Exactly three months ago, on April 21st, I relaunched Going Places as an audience-supported publication that cultivates hope through stories of people and places from around the world.
Today, I want to share with you where we stand.
In three months, we've welcomed 18 amazing people as paid Going Places members who decided to support our work.
That's 14 Friends, 3 Accomplices, and 1 Founding Member (RISE Travel Institute!)
Whenever someone decides to support our platform, that tells me that there are people out there who believe in our mission and who want to see this platform grow.
But I'm going to get straight to the point:
Today I'm asking YOU to become a paid member of Going Places and help us get that number to 40.
Why should you subscribe?
To name just three reasons: 1) You get a lot out of this membership, 2) We're doing something unique and sorely needed in the travel media space, and 3) Because we're offering a 20% discount for new annual Friends, Accomplices, and Founding Members for the next 3 days.
You get a lot of bang for your buck.
Our memberships start at just ~$6.60 a month (when you join on an annual basis). That's $0.22 per day to access creator opportunities to work with publications or apply for storytelling grants, and my insights on the creative industry. And with this 20% offer, you can support us and get all that access starting at just ~$5 a month.
When you become a paid member:
- You get unlimited access to all member-only stories, including curated city guides, creator opportunities, personal essays, and more
- You get early access to our events (trips, meet-ups, workshops, & more)
- You get our weekly member-only newsletter with insights I'm keeping for this crew
- You know that you’re supporting independent travel journalism
- PLUS: Our Accomplices get on a group call with me once a month to get guidance, advice, and support from each other (it's the best deal out there to get some facetime with me), and our Founding Members get the most perks: a 1:1 call with me, a gift membership for a friend, their name mentioned in our Hall of Fame, and more.
How do you know it's worth it?
In three months, we've shared stories about building a radically different hostel in Pakistan, traveling to nine countries to find solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems, and learning from the two-decade-long struggle for Palestinian human rights.
In the time of widespread censorship, we've been clear in our language, not afraid to explicitly name systems of power and oppression and use terms like genocide and settler colonialism.
We've launched our first-ever thoughtful city guide to Buenos Aires (with more coming up!) and scoured the web for numerous creator opportunities, including a call for pitches from Conde Nast Traveler and a $12,000 grant for women artists.
If you want to see more work like this, join us here.
Why do we need it?
We've got ambitious plans for Going Places. We want to a) grow our contributor network and b) launch a Going Places fund to enable more people to join our trips and help emerging storytellers publish their work.
The truth is that we are far away from being able to do any of these things right now.
For context: having 18 paid members comes out to a revenue (not profit) of about $200 a month. And to pay one contributor for one medium-length story, we'd need about $800 (and that's on the low end of what I'd like to pay people for their work!).
Three months after launch, we are a little behind on our goals. But I know we can get there.
How?
We have over 2,400 people who receive our stories in their inbox (that includes you!).
If only 1% of you decide to join us (just 1 in 100 people!), we can easily double our paid member count right now and get halfway to our goal of hiring contributors.
Will you help us get there?
We're trying to change the status quo in travel media, but it's an uphill battle. Every member counts.
Anything else?
Yes – thank you!
Even if you're not ready to become a paid member, if you're reading this, you are supporting a media platform trying to build something new. I know that these pleas can be annoying, but I hope you understand why I'm asking.
And since you made it this far: if you can't afford our membership right now, reply to this email and let me know. I'll gift an annual Friend tier membership to the first 3 people who respond, on the house. And if you'd like to be generous and fund those gift subscriptions, please consider doing so here.
Thank you,
Yulia
Going Places is an audience-supported platform.
Member discussion