Good news! With the May part of the competition coming to an end, it is great to be able to feature a travel story from last year's winner - Bob Manning.

If you haven't read Bob's winning entry: ​A Snapshot: La Contraviesa Mountains, Spain, then you can read it here. 

After that please enjoy his brand new story Nightmare on Biscay. 
​

Bob Manning

A random abstract writer and a singer/songwriter. I first moved to Granada Spain in the 1980's, I settled in a small mountain village of 200 souls as the only Ex-pat. There I spent 15 glorious years. I then continued my wanderings in Andalusia for almost thirty years, from isolated mountain villages to dynamic vibrant cities, these adventures have left me with a few tales to tell. I started writing as one of my tools to recover from personal crisis and would like to develop my skills so as to be able to dedicate more time to this process. I have written a lot of content for online travel websites and last year I entered Robert Fear's Travel Story Competition, a short story writing competition, to my surprise I won. I received a cash prize, and a much needed boost.
​

A warm welcome back to Elizabeth Moore with her first entry in this year's competition. Elizabeth was joint top contributor last year with five fabulous travel stories. Three of her stories and three of her highlights are included in the 2017 Edition of Travel Stories and Highlights.

I am sure Elizabeth will not mind me sharing the following note she sent through with her story:

"I gave the latest Highlights book to my mother for her 92nd birthday. She loved all of it but has been able to tell anyone who will listen that her daughter is a published writer!"

Read and enjoy Elizabeth's latest travel story A Mountie, Mists and Wine.

Elizabeth Moore

Elizabeth has lived in Australia all her life. She is happily married, a mother of two, grandmother of five and devoted assistant to one very bossy tortoiseshell cat named Lucy. Her working career began as a speech pathologist and later morphed into the totally unrelated field of retail management in a university science centre and planetarium.

​Travel has always been a focus and yes – there has always been a bucket list. This was brought into stark relief when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and following treatment, a travel timetable began to take shape. Guam was first, followed quickly by European and North American adventures. Illness nudged another long-held interest to the fore and Elizabeth began chronicling her trips with extensive photography, promising herself she would also write about her exploits. 

It is a real privilege to be able to welcome another newcomer to the 2017 Travel Story Competition - Yvonne Kilat.

Her  story is entitled LOVERS' BRIDGE. Yvonne modestly describes it as 'a simple story told in a simple way' but I am sure, once you have read it, you will agree that it is much more than that. Follow the highlighted link above to enjoy her entry.
 

Yvonne Kilat

​An avid reader since childhood, she began entertaining the idea of becoming a writer in her teens. However, vocation and motherhood took precedence although she never stopped writing in her journals. Her life changed when she picked up a stray in 2012. Since then she has travelled to ten countries and rekindled her passion for writing after joining a fabulous group on social media, namely We Love Memoirs.

Yvonne with ​Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world

It is great to be able to feature another newcomer to the 2017 Travel Story Competition.

I am sure that you will enjoy Olivia-Petra Coman's fascinating recollections in her travel story Rafting in Bosnia and Herzegovina as much as I have. 

It is a great pleasure to welcome back Susan Mellsopp with her third entry in this year's Travel Story Competition. I really admire Susan for everything she achieves as a solo traveller, being that she is legally blind.

Follow the links to catch up with her first two stories In Flanders Fields and Trip in Venice, before enjoying her latest entry Out of the Flames.
 

Susan Mellsopp is a recently retired Archivist and accessible transport researcher. She has written all her life but is now able to indulge in her passion full time.

She lives in New Zealand with her retired guide dog Chocolat and working dog Jay. Susan also loves to travel, reads voraciously, enjoys cooking and classical music.
 
An avid reader, she regards this travel experience as one of the highlights of her first visit to Scotland.  

It is great to be able to welcome another newcomer to the 2017 Travel Story Competition.

Gundy Baty had recently read the Travel Stories and Highlights book and was motivated by that to submit her entry MIRACLES EXIST, a story that she has waited nearly 40 years to write. I found it inspiring and I hope you do too.

Gundy Baty

I was born in Bavaria in 1950, and became a teacher.  I worked for a year in Switzerland and then signed up for a teacher exchange between Germany and France where I met my first husband.   In 1979, when Robert was a year old, we bought a milk farm in Quebec, Canada, where we lived for six years.   In 1980, we adopted another boy, only 10 days old, in Bogotá, Colombia.   In 1985, we returned to France for three years for family reasons and then back to Canada, this time to Toronto. 

There I worked as a store manager in a high-end jewelry, gem and fossil store for 9 years.   My marriage ended in 1994.   I went back to school in 1997, and became a travel agent, but decided what I really wanted was to own a B&B.   In 2001, I found one in the mountains of British Columbia.   Two years later, I married the owner of another B&B in the same town.   In 2007, we retired to South America where we still live. 

Gundy November 2016

Hot on the heels of his April winning entry, RED SHOES, it is a real pleasure to be able to feature another great story from Syd Blackwell. This one is titled EL TREN A LAS NUBES (the train to the clouds). Please follow the highlighted link and I hope you enjoy Syd's latest entry as much as I have.

Syd Blackwell

I lived in British Columbia, Canada´s western province, for most of my life. I was a teacher, and a college employee (various roles - instruction, recruitment, promotion, counselling, research), before re-inventing myself as an innkeeper. I designed and had built my B&B inn in Revelstoke, which I operated for nine years. At age 60, my wife and I retired to Uruguay, where we have lived for more than a decade. Innside Stories is my first published book. I have extensive writing experience in Canada, and in Uruguay, I wrote 75 articles for a now defunct online magazine called Ola Uruguay. We live in Villa Argentina, a suburb of Atlántida, on the coast of Uruguay. We have five dogs.
​

A huge thank you to the eight authors and writers who submitted their wonderful 500-1000 word entries during the second month of our third annual Travel Story Competition. 

If you haven’t read the March or April stories yet then please check them out here.
 
It has been another difficult choice this month, but I am really pleased to announce that the April winner is ……

Syd Blackwell with his memorable story RED SHOES.
 
Do you have a travel story to share? There are three months left in this year’s competition, so you still have three opportunities to join in. We’d love to read your story or stories. Don’t forget that as well as being in with a chance of winning cash prizes, you could also be included in the 2018 Edition of Travel Stories and Highlights.

For further details go to the Competition page. If you know of anyone else who might be interested, please pass on this link:
http://www.fd81.net/competition.html

Thanks for your continued support.