Just about everyone loves visiting a theme park… But for some of us, the real fun begins when we get home. Whether on fan sites, social media, podcasts, YouTube, or even TikTok, thousands of theme park enthusiasts have found places to share their thoughts, tell stories, and keep the “magic” alive at home. Becoming a writer, podcaster, blogger, YouTuber or other “content creator” who can make some money on the side – or even as a primary income – while thinking, writing, and talking about theme parks is a dream job for many. But how do you get started?
I guess I know something about this, since I’ve been writing for Theme Park Tourist for about twelve years now, contributing three, four, or five articles a month. If you’ve dug into Theme Park Tourist’s Legend Library – our collection of in-depth, interconnected ride histories from Alien Encounter to World of Motion – yep, that’s me! So while I may not be an expert like so many content creators are, I do feel that I’ve got a few ideas for how you can get started as a theme park writer, blogger, or content creator…
1. Write (and read) a lot
It would be nice if a list of “how to become a theme park writer” could begin with some groundbreaking, unexpected piece of advice or a get-rich-quick manuever that would blow the lid off the industry and turn you into an overnight viral sensation. Unfortunately, the truest and best piece of advice any writer can give to someone hoping to break into the “industry” is painfully simple: Write. Read. Practice.
It’s obvious why. You have to be a good writer before you can be a good theme park writer. Partly, that’s about getting used to the conventions of writing – the “boring” stuff like punctuation, grammar, spelling… It’s also about reviewing, pacing, citing, and editing. It’s about recognizing where you’d like a section break, where a new page should start, and how to tell a story beginning, middle, and end. All those things you learned in middle school – like a topic sentence, supporting evidence, naming sources, where to begin a new paragraph… that kind of thing is what keeps your work looking and sounding professional, organized, and structured.
Many sites request writing samples (for example, a catchy headline and a sample paragraph from a piece you might propose if you’re “hired”), and if your work is missing basic structures and citations, filled with spelling and grammar errors, or feels inaccessible thanks to wordy asides you’d never speak aloud, then you haven’t made a great impression.
Also important – the best creators of quality content are often consumers of quality content. Great writers don’t just write a lot; they read a lot. Just as “you are what you eat,” you’ll pretty reliably produce the kind of content you ingest. So “tune in” to quality creators and storytellers to glean their tricks of the trade. Hopefully my Legend Library is a great foundation to get lost in the stories of legendary rides of yesterday and today and the people who brought them to life, for example.
But don’t just rely on fans. Invest in or borrow reference books that theme park content creators need – autobiographies of Imagineers, current park guides, coffee table books, executives’ memoirs… whatever areas of the industry intersect and excite you, those are the places to start. And you’ll want to specialize and get settled into a niche, because that’s the start of my second piece of advice…
2. Have a voice, an angle, and a perspective
If you go to a restaurant that serves breakfast, sandwiches, sushi, pizza, and donuts, chances are they’re not doing any of them exceptionally well. Specializing is important in any career, and nearly all major theme park fan sites (or at least, the members of their writing staff) have their “niche.” That’s really good news, because it means that there are lots and perspectives for you to read, and hundreds of angles from which you can approach your interest in theme parks.
Lots of sites specialize in “boots on the ground” reports that cover new snacks, MagicBands, construction progress, and more. This feels like the simplest entrypoint to approach the parks from, but is probably the hardest to break into. Lots of sites and channels offer “boots on the ground” coverage, and many can’t be beat in terms of established audiences. For example, MiceChat does this wonderfully, with near-daily photo reports and commentary of the parks supported by discussion boards.
From another angle, Touring Plans has a unique perspective, with data-based services, crowd calendars, and smart itineraries that can optimize your plans for the day, telling you what to do and when. In addition, weekly columns like the Saturday Six provide humorous looks at the goings-on of the parks.
Passport2Dreams is an incredible (and often-cited in my stories) blog where Foxx Nolte digs deep into both esoteric ideas around theme parks and the architecture, atmosphere, and academics of them, specializing on classic Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, and rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. It’s the kind of thing your casual “We Heart Disneyworld” Facebook groups might not be into, but stuff that park historians and industry experts devour hungrily.
Lots of fans also love armchair Imagineering and make it their “thing” to sketch out concepts. S.W. Wilson’s Ideal Build-Out blog is packed with absolutely incredible from-scratch theme park plans and “ideal build-outs” of existing parks, with architectural specificity that exceeds many parks’ official maps.
Kevin Perjurer and his co-creators at Defunctland create in-depth documentaries on retired rides, attractions, and services at the parks, expanding ever-outward toward larger industry explorations. (And thankfully, Kevin has not only listed me prominently in his videos’ credits when my work has been useful, but has brought me on his podcast!)
And of course, my niche is written, researched, in-depth, and interconnected ride histories that (I think!) are some of the most accessible, interesting, and informative versions of oft-cited stories! They all live here on Theme Park Tourist, and are offered in syndication on my personal site – Park Lore – where Member support powers additional art projects, armchair Imagineering, and ways to “see the parks differently.” That’s my voice. My perspective. My angle. But I had to write a lot and learn a lot to discover that.
So when I look back at the first things I wrote for Theme Park Tourist as a freelance writer in 2011 – reviews of Cedar Point’s Windseeker, Kings Island’s Dinosaurs Alive exhibit, and a preview of Busch Gardens’ Verbolten – it’s not like I feel embarassed… All the spelling and grammar and punctuation is fine. But I definitely see that I didn’t have my voice yet. It doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like me trying to be a writer. It was me thinking, “Maybe reviewing new rides can be my thing? And I’ll try to sound really smart as I do it.” And that’s okay! In the decade of experience I’ve have since, I’ve learned a lot and found my niche… even if I branch out here and there!
It’s okay to be interested in – and to write about – various different aspects of the industry at large! Even though my definitive “genre” is super in-depth, researched, interconnected ride histories, I’ve offered my Genie+ recommendations, published reviews, typed up analyses of Disney World’s operations and anniversaries, and written hundreds of listicles in my time! But I hope that even the more timely, trivial lists and articles I’ve written still come from my unique voice and perspective.
Which brings us to my next piece of advice… Read on…!
3. Know your stuff, and cite it, too
Again, it sounds obvious to say that if you want to write around theme parks, you have to know your stuff. But this is an essential piece. Just really, really loving Disney World or being a huge theme park fan doesn’t mean you’ve got everything you need to create content about them. They say nothing happens in a vacuum, and that’s so important to remember when you’re writing about theme parks.
For example, if you plan to write about long waits at Disney Parks, there are many perspectives to approach it from… but none of it will really be complete if you – the author – don’t know the history of queuing at Disney Parks; not just that FastPass became Genie+, but why; how shifting leadership at the corporate level has changed operations in the parks; to have an educated idea of what might happen next… It’s not that in-depth explanations of those components need jammed into a simple update on Lightning Lane pricing, but you – as the author – need that context to inform your perspective, voice, and attitude.
For me, I pride myself on the in-depth, interconnected stories I’ve written – my Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands. Even though each is about a particular ride, land, or park, those stories often begin years or even decades before their subject even opened.
On paper, it’s strange to start the story of the Lost Legend: Snow White’s Scary Adventures with a brief review of the history of dark rides (dating back to the 1800s) or to start the story of the Modern Marvel: The Enchanted Tiki Room with the discovery of “simple machines” in the year 200 BC, or to begin my history of queuing in the Disney Parks by researching where and when humans came up with the idea of lining up, anyway…
But understanding the ebbs and flows of the industry; the major players; historic Imagineers; the parks’ early years; the foundations of the technologies in the parks; how different CEOs have overseen different eras and priorities and plans; the random contexts that created the parks we know today… it matters! It’s not that you need to be a personal encyclopedia of theme parks in order to write about EPCOT’s newest snack, or that a simple news update requires elaboration on decades of precedent that built-up to a new fireworks show… but when you know your stuff, readers can tell.
And since no one is born knowing this stuff, remember to cite your sources. Be conspicuous about it! In school, if you didn’t originate an idea or personally calculate a statistic, you’re supposed to cite the source you got it from. We should push for that standard in fandom creation, too. Link to news articles, blogs, videos, and creators who did any heavy lifting for you. Pulling pieces of information from multiple sources – and then citing them – is a strength. It shows that you have a wide knowledge base gleaned from many people and resources, and linking back to them adds context for your viewer while legitimizing your perspective and making you appear like a creator who cares. Plus, it’s just good form to vocally credit those whose work you’ve used to help.
A whiny, personal example: Lots and lots of the in-depth attraction histories I’ve written have become de facto secondhand histories referenced and shared around the Internet, which I obviously think is the coolest thing to ever happen to me. Many end up becoming main sources for YouTube creators… and I feel like that makes sense! My versions of the stories are (I hope) well-told, reliably sourced, and accessible to every level of fan. So one on hand, it’s great and I’m honored that my “version” of the stories serves as a foundation for remixes and retellings.
But frankly, most times, no one bothers to make that clear. I get it – by nature of being the written version of the story, I’m already at a self-appointed disadvantage. So what can I do except “grin and bear it” as I see videos that range from inspired-by-my-work to literally-using-my-words gaining tens of thousands of views (and healthy ad revenue!) while I’m lucky to get a link to my original story buried deep down in a description no one reads. Most times, it’s not cited at all.
I kind of did a little personal experiment on this. I had to search for months to assemble archival sources and a narrative flow for a story I did on Universal’s Poseidon’s Fury – an attraction whose development just isn’t very well documented. I was so proud of the finished piece – Modern Marvels: Poseidon’s Fury – and like clockwork, within a few months, a half-dozen YouTube channels had published their own Poseidon’s Fury histories. Some at least linked back to me somewhere in their sources, and some did not. It is what it is. It’s the Internet. I’m not losing sleep over it. But it certainly reinforced my notion that in my stories, citations and links to source materials are always clear and conspicuous, and in turn, I hope that folks who use my stories do me the same courtesy.
If you really want to be forward-thinking, why settle for citing a fellow creator when you could turn to a model of co-creation?! (In other words… email me! I’ll contribute my ideas! Be on your podcast! Etc.!)
4. Choose wisely
In the Internet of the 2020s, content is king. If you want to stay tuned into the almighty algorithm, it means feeding the furnance with #content. If it seems like “BREAKING NEWS” happens every single day, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Nearly all Disney Parks fansites rely entirely on ad-revenue gleaned from pageviews and thus generated by clicks. For better or worse, that’s the model.
Frankly, ambiguous headlines that invite clicks and “BREAKING NEWS” about every cupcake are necessary evils, practically required by creators to survive in today’s market if they hope to pay writers! So you’re unlikely to find a standard theme park fan site that doesn’t contain listicles, breaking news, and attention-grabbing headlines that need clicked into to be understood… They are just a part of the landscape in a Facebook-focused market.
Instead, your question should be whether the site deals more in “quantity” or “quality.” I’ve given plenty of my articles “click-me!” titles – because I want the site I’m writing for to be successful, and for my content to be read! – but I know that the quality is there, too and can rest easy at night.
Think “quality” or “quantity”? A recent job opening for a site that some say peddles in the former recently posted a full-time writing position that requires twenty-five 600+-word articles per week. That’s 100 articles every single month. Seriously, if I asked you to take a day and come up with 100 unique, short-form article headlines you could write about Disney Parks that would generate traffic, could you do it? Maybe! But could you come up with another 100 the next month? And 100 more the month after that? And without overlapping with other writers, who also have to generate 100 articles per month? Is enough actually going on in Disney Parks in any given week to create twenty five articles?
More to the point, how long could you keep that up? At that rate, in six months you’d have written more standalone articles than I’ve produced for Theme Park Tourist in twelve years. It’s no wonder that some sites crank out meaningless, worthless #content custom-built to cater to the lowest-common-denomonator audiences, and to trick or enrage people into clicking…
The point is, if you’re looking to get involved in the business of writing for a theme park website, you have to choose wisely. To our thinking, ally yourself with “quality,” not quantity. Know your worth, and don’t get involved in something that’s designed to be untenable. Instead, hold out for a platform that’ll embrace your perspective, strengths, and schedule…
Reach out to the writers you admire and the storytellers you enjoy listening to. Ask for their advice. Interview them. Collect their insight and their pathways to where they are. Turn to the sites you admire and check daily. Scan their website to see if they have any opportunities for you to freelance even a few articles a month for the experience, or just to compile a piece for their other writers to review. Get your name out there!
And if you don’t find a site that fits the niche you want to go for, then congratulations – you’ve found a site that needs created from scratch. Make it yourself! Who knows… you may end up being a favorite creator for the next generation of theme park fans.
