Where are you based?
Seattle, WA
What topics and places do you cover?
I've always summarized my primary interests as "adrenaline rushes that won't kill you and end with a decent bottle of wine."
I write about myriad topics, including adventure travel, gardens, golf, urban culture, literary, and multi-generational travel in places as far away as Indonesia and as near as North Cascades National Park. Geographically, I specialize in Canada and the Western U.S. However, my regular contributions to Garden & Gun have taken me all over the South, and other assignments have carried me around the globe. Of course, having put three kids through college, I have published over 1,500 branded content articles about hundreds of topics, visitor guides, brand books, and destination websites.
What outlets do you usually pitch (and write for)?
I pitch Southern ideas and destinations to Garden & Gun first, but I also regularly submit ideas to Explore, Condé Nast Traveler, Westways, and about two dozen other outlets. I also write regularly for several destinations and visitor guides, often providing story ideas and content strategies. Lately, several publishing companies have asked me to write for a variety of their titles, publications I hadn't known existed. Finally, I cover the Seattle Kraken NHL team for TSN 690, a sports radio station located in my beloved Montréal.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
I have had various columns and taken on retainers over my career, but have always remained proudly freelance.
What is your approach to press trips?
I am always honored to receive press trip invitations. Depending on the destination, I rarely accept press trips without an assignment in hand. I also feel a FAM is just that, a familiarity tour that may yield space in a listicle or round-up; however, a full feature often requires a return individual trip. I limit my group press trips, apart from skiing and golf, to three annually, as, like most of my colleagues, I prefer solo visits where I can adjust on the fly as the story develops.
What are your professional pet peeves?
Hmm, I try not to whinge, much as I love the word. Overscheduling on a FAM is always a challenge, as there should be room for a wrong turn that reveals a great story. I also like a “tea break” from 15:30 to 17:30, when possible, to get some work done and regroup. I am also not a fan of the oversell, an onslaught of superlatives that generally exposes a less-than-great whatever it is. If something is impressive, there's a good chance the media will take note. It makes for a better story that way, too.
In your past professional life, you were …
Well, I just published a piece about chasing the Grateful Dead that mentioned my favorite job working as a singing waiter in Cripple Creek, Colorado. In addition to ornithological field work, my steadiest pre-writing life was teaching middle school in Montessori and other alternative schools.
Where would you like to return to?
To paraphrase Rick Steves, "Always visit a place with the assumption you'll return there. It eliminates the pressure to see and do everything." Considering Rick's words of wisdom, I guess I would say everywhere. However, I am always up for visiting Ireland, Montréal (and Canada, in general), Ecuador, and, if I'm honest, almost anywhere I have ever, or never, visited before.
What's on your bucket list?
I don't keep a bucket list but do obsess occasionally—Ecuador's spectacled bears and ribbon skating through a Québec Forest are front and center at the moment. I wrote a piece recently about how hitting a bucket list destination sloshes a little pleasure over the rim, liquid wishes content that is quickly refilled with, as I reference above, a desire to return somewhere somewhat familiar and unearth an intimate experience.
Where do you travel for fun?
My mantra is “I vacation for a living, but I never take a holiday,” which was true for two decades until I visited Lucca last spring for my partner's birthday. Which is to say, who am I kidding? I vacation for a living!!! In other words, everywhere I travel is fun. Seriously, one favorite tradition is our Friday forays to ski at Crystal Mountain, followed by après at the Snorting Elk, a London fog tea and cookie from Wapiti Outdoors' cafè, and back to Sea– oh wait – I wrote an essay for AARP about that too.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …
I was heading out of Churchill Wild's Seal River Lodge to snorkel among belugas in Hudson Bay. I entrusted a friend from Destination Canada to zip up my survival suit. Tethered by my ankles five meters behind the Zodiac, I was getting very cold as I was pulled backward through the water. I signaled to the guide that I was finished, pulled myself in, and, to the great delight of my friend and fellow writer/photographer, Jad Davenport, barely pulled myself out of the water, not realizing my survival suit was full of water. Had I followed my first thought when in the water and kicked out of my harness to swim back to the Zod, I would have sunk into Hudson Bay. I've also made several dumb decisions, jumping off a phinisi into a swift Indonesian Sea current with nobody around, for example, with nobody to blame but myself.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
Take a few small business classes if, for no other reason, to imprint that, when travel writing and photography are your sole means of income, you must focus on the business components almost as much as the narratives and images.
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
I hate how pretentious this sounds, but I travel to write, not write to travel. (My happy place is in my garden, with tea.) As much as I enjoy writing and shooting first-person 2,500-word adventure-based cover stories, I also love writing visitor guide features, destination and outfitter websites, and developing 50-character headings and 30-character captions. Not one day goes by when I don't think, “Damn, I get to write for a living,” or, more honestly, “How'd I pull this career off?!”
How best should people contact you?
My partner, a commercial video producer, creates my social media across platforms @travelcrais so please give a follow. Otherwise, find me at my Travmedia profile here.
