Where are you based? I say I'm from Washington, DC, which really means that I live in Northern Virginia.
What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties? My two favorite topics are outdoor adventures and road trips, so anything that touches either of these two topics is of interest to me. Most recently, I've been published by or turned in assignments to The Wall Street Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, AARP.org, Costco Connection, Via, Thrillist and HGTV.com. I've written three guidebooks on hikes in my home state of Virginia for Falcon Guides. I also have a hiking website called GoHikeVirginia.com. These were my pandemic projects, as I like to say.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)? I work as a freelance writer and write for a mix of media outlets and visitors bureaus. I also update my hiking website here and there as I complete new hikes in Virginia.
What are your professional pet peeves? I don't like it when I get duped by a subject line from a PR. For example, I got one recently with the subject line “NEW: Road Trip 101 Guide.” I thought, that's great, I love road trips, and the email was exclusively about a camping lantern. It was kind of icky. Another pet peeve is when PRs hold close the names of the other writers on a press trip, which is almost every single time. I don't understand the point. It's more helpful for me to know, sooner than later, who else is on the trip so I don't end up wasting my time a) pitching a publication that is sending an editor on the trip or b) pitching a media outlet that a fellow press trip participant already writes for often (and will probably secure an assignment with after the trip).
In your past professional life you were … I mostly had PR jobs. I worked for three PR agencies, in-house at AOL and on my own with a handful of travel PR clients. My very first job out of college was as a legislative correspondent on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for a Congressman from Southern California. I was a 21 y.o. writing replies to all the mail coming in from constituents.
Where would you like to return to? I visited Banff in January, and would like to go back in late summer or fall. I love the landscapes of so many western states, like Arizona, Colorado and Utah. I'd love to get back out to all of them for more hiking, camping and backpacking. I also love the Nordic countries and would love to return to Norway and Denmark.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …There was the time I was with all four of my kids on a three-week road trip when one fell with an ear infection in Vermont. I was able to get her antibiotics, but then we drove into Quebec. The second one fell and we couldn't see an English-speaking doctor, so long story short, we were in Quebec City for four days, the other kids got ear infections and I had to ration antibiotics until we could see a doctor when we got to Bangor, Maine. My husband was flying in, so we picked him up at the airport, then went right to urgent care.
