✨ Welcome to our brand-new series, TravMedia's Travel Writer of the Week! ✨

Each week, we'll be shining a spotlight on one of the incredibly talented, passionate, and inspiring Journalists or Editors from our amazing community.

This week, we'd like to shine the spotlight on Assistant Project Editor at National Geographic Traveller - Kira Richards!

We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!

Where are you based?

London, UK

What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties?

I write for National Geographic Traveller (UK). I've also written for Adventure.com and worked in-house at HTSI (the Financial Times's luxury lifestyle magazine) and HELLO!.

I love community-driven stories which focus on cultural and culinary traditions, but if I think there's an interesting angle I'll always explore it!

Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?

In-house! I'm an assistant project editor at National Geographic Traveller (UK) working on editorial and branded content, as well as some of our events.

What are your professional pet peeves?

Anything last minute! I completely appreciate some information can't be released sooner, but — particularly with publishing — having more time ahead of exciting news and opportunities is always massively appreciated! The more wiggle room the better.

In your past professional life you were …

I've always been a journalist! I graduated with a journalism degree in 2023 and have been working in the industry ever since.

Where would you like to return to?

Portugal! I've been a few times — to Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve — and would love to explore more of its smaller cities and rural regions.

What's on your bucket list?

Hot air ballooning in Mexico, spending spring in Japan and solo travelling around Central and South America.

Where do you travel for fun?

I love the Caribbean and look forward to trips to St Vincent and the Grenadines to spend time with my family there!

What advice would you give your younger professional self?

Always be open to making new connections! You can never know enough people in travel media and there's always something to learn from colleagues across the industry, particularly in person.

What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?

The travel media industry is gradually becoming more varied in terms of which stories and storytellers are being represented, and this is something I look forward to seeing progress further! Voices from marginalised backgrounds are incredibly important to the work we do and it's exciting to see how many recent initiatives — such as Intrepid Travel's Diversifying Travel Media press trip and the Step Up scheme — continue to make this a more accessible and inclusive sector for all.

How best should people contact you?

Email is the easiest way to reach me! I'm on kira.richards@natgeotraveller.co.uk.