✨ Welcome back to our 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 freelance travel writer - Phoebe Smith!
We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!
Where are you based?
In the UK - all over - I love writing about it, travelling around it and telling people how wonderful it is (to balance out all the far-flung travel I do!).
What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties?
In terms of traditional press, I write for The Guardian, Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller, Afar, The Times, Independent, The i, Wanderlust and Radio 4. Of course I also write my own multi-award-winning travel podcast - Wander Woman, which I also host and produce. I am also an author with 11 books published to date, the most recent of which - Wayfarer (pb Harper Collins) was shortlisted as Stanford's Travel Book of the Year 2025. My next one comes out next year with Bloomsbury, a guidebook called Wild Nights Out.
I specialise in off the beaten track destinations or finding unexpected and unreported journeys and stories in mainstream holiday locations. Sustainability is at the heart of all my storytelling, as is responsible travel, wildlife conservation, community-led tourism and the outdoors. Since having my son (now 5), as a single parent I love writing about the proper adventures you can have together when you travel - rather than the all-inclusive resort (my personal idea of hell).
The audience for my podcast is truly international with a large following in the US and Canada as well as the UK. It's listened to in over 147 countries every month and takes on a magazine format - including in-destination stories with voices from local people and captured sounds from the field, helpful Top 10, Travel Hacks and Gear sections, as well as interviews with both travel celebrities and unsung Hidden Heroes doing amazing things in travel that people would never hear about otherwise. My favourite feature is the Wander Woman of the Month, where I showcase a traveller whose name has been lost in the history books purely because of her gender.
On social media I mainly use Instagram where I have over 22k followers, with the average age being 30-45, typically married with a very high income. The group includes a notable concentration in London and are people who enjoy travel, outdoor activities, science news, history and business news and are charitably generous. As consumers they are both affluent and active.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
Freelance
What are your professional pet peeves?
This is difficult to answer. I love my job and no one likes people who moan! But, as a former editor myself, I think there is undeniably a massive power imbalance between us and the people we do work for, so we constantly have to walk on eggshells to seem accommodating. But I think it would be remiss of me not to call out a few common pet peeves within this industry that I think many of us share. These include: that writing rates have not gone up in the 15 years I've been doing this (in fact many have gone down); being asked to do extra work by some - not all - publications (ie socials, video, photos, etc) for no extra pay; being expected to fund our transport to and from the airport which can wipe out a huge chunk of money from our commission; not getting paid until after publication and then being expected to fill out complicated and time consuming forms (sometimes multiple times) rather than being paid on a self-bill basis which is so easily possible in this day and age (thank you Guardian) and even then wait 30+ days after our invoice has been received to get paid. And finally the fact that even by speaking these truths we can make ourselves less appealing to some editors.
For PR's I'd say that taking a look at Inntravel's Freelance Manifesto to mitigate all peeves me and other travel writers have!
In your past professional life you were …
An Interpretive Naturalist at the Aquarium of the Bay, San Francisco. I loved spending the day teaching people about the underwater world while octopus, rays and leopard sharks swum over my head.
Where would you like to return to?
I always love returning to Snowdonia, my mum's ashes are there on Tryfan so it's like coming home for me and I never experience it the same way twice.
What's on your bucket list?
Taking my son to some of the world's wildest places, to show him how wonderful the natural world is and giving him the chance to meet the indigenous people who protect it, from the Great Migration in Kenya to the Amazon rainforest and beyond.
Where do you travel for fun?
Anywhere where there is mountains or an opportunity to get into some wild water and swim or dive.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …
The time I was researching a guide book to bothies (unbookable, free to stay in, mountain shelters) in Scotland. A storm had taken the bridge out that I needed to cross the river, so I had to wade through water that went up to my waist. Then I slipped and went in up to my chest and my foot got stuck between two rocks. It was freezing, raining and I found it hard to breath. I, in a Hulk-like fit of rage (I couldn't bear the thought of Daily Mail headlines blaming a solo woman for hiking alone), somehow hauled myself out and managed to hobble, soaking wet, to the bothy only to find I had inadvertently crashed a stag party! After the cries of "the stripper's arrived lads" had passed (!) the guys in there couldn't have been nicer. They gave me a dry set of clothes, my own room, a the seat by the fire to warm up, hot food and in the morning made me pancakes with fresh fruit and orange juice. They had no camera with them so I took a photo of them all outside the bothy and sent it to the groom as a wedding present.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
Never reply to an email in anger. Walk away from the screen. Breathe. Ask another writer's opinion, sleep on it, then reply (if even necessary).
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
Podcasts are still relatively understood by Tourist Boards and Tour Operators, but according to MIDAS research 65% of podcast listeners listen to an entire episode, and 68% listen to all the episodes of a podcast othey like - meaning they are timeless, and constantly grow in audience. I am always happy to discuss partnerships and ways of working together for those interested in learning more or wanting a consultant to help them start their own.
How best should people contact you?
Through my website www.phoebe-smith.com; by emailing Phoebe@Phoebe-Smith.com or on Instagram @PhoebeRSmith. You can listen to Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
