✨ 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 Heidi Fuller-Love; multi-lingual freelance travel writer.

We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!

Where are you based?

I have homes in Greece and France (near Angouleme), and speak both languages (also Spanish), but I spend more time in Crete, because - after living in a dozen countries, including Argentina, Cambodia, Spain and India, Crete is the place I really call 'home'. Having said that, I travel between three to five months of the year for features and hotel reviews, to the despair of my (French) husband, who looks after the cats and waters our vines and olive trees (yes, we make our own EVOO) and waits patiently for the winter months when I generally travel less.

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

I've been a freelance travel writer for 27 years; in that time I've written for just about every outlet you can think of- from inflight magazines (I worked directly with Michael Keating when he first launched Ink publishing), to cruise publications, tourism bodies, business mags and much, much more. I have had regular travel and hotel columns in magazines ranging from Design & Architecture to Good Things. Currently I am Greece expert for The Telegraph and I write  for CN traveller, The iPaper, The Indy, Time Out, The Sun, Fodors and others. I have just contributed the Cyprus section to a new DK guide. I also produce and present The Meet The Locals podcast for British Airways, I regularly contribute radio and reported features to various outlets and I contribute regularly to the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent (which reminds me - I have one to write now)

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

Freelance since forever 

What are your professional pet peeves?

I review up to 40 top-of-the-range hotels per year for The Telegraph, CN traveller, Time Out and others, and you'd be amazed how different each experience can be (I think I need to write that book :)). From receiving a warm welcome and staying in a delightful room, to being treated as a nuisance (or totally ignored) and put in the resort's equivalent of a broom cupboard, I've seen it all. Sometimes I wish the experience was more 'even'. I would also love to receive press trip itineraries at least a week before my stay (we can dream) so that I can work up other possible angles from the trip. 

In your past professional life you were …

I was a stand up comedian and had my own club Southside Live in Lewisham where 'greats' including Mike Myers and Jo Brand 'cut their teeth'.

Where would you like to return to?

Probably the Maldives because I adored snorkelling with manta rays and meeting sharks and turtles - also I think it's one of the few places that really lives up to the hype. I'd like to return to Myanmar, but that's not on the cards at the moment. I'm also planning a return trip to Cambodia to write about how the Land of the Khmers has changed since I was there over a decade ago, riding my bike through Phnom Penh's crazy, dirty, bustling, thrilling streets and working for a local magazine. 

What's on your bucket list?

Everywhere I haven't been yet! I'm a travel junkie - I can't get enough of it (which is pretty handy given my job :))

Where do you travel for fun?

Everywhere I travel is fun - I'm endlessly curious and mostly travel solo so I meet a lot of fascinating people and have plenty of adventures

Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …

There are a few: there was that time when I found myself swimming a few metres above a Galapagos shark - I was so fascinated that I just floated above watching it fossick around in the mud beneath me it was only afterwards that I realised I could have been its next meal. I also narrowly missed going down in the Phnom Penh stampede in 2010, and once waded blithely out into shallow waters in the Philippines (after checking with my guide that it was safe) only to find myself surrounded by dozens of mounds belonging to deadly seasnakes .. 

What advice would you give your younger professional self?

To quote Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba; "Life is trouble, only death is not"- in other words, enjoy those travel ups and downs because you can't have one without the other (and - unless you're Bryan Johnson - you won't be here forever..). 

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

Always stay curious and your features will write themselves. Is this also the best place to mention the very random fact that my grandfather was butler to George V? :)

How best should people contact you?

I am often on deadline, so email is best (and I promise to answer promptly); heidi.fullerlove@gmail.com www.HeidiFuller-love.com. I'm also very active on instagram @heidifullerlovestravel