Submitting Story Ideas to
Porthole Cruise and Travel Magazine
The following are some style/content requirements essential to any story that is published in Porthole Cruise and Travel Magazine and the PPI Group.
- Familiarize yourself with the magazine. We are consumer, not trade.
- Look for an unusual angle. Almost every story/destination/ship you pitch has been pitched before. Usually more than once. Look for the unique aspect of where you are going and make that your story.
- Cruise-related. Remember, almost all stories published in Porthole must relate to things that are cruise-passenger accessible (with some road-trip and railway-journey exceptions).
- Quotes please! A good story cannot stand without quotes. Bring the people who you encountered into the story with their words and let them help you tell your story. Avoid trite phrases as quotes, though, such as “We had a wonderful time,” and “The food was delicious.”
- Keep it focused on the story. Please do not send us accounts of your lovely, spectacular, or breathtaking family cruise vacation from point of embarkation to debarkation.
- Details please. Good descriptions go a long way. Concentrate on vivid specifics, personal anecdotes, and unusual experiences.
- Beyond the obvious: Please refrain from repeating the contents of press releases.
How to Submit
We prefer queries by email only. Please keep your queries brief and let us know your credentials as a professional writer.
Email to: [email protected]
Besides Porthole Cruise Magazine, PPI Group publishes a variety of custom publications (see PPI Group Publications) as well as non-magazine items on the porthole.com website.
We are not responsible for unsolicited queries, manuscripts, or photos sent by mail, even those that include a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope. Again, by emailing your queries, you ensure that they reside in our database for future consideration.
Please note that we work months in advance. Please be patient and realize that a response and/or assignment may come months, even up to a year, after your query is received. We generally assign four weeks before due date. Payment is made upon publication.
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Writer Guidelines for AI
Computers are tools, not collaborators.
Using digital assistance for research, fact-checking, and collating and organizing data is fine; having an AI create your “vibrant,” “enduring,” “culturally rich” prose, misattribute or mangle direct quotations, hallucinate basic facts, or generate a final draft without your human oversight constitute crimes against travel journalism. Violators will be subject to the harshest penalties under maritime law: taken into international waters and obligated by our onboard associates to walk the plank.
Seriously, Porthole Cruise and Travel is based on real people having unforgettable experiences in real places around the world. Our readers want to know what ships are really like, how it really feels to ride luxury trains, or what to expect while actually traveling through very real regions far from home (or just around the corner). The journeys may be fantastic, the stories may inspire dreams, but our readers demand and deserve writing that is anchored in reality.
We want your unique insights and your personal experiences. We do not want mashups of pre-existing works fed into a Large Language Model en masse, nor are we in the market for “vibe-coded” pseudo-remembrances. Our whole purpose as a publication is to go beyond the algorithm’s expectations.
Our AI policy:
- We do not publish stories with text generated by AI. Some online news articles may be largely based on press releases, but these will be condensed, rewritten, and given greater context to the best of our professional ability.
- We do not publish material that has not been checked and re-checked by human professionals. We may use AI to organize, for instance, lists of upcoming newbuilds or destinations on a line’s Caribbean itineraries, but that information will be double- or triple-checked to the best of our professional ability.
- We do not publish images solely generated by AI. Image-editing tools may extend a horizon or smooth over a low-resolution photo; the landscapes, ships, and story subjects will always be 100 percent real.
We may use LLMs or other digital assistants to suggest compelling story ideas or to inspire new approaches, just like any new tool can open up new ways of doing any job. But we take pride in our experience as journalists and as travelers, and will always use that professionalism to shape everything you see in Porthole.
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