Fear is found on a creaking glacier in the Caucasus mountains and joy is encapsulated in the perfect Shanghai dumpling.

Hi there! I am the current Australian Travel Writer of the Year as voted by the Australian Society of Travel Writers, and also TravMedia’s Travel Writer of the Year 2024.

I’ve travelled every continent and lived on three, eating everything I was told to (and many things I should not have). Trips of a lifetime, I’ve had a few, from playing piano while crossing the Drake Passage to Antarctica, hiking through ancient olive groves in Palestine, I’ve danced at Irish weddings and in Russian nightclubs, taken a dingy to find all-but-forgotten Australian rock art galleries, and slipped out of bed and into a Maldivian lagoon. I have a particular soft spot for the wilds of the Middle East and North Africa, of deserts, scarves, tiles and carpets.

I grew up with a restless mother, who hauled the family around Australia on gruelling roadtrips in seach of perfect beaches and open skies. In my 20s and 30s, instead of buying a house and settling down, I blew all my journalist’s salary on travelling – mostly roughing it, with months at a time spent in tents hiking through far northern and eastern Europe. There was the occasional trip into Turkiye, which led me further into Central Asia and the Middle East, where I found my second home. 

While I love a $500-a-night hotel room (who doesn’t?), sometimes the best stories are found in a $20 guesthouse. With an eye always out for good markets and great street eats, I write travel features for the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers, ACM’s Explore travel section and the Australian Financial Review.

I am also the co-host of travel podcast The World Awaits, which drops every Thursday morning, see https://theworldawaits.au and occasionally report on travel destinations for ABC Radio, 3AW and 2GB, and on Australian events for Ireland’s RTE Radio.