"It's not about traveling, it's about writing," Tim Cahill once remarked in regard to the success he's attained chronicling adventure travel. It isn't that he walked with gorillas in Rwanda, witnessed demon possession in Bali, or passed"deep in the malarial heart of the swamp" to visit with purported headhunters that makes Tim's writing meaningful. Certainly, his adventures are spectacular, but it is his ability to reflect upon each journey and relate it to the reader's own experience—a reader who is sitting comfortably in a living room halfway across the planet—that that makes the tales remarkable. The risks he takes in his writing often parallel the danger he throws himself into on the road. On paper and in life, he gets away with it. It also helps that he's damn funny. His caustic wit, sometimes aimed at himself, keeps us laughing while he wryly slips in a moral lesson to a story that has in some way changed his life.
Tim Cahill was one of Outside's founding editors, where he continues today as Editor-at-Large. He is the author of six books, including A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, Pecked to Death by Ducks, and Pass the Butterworms: Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered. He is coauthor of the critically acclaimed IMAX film Everest and the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Living Sea. Tim's work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, National Geographic, Esquire, Outside, Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, where he is a contributing editor.
In His Own Words
The Job
"I write articles about travel and the outdoors."
How He Got There
"I worked for Rolling Stone which wanted to launch an outdoor magazine, Outside. As one of the few in house authors with outdoor experience, I was asked to help."
How to Get an Adventure-Travel Job
"Learn to write well! There is no dearth of travelers or adventurers. There is a big damn dearth when it comes to good writers."
Pros
"Going anywhere I want in the world that arouses my curiosity. Meeting people, making friends, and, oh yeah, getting paid to do it."
Cons
"Relationships tend to bend and sometime break under the weight of all that travel."
Salary Range
"Salaries are not paid to freelance authors. In my own professional career over the past 15 years, as an established professional, I've had annual incomes of nearly $200,000 and some as low as $40,000. Money is not really why a writer would gravitate to this sort of work."
His Dream Job
"Editor-at-Large, Outside Magazine, my current job."
Do you think there's any danger in your passion becoming your career?
"No, that is the key to doing you best work."
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