Where are you based?
I've lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the last three years. Before that, I lived in Anchorage, Alaska, for eight years, and I still spend a month or two there each year. I've also previously lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, Texas, Italy, Australia, and China.
What topics and places do you cover?
All things new and noteworthy in the travel space. A lot of my work centers around hard news and service journalism, which can range from new national park units to how to protect your points and miles from hackers. In terms of experiential travel writing, my areas of focus include up-and-coming destinations, the outdoors, adventure and wellness travel, expedition cruising, hotels, astrotourism, and conservation success stories.
What outlets do you usually pitch (and write for)?
Most of my writing is for AFAR (where I was previously on staff). In recent months, I've also been working with National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Time, InsideHook, Architectural Digest, Virtuoso, The Telegraph, The Washington Post, and Fodor's.
The best PR pitches include ...
A clear, timely hook.
Please wait until you have all the necessary components before pitching, though. Three or four times in the last month, I got a pitch that could have worked with a story I was in the midst of or knew one of my editors would be interested in a story on, but the sender couldn't give me the information I needed to run with it until I'd already finished writing the article or until it was no longer timely.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
Freelance!
What is your approach to press trips?
While I so appreciate every invite I receive, I do need to be selective about which I say yes to—I have to make sure I have plenty of time to stay home and work and try to only attend things I know I can sell a story about. Typically, there needs to be a solid reason to go now instead of whenever (if it's not timely, it's so much harder to get an assignment).
I also tend to gravitate to more emerging destinations (the Congo and Papua New Guinea are two examples of trips I was most excited about going on last year). I find it easier to sell stories about places that haven't been covered much, as opposed to places like Paris or London, that everyone has written about already.
What are your professional pet peeves?
As a freelancer, I have very little say in when an article will be published (I currently have one story that's been in the hopper for six months, for example), and it is exhausting when PRs follow up constantly to ask when the story will run. I promise I want it to go live just as much (probably more, honestly) as you do.
Similarly, unrealistic demands or untransparent expectations for pre-confirmed coverage. Most of the publications I write for don't guarantee assignments ahead of time (so often, the angle we'd been banking on ahead of time doesn't pan out), and typically, the stories that present themselves organically are the far stronger ones.
In your past professional life, you were …
Technically, my first media gig was a paper route when I was 10—I thought they'd eventually have to grandfather me into a reporting gig (I did cover night shifts and weekend obituary writing for that newspaper in high school). Post-college, I worked as an English teacher to 250 college sophomores in Guilin, China, as a newspaper reporter in Wisconsin and Alaska, as a social media manager for a university in Alaska, and as an Associate Travel News Editor at AFAR.
Where would you like to return to?
I'll always go back to the Nordics, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, and Turkey. I'd also love to do a second Antarctica trip (the White Continent was my first post-Covid trip in January 2022).
What's on your bucket list?
What isn't? A lot of spots at the top of my list are hiking and outdoor adventure destinations, such as Bhutan, Mongolia, Chile, and the 'stans (I did a phenomenal hiking trip to Pakistan with Intrepid last year and am desperate to explore more of the region). I'm also keen on reporting in Togo, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Guyana, Mozambique, Palau, Uruguay, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Where do you travel for fun?
Considering I travel so much for work when I have time to explore, I typically want to go somewhere within driving distance to go hiking with my dogs.
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
I read every email that comes into my inbox—which is usually 300+ a day. While I can't respond to all of them, I save them so that if something pops up later where that could work, I have it on hand. That said, unique and personalized pitches are much more likely to be something I can use now.
How best should people contact you?
For all work-related matters, email is the way to go. See my TravMedia profile here. Please don't call or text unless it's an emergency (like a last-minute flight cancellation).
