Helen Anderson is the new editor of Escape – Australia's No1 travel destination.

In her new role as National Travel Editor, Helen will oversee an evolution of the country's most popular travel section across print and online.

Each week Escape is read by 5.8 million Australians in News Corp's Sunday newspapers: The Sunday Mail, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Times and online at escape.com.au.

Helen joins us from Australian Gourmet Traveller where she has been acting travel editor for the past 12 months.

Helen is a distinguished journalist who has held senior editing roles in newsrooms across the country.

She is a former editor of The Weekend Australian Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum section and The Weekend Australian's Review section.

In 2007 she launched Fairfax's weekend Traveller in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, remaining travel editor for five years.

Helen has been travelling since she saved enough at her first job as a cadet reporter to buy a backpack and a ticket to Bombay, and says she still feels “a powerful sense of wonder and privilege”

whenever she travels. She speaks five phrases in 10 languages. Her trivial pursuit speciality is naming the capital cities of the world.

She packs lightly, researches heavily and travels hopefully.

Helen will start her new role in November.