Q. Where are you based? Sydney, Australia
Q. What outlet do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties? Traveltalk Magazine. It has a predominantly travel agent and trade audience, as well as a loyal high-end consumer audience of travellers who like to be informed of what's happening in the industry as well as the best deals available.
Q. What are your professional pet peeves? Automated follow up emails about press releases. It's fine if it's a person checking in, but not if it's sent out without checking to see if we've covered the story.
Q. In your past professional life, you were … I was a news producer and reporter at Newshub in New Zealand. As well as travel I worked on coverage of events such as the Christchurch earthquakes and massacre, politics and elections. My biggest story was probably breaking the news of Jonah Lomu's death. I also hosted and produced New Zealand's LGBTI news and culture podcast called The Outlook.
Q. Where would you like to return to? St Maarten in the Caribbean. As a plane geek, that beach is just heaven to me.
Q. What's on your bucket list? I'm desperate to visit South-East Asia. So many amazing places and people.
Q. Where do you travel for fun? Cliche, but I do love California. Los Angeles has such an amazing vibe and energy. I also have a not so secret addiction to watching LA police chases online.
Q. Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is … Oh, it was a day of absolute mayhem in a location I won't disclose. So many things went wrong, but if you need a taster of how bad it got, let me say that we ended up at the funeral of our guide's best friend as part of the tour. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/travel/2021/09/dan-lake-my-worst-experience-ever-with-a-tour-guide-as-travel-editor.html
Q. What advice would you give your younger professional self? Be yourself and find what you are passionate about. Nothing motivates you like a genuine passion for something.
Q. What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on? I am very passionate about the LGBTI community and am wanting to cover more of this section of the travel industry.
Q. How best should people contact you? https://travmedia.com/dannews
