Where are you based?
I'm originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and still spend about a week there per month but I've lived in New York City for the past 19 years.
What topics and places do you cover?
I write about anywhere and everywhere, from small-town USA to far-flung global destinations. I tend to write a lot about sustainability, solo travel, and all things outdoors (mostly hiking and biking, but also a bit of camping and kayaking). My mom has advanced Parkinson's and dementia so I write a lot about accessible travel, family travel, and multi-gen travel (plus non-travel-related things like caregiving).
What outlets do you usually pitch (and write for)?
Until The Daily Beast went under last year, that was one of the main places I pitched and wrote for. Now, I'm writing a lot for AARP, AAA (print), Sierra Club, Hilton Hotels, and World Nomads. Recently, I got my first print (and digital) travel feature in the Wall Street Journal, along with a couple of digital pieces in Midwest Living. I also write a lot of product reviews for Forbes, CNN, Travel + Leisure, and other outlets and often weave the testing into my travels, so I get to bring a bit of the destination (and quotes from local guides and experts) into those reviews.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
Freelance for life.
What is your approach to press trips?
I tend to avoid group press trips because they tend to offer a bit of everything – just the tip of the iceberg – and I'm not interested in iceberg tips. I'm interested in the entire iceberg, and the bottom, hard-to-reach part in particular. As such, I tend toward private press trips, focused on my specific areas of interest, like a week-long solo road trip where I can hike in State or National Parks, visit attractions prioritizing accessibility, and explore another area of interest (say, tea, vegetarian food, cycling, or immigrant entrepreneurship). I've also had pretty good luck joining hiking group tours with regular travelers (Scotland, Sri Lanka, and Slovenia in the past year), which I enjoy much more than group tours full of journalists and influencers.
What are your professional pet peeves?
I HATE PRESS RELEASES. They are never, ever helpful to me and I truly wonder who reads them. I also find some of them invasive, like, you have my email so you think you have the right to send me every single announcement every single one of your clients has? Hard pass on that! If I sent every pitch idea I have to every editor I know, they'd likely bookmark my email for spam because the mass pitches were so irrelevant to their particular interests.
Your restaurant has a new chef? Delete. Your new CEO is “focused on sustainability” (without any specific mention of concrete goals and innovative initiatives)? Delete. To me, these mass-mailed press releases are spam and I delete them immediately. Want to catch my eye? Call out one small piece of that press release and tell me why it's important to me, my beats, and the outlets I write for.
In your past professional life, you were …
I worked in food justice, overseeing community-based initiatives to improve access to healthy food in low-income communities around New York City. Before that, I worked in branding. I also ran a small travel company for 5 years, organizing and leading tours in Mexico, Cuba, and Jordan.
Where would you like to return to?
Madeira, Portugal. I want to visit every year and possibly retire there. I also loved Slovenia and want to do more hiking in that part of the world.
What's on your bucket list?
Iran, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Vietnam, and Myanmar. I also really love white-water rafting and I'm interested in finding some epic multi-day rafting adventures anywhere in the world (including in the US).
Where do you travel for fun?
I travel so much for work and to help care for a sick parent that I don't have much time to travel for fun. But to me, the times I most enjoy and when I turn off my phone and leave the laptop at home, is when I head to a cabin in northern Wisconsin and just read a book and look at the water every day.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …
Getting locked in a dive shop bathroom overnight in Cuba. A friend and I asked the overnight security guard if we could camp on the beach because we planned to dive there in the morning. He agreed and was kind enough to let us use the bathrooms and showers in the back. Well, as soon as I went in the tiny one-stall toilet (about 2 x 2 feet wide), the lock jammed and I couldn't get out. The guard thought I was “doing lady stuff” so he didn't even come back to check on me for an hour. It took 5 or 6 hours for them to get me out, I slept a few hours, then went diving in the morning. When researching a cycling Cuba guidebook a couple of years later, I went out of my way to visit this shop again. I walked in and said “Hi, I got locked in the bathroom here a few years ago” and they all began cracking up. Unsurprisingly, word had spread and everyone that worked there knew what happened so we had a good laugh.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
Calm down and chill out. Take it slower and spend more time networking, learning the ropes, and building up your skillset instead of trying to deep dive in, wasting time clawing into an industry you know nothing about. Be more patient.
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
If a journalist doesn't respond to your email, don't take it personally. We get so many emails (and follow-ups) that we simply don't have the time to respond and being stuck on email all day sucks your soul away. Inevitably, when I take the time to respond by saying “Thanks, but it's not a fit”, I then usually get follow-up emails like “Thanks for the response, but what about this angle?” or “Is there anything, in particular, you're looking for?” There's nothing wrong with these responses; they're perfectly appropriate, but they usher in even more work for the writer to respond to, so, sometimes, it's just easier to not respond in the first place.
How best should people contact you?
You can contact me via my email address on my TravMedia profile here.
