of cooking school, and the language teachers, or guru, from Cinta Bahasa. As well as teachers, they are writers, poets, activists and artists from all over Indonesia, and we’ll be having some big discussions all together about sustainable tourism and Bali’s current climate.
FAQ
- This looks kind of scammy — I’d like to read some reviews of the program from previous students!
- Suss our Testimonials Page.
- I want to know some more information about the program!
- Give our Program FAQ a read.
- What are your terms and conditions?
- Click here.