Where are you based?
The Greatest City in the World! I live in Brooklyn, New York, with my husband and our two-year-old Treeing Walker Coonhound, Hubie. We bought a place in the Windsor Terrace neighborhood last year, so it's safe to say we have no plans to go anywhere for a while. I'm a New Yorker through and through, coming up on 20 years here.
What topics and places do you cover?
I cover a range of topics and places, and there's really not a lot in the lifestyle space I haven't explored, especially as about 70% of my work right now is assigned, not based on pitches. Reported features are my favorite; anytime I can talk to an expert in their field for a story I'm working on, whether that's a hospitality expert at a university about the latest spa treatments in Southeast Asia (piece forthcoming in the Wall Street Journal) or an infectious disease doctor about the recent polio outbreak for an Afar travel story, I'm thrilled. Food and drink coverage is a favorite, and I like picking up on trends before anyone else has, such as the story I wrote last year for The New York Post on NYC restaurants catering to GLP-1 users with smaller menu items (all the morning shows picked it up, and that was pretty cool to see). I enjoy covering luxury travel, and I can write a round-up like the best of 'em.
What outlets do you usually pitch (and write for)?
This changes more often than I'd like due to staffing changes and section overhauls. For example, I'm still mourning Nicole Arthur's departure from The Washington Post's travel desk (and with her, the gorgeous travel narratives they used to publish). Also, RIP Plate, the chef-focused publication I wrote for and adored.
Currently, I'm doing a good amount of news and intel stories for Afar, SEO content for Southern Living, and beautiful print features for Jetset Magazine. In the past year, I have also written for The Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Fodor's Travel, Virtuoso, TIME Magazine, The New York Post, Brooklyn Magazine, Lonely Planet, Adventure.com, and Business Insider.
Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?
I've been freelancing for over five years. Before embarking on this (wild) journey, I was a senior staff editor at CNN, where I first worked on Anthony Bourdain's website Explore Parts Unknown. I loved (nearly) every minute of it, but I always tell people I had no idea how stressful the job was until I went out on my own. As a freelancer, I have taken on a lot of contract editor roles, which I love because I probably like editing as much as I like writing, if not more. I edited TIME Magazine's World's Greatest Places list in 2023; wrote the Women's Health Travel Wellness Awards 2025; worked as a contract editor at Condé Nast Traveler and Tripadvisor; and for the past five years, I have been the first editor on Fodor's Travel Fodor's Finest (its annual hotel awards package) and the publication's GO list. I've also held contract editing roles in non-travel spaces, which have kept me on my toes and kept things (extra) interesting.
What is your approach to press trips?
I am an occasional press trip traveler. The last group trip I went on was in September 2024, and the trip has to be really enticing — and, perhaps, far-flung — for me to say yes to a group trip. While I generally enjoy hanging out with my fellow journalists, it can be tough to find a new, intriguing angle with a nonstop, planned itinerary and little time to explore independently. I've been fortunate to be hosted on an individual basis several times, but I never secure coverage in advance, and so I tend to work with publicists who understand this and who I have developed a relationship. I am careful to only say yes to trips I feel incredibly confident I will be able to cover. In fact, I have now been on two very bad press trips, which have only further underscored my stance not to pre-pitch. My best ideas typically emerge during — and after — the trip.
What are your professional pet peeves?
Getting ghosted by editors is probably the biggest one. As a former staff editor, I know how busy inboxes can be, but part of the job is managing email. It's frustrating to be asked by an editor for some additional information on a pitch only to provide those details and then never hear back. It's rude and unprofessional. The best editors are the ones who have spent time freelancing, in my opinion.
I also don't appreciate being hounded about publication dates from PR. Look, if I knew when my piece was going to get published, I'd gladly tell you, but nine times out of 10, I have no idea. Google Alerts are everyone's friends.
Oh, and lowballing word counts! This has become increasingly common: You're given a word count, and it's nowhere near enough to tell the story, but even if you somehow manage to file within the range, you're often asked to add hundreds more words in the editing process — for no additional pay. Sourcing photos for no additional pay is a drag too…
In your past professional life, you were …
An editorial assistant at a book publishing house. English composition textbooks, to be precise, and it was exactly as dry as it sounds, but I had fantastic colleagues, many of whom I am still in touch with today. I also worked FOH in several New York City restaurants, even taking on the role of manager at a couple of trendy spots. Those were fun and exhausting jobs and definitely not suitable for me long-term as a person who likes to be in bed by 10 p.m.
Where would you like to return to?
Vietnam, Bali, and mainland China. The food in Vietnam was my absolute favorite, and the last time I was in China was 2008, so I am definitely overdue. Oh, and Africa! I cannot get on another safari soon enough after my experience in Botswana in the fall of 2024. I'd also like to return to several places in South America: Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, and the Galapagos. I backpacked for a year by myself in South America in 2009, and I truly traveled by a shoestring (and the seat of my pants), so it would be rad to do some luxurious trips in the region.
What's on your bucket list?
Taiwan. French Polynesia. New Zealand. Oman. So many places in Africa.
Where do you travel for fun?
My husband Steve and I love Japan. We traveled around for three weeks for our honeymoon in 2016, and in spite of a ski accident in Niseko on my second time in the country, I can't wait to go back in January. Miami is always a good time and such an easy trip from New York, and I love Chicago and LA too.
Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …
Oh, god. I was about two weeks into my year-long backpacking trip in South America when I came down with the mumps. The mumps! I had traveled to Lençóis with a friend I'd met at the hostel back in Rio and woke up the first morning with a really sore jaw and a huge face. My face was so swollen, so hideous, that I erased all photographic evidence. The doctor I saw in the small town diagnosed me and gave me some painkillers. Meanwhile, the owner of the hacienda we were staying at ordered me out as she was afraid I was contagious. She put me up in an empty house, where I slept on a mattress on the floor and sipped yogurt through a straw. It was brutal, but I'm glad I stuck it out. I had so much adventuring ahead of me.
What advice would you give your younger professional self?
Back in 2009, when I embarked on my year-long South American backpacking trip, I did start a blog, but it was just for friends and family to keep up with my travels. At the time, I really believed I was too late to the blogging-for-money party, but thinking about it now, I believe I could have made something professional out of it. Maybe I could have started my travel writing and editing career sooner. On the other hand, then I would have missed out on all that NYC restaurant experience, which is really what got me into food and drink, and subsequently, food and drink storytelling.
What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?
This isn't my line or phrasing (saw it on LinkedIn, though I can't remember who first said it): My bylines aren't a menu. I care deeply about producing great work and getting as many eyeballs on it as possible (nothing warmed my heart like receiving a handwritten letter from a stranger after I wrote about the best cities in the country to catch a Major League Baseball game for The Washington Post), but it's frustrating when PRs explicitly say, “oh, that's not an outlet our client cares about; can you get it into X?”
How best should people contact you?
Email is best. Find me on my Travmedia profile here.
