* Update, April, 25 2010: Despite sold-out classes and overwhelmingly positive feedback from students, our travel writing classes have been put on hiatus for the time being.

We’ve posted half a dozen 2010 weekend dates for our Travel Writing in the Digital Age classes, which cover travel writing, travel blogging, audio slideshow production and using social media. They all take place at Travel Channel headquarters in Washington, D.C. Find more details, registration information and student testimonials here.

I’m excited to announce the creation of new two-day workshops on Travel Writing in the Digital Age, presented by World Hum and Travel Channel Academy. Few classes these days thoroughly address how travel writing has changed and evolved with the internet. That’s why Michael Yessis and I created this course: to bring much of what we’ve learned in editing and producing World Hum over the years to aspiring travel writers, as well as writers seeking a serious primer on travel writing and the internet.

We cover how to turn travel tales into compelling stories and essays suitable for publication; how to create and write an evocative travel blog (and keep it going after a trip); and how to produce a dynamic audio slideshow that combines photography and voice-over audio storytelling. We also address how to use social media to help establish oneself as a travel writer and find a voice in the vibrant digital travel writing community.

Enrollment is open now for classes in November and December at Travel Channel headquarters in Washington, D.C. Michael and I have both taught travel writing at UCLA Extension (and I’ve taught it in several other locales), and we’ll be leading the courses. We’ll be adding more dates and locations in 2010. Registration and additional information can be found here. (Updated, April 25, 2010.)

Robert Reid put the question to a few of us on the travel blogging panel at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas:

Does travel make us wiser but less happy, as Thomas Jefferson famously suggested in a letter to a friend?

I consider the question in a short piece on the escalating drug war in Michoacán and my own memories of traveling through the Mexican state, which also happens to be home to the largest avocado-producing region in the world.

The piece appears on World Hum and was also recently published on the Huffington Post.