Mindie Burgoyne – Travel Writer, Author, Tour Operator, Travel Hag
Mindie Burgoyne is a storyteller from a long line of storytellers. She uses that capability today as a travel writer, blogger, author, tour operator and speaker. Her focus is traveling within the context of a story to mystical – magical places that stir the heart, mind, and spirit. Her tour company, Travel Hag Tours, LLC has three subsidiaries – Chesapeake Ghosts – a cluster of 11 regional ghost walks on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Thin Places Mystical Tours – annual tours and travel services to mystical/sacred sites in Ireland, and Heartwheel Media, a publishing arm that uses for her published books and freelance writing.
Mindie is the past president of the Eastern Shore Writers Association and has written six books on regional travel. Her writings and photographs have been featured in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, CBS News, National Geographic Television Network, the Today Show, Maryland Life Magazine, What’s Up? Magazines, Coastal Style, the National Catholic Reporter, Guideposts, the Vancouver Sun, Metropolitan Magazine, and Notre Dame Alumni Magazine as well as numerous business and travel websites. Mindie currently runs four blog sites – three focusing on travel and one is an opinion blog.
Mindie blogs
The Travel Hag
Chesapeake Ghosts
Thin Places Travel Podcast
Mindie has launched a new travel podcast about mindful travel to mystical sites. The Thin Places Travel Podcast was launched in February of 2018. Listen to the Thin Places Travel Podcast on iTunes or on the website.
Writing Has Led Her Success
Formerly the publisher of Trinity Music and The Pastoral Press in Washington, DC, Mindie and her husband, Dan moved to the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland in 2002 where she has a government day job. Mindie does extensive freelance writing and runs two tour operations – Travel Hag Tours and Chesapeake Ghost Tours. She speaks at conferences and events on travel, travel writing and marketing communications. Whenever she can make time, Mindie rolls along America’s roads with her Retro camper in tow, scouting out the most energetic landscapes, the best flatwater kayaking trails, historic towns, haunted houses, and friendly people. This makes for interesting writing.
“My writing has driven my income” Mindie states. “Writing about Ireland and the Haunted Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake has created the interest in tours to these places. Then my use of social media to promote my writing and tours led to an interest in training and speaking about the uses of social media platforms.” She readily admits that while she loves the tours and speaking, writing is her passion. It’s where all the “newness” happens. Mindie admits that she hates the writing process. “Crafting written work is art. It’s making something out of nothing, and that creation is seen only in the reader’s imagination. It’s hell. But the sense of accomplishment that washes over you when you discover people are actually reading your work and being changed by it is the addictive element that drives you to do it all over again.”
Life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
Because landscapes and surroundings matter Mindie and her husband, Dan moved from the Washington DC suburbs to the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland in 2002 when the last of their six children left home for college. In 2020 Dan passed away, but Mindie has her roots well planted in that little peninsula on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay and has no interest in calling any other place “home.”
TOUR OPERATOR
Mindie is also a tour operator with two tour companies. Be sure to check out her Thin Places Mystical Tours site.
Chesapeake Ghost Walks
Thin Places Mystical Tours
