Our judges for the ASTW Awards of Excellence 2019
Without judges, there are no awards. Every category in the ASTW Awards of Excellence has three independent judges. Many live overseas and are members of our sister writing associations in the USA, New Zealand, Canada or the UK. All are experts in their field and have considerable experience.
We thank them all.
Mark Andrews
Mark Andrews has been a travel writer and photographer for the last seventeen years. Over this time he has explored much of Asia and on the way lived in Japan, South Korea and now currently Shanghai, China. He feels that one of the best ways to get under the skin of a place is through the local food. Having experienced plenty of unusual dishes such as raw horsemeat and silkworm larvae, writing about his adopted city’s cuisine in this issue seemed positively tame. www.markandrews.com
Catherine Beattie
Catherine Beattie edits and publishes Spa Wellbeing – an online spa, travel and lifestyle magazine. She also blogs and reviews cruises, spas and hotels for travel websites and consumer magazines and writes tourism reports for Mintel. Catherine is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers.
Ewen Bell
Ewen Bell is a Melbourne based photographer and journalist. He currently shoots for UK editions of National Geographic Traveller, Lonely Planet Traveller and Food & Travel. He is the former Editor at Large for Digital Photography magazine in Australia and regular contributor to Digital Photography magazine in the UK. His focus is always on sharing what makes the world beautiful, and the inspiration to step outside your boundaries and experience it for yourself. “Travel is the most valuable gift you can give yourself.” photographyfortravellers.com
Jennifer Bain
Jennifer Bain is an award-winning Canadian journalist. She is now freelancing for a variety of publications after spending 18 years at Canada’s largest newspaper (the Toronto Star), first as food editor and then as travel editor. She has published two cookbooks and her next book, 111 Places in Calgary That You Must Not Miss, is due out in Spring 2020. She’s currently writing a fishing memoir/thesis for a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction. @thesaucylady
Sue Bryant
Sue Bryant (@sjbryant) is an award-winning writer and editor specialising in travel. She is cruise editor of the Sunday Times, writes for Cruise Passenger and World of Cruising. Her work has also appeared in High Life, Food & Travel and TRVL magazine for iPad, among many others. Wearing a different hat, Sue is editor of Journeys magazine (@JourneysMagUK), the UK’s first glossy mag dedicated to experiential travel. She also edits Uno Stile di Vita, the guestroom magazine for Baglioni Hotels.
Sue has also written or edited more than 25 travel books, from guidebooks about the Costa del Sol, Barcelona, Ibiza, Cyprus and Tel Aviv to Insight Guides’ Great River Cruises (Europe and the Nile). She has edited coffee table books, writes all the destination content for CountryNavigator.com and has produced cross-cultural training guides to more than 70 countries for executives going to live and work abroad. She lives in west London with her two teenagers, two dogs and some chickens.
Paul Chai
Paul Chai has been a travel writer for over a decade, starting with the Australian launch of US travel magazine Travel + Leisure, a joint venture between Fairfax and American Express. He is a regular contributor to Fairfax Media’s Traveller website, as well as writing for inflight magazines for airlines from Singapore Airlines to Cebu Pacific. Pre-travel industry it was an eclectic journalistic ride from The Financial Times in London to working for the film industry bible Variety. He was editor of Tiger Air’s magazine Tiger Tales. @chai_paul
Isabel Conway
Isabel Conway is a multi-award winning Ireland based travel writer, based in Kinsale Co Cork..She writes regularly for the travel pages of the Sunday Business Post, Dublin, Irish Independent newspapers, The Irish Examiner, Sunday World and Evening ECho Newspapers. She also writes for the Sunday Times travel section and for the online travelezine www.tripreporter.co.uk. She co-founded www.traveltimes.ie earlier this year.
Isabel has been Irish Travel Writer of the Year twice and also took the long haul award twice in recent years and since 2011 has been in the prizes every year at the Travel Extra journalist of the Year awards, Ireland’s travel writer Oscars. She has also been awarded the British Guild of Travel Writers prize in the Europe category (over 1,000 words) and was a prize winner in the 2018 ATOUT France, French Tourism board awards. Isabel’s background is that of news reporter/feature writer in Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium where she has also written many travel features over the past 30 years.
Sue Dobson
Sue Dobson is an award-winning travel writer and magazine editor based in the UK, whose life-long passion for discovery and experiencing different cultures has taken her to every continent and into countries less travelled.
Hilary Doling
Hilary Doling is Editor in Chief of one of the world’s largest independent luxury travel websites, The Luxury Travel Bible (operating out of the UK and Australia) and Executive Editor of the glossy Five Star Kids magazine (Signature Media), devoted to luxury family travel. She started her career on London’s Fleet Street where she worked for newspapers such as The Times and The Guardian and for England’s glossy magazines. In search of sun she moved to Australia as Travel Editor at Fairfax newspapers (The Sun Herald) a position she held for twelve years and then became Editor in Chief of Luxury Travel Magazine. She is an international speaker on luxury hotels and travel, appearing at such events as ILTM Cannes and has visited every continent and set foot in more than 92 countries.
Natasha Dragun
The former managing editor of MiNDFOOD and deputy editor of DestinAsian, Natasha Dragun has been roaming the globe on the hunt for gripping story angles for more than 15 years. A freelancer specialising in travel, wellness, food and wine writing, Natasha contributes to a diverse range of media today, from CNN and Conde Nast Traveller to Escape, The Australian, Voyeur, Signature Luxury Travel & Style, International Traveller, Delicious, Selector, Vacations & Travel and Broadsheet, among others. @ndragun
Guy Dundas
Making the move across from travel wholesale and touring to travel writing and editing 11 years ago, Dundas has his eyes on the latest developing travel and stories news around the world. As Managing Editor of LATTE, his niche is refined to the luxury segment, producing LATTE’s weekly EDM and regular social content. @guydundas
Paul Dymond
Paul has been a travel and nature photographer for nearly 16 years, was contracted to Lonely Planet Images (now Getty) for more than ten of those years and has been published in most of the big magazines that we love so much. He even won the ASTW Photographer of the Year back in the day when connecting to the Internet involved R2-D2-like sounds coming out of the modem. These days, as he balances the needs of a young family with being away with work, his business is moving more and more towards helping large organisations get a handle on their out-of-control image libraries, creating custom photographic and video databases so that they can more easily access and utilise these mostly untouched photographs. He is still represented by three major photo agencies and continues to do photographic work when it comes across his desk in Cairns.
Barry Eaton
Barry Eaton originally trained as an actor in Sydney, but then mainly worked in radio and television as a presenter and news & sports anchor at the ABC in Sydney and also at various commercial radio stations, including 2GB and 2CH. As a freelance writer Barry has had four books published as well as writing feature articles for leading newspapers and magazines in Australia and the US. He wrote travel features for The Sun Herald and other newspapers and also worked as a media consultant with Tourism Canada, The Tahiti Tourist Bureau, Lauda Air, et al. His corporate experience includes running his own video production company as well as teaching business writing and currently as a trainer in presentation and media skills. He also works as a freelance voice over artist, MC and conference presenter and hosts his own radio podcast. Barry is former Co-ordinator of Journalism and lecturer in radio at Macleay College in Sydney.
Toni Eatts
During her impressive career as a journalist, Toni spent 10 years editing cruise publications, including Cruise Passenger magazine, and writing cruise stories aimed at passengers and travel industry professionals. Her articles have been published in The Australian, the Australian Financial Review, Cruise Passenger magazine, on Cruise Critic and in various trade publications. She also wrote three substantial cruise guidebooks for a leading travel chain.
Kerri Elstub
Kerri Elstub is a broadcast journalist with more than 20 years of industry experience. She has worked at Radio 2UE and Channel 9, where she was Supervising Producer on A Current Affair. Kerri is now Editorial Director of Nine Digital.
Mary Anne Evans
Mary Anne Evans is a former magazine editor and now a freelance travel writer living in London. She was the France expert for tripsavvy.com for 8 years and edited the Gault Millau Guides to London for 4 years. She is the author of guide books to Brussels, Bruges and Stockholm, writes on Finland, contributes to Frommer’s Guides to London and France and blogs on Silver Travel Advisor and Everett Potter’s Travel Report. She has just launched her own website: maryannesfrance.com
Liz Fleming
As far as Liz Fleming is concerned, the only thing better than having a great adventure is sharing it. That’s why travel writing is her dream job. For more than 15 years, she’s been exploring the globe from Machu Picchu to the Arctic Circle and from the sultry beaches of Bora Bora to Botswana’s Okavango Delta – and writing about it all. Her work has appeared in major newspapers and magazines across North America, she’s the Editor-in-Chief of Cruise & Travel Lifestyles Magazine and is on the editorial mastheads of a couple of other travel magazines, makes regular radio talk show appearances and is always ready to jump into the next adventure.
Michelle Grima
Michelle Grima is an established media communications consultant based in the Blue Mountains. Having started her career at the Daily Telegraph in the late ‘80s, Michelle went on to manage national media for Tourism Tasmania, and now runs her own travel and lifestyle media business, Australia PR.
Catharine Hamm
Catharine Hamm is the Travel editor for the Los Angeles Times. She was born in Syracuse, N.Y., to a peripatetic family whose stops included Washington, D.C.; Honolulu; and Manila. Her varied media career has taken her from McPherson, Kan., to Kansas City, Mo., San Bernardino, Salinas and L.A. Hamm has twice received individual Lowell Thomas Awards, and the Travel section has been recognised seven times during her tenure as editor. Her favourite place? Always where she’s going next.
Alex Hayes
Alex has over a million followers on his social media feeds with over 600,000 on Instagram, 390,000 on YouTube, and 140,000 on Facebook. A former competitor on the junior pro-surfer circuit, Alex also loves throwing himself out of hot-air balloons, blimps and helicopters, is an in-demand DJ and is an ambassador for Instagram, and for Nickleodeon’s Junior Citizens of the Reef campaign. He is also involved in youth suicide awareness and working to improve mental health. @alexhayes
Nick Henderson
Nick Henderson is head of social media at Tourism Australia, the Australian Government agency responsible for attracting international visitors to Australia. Tourism Australia’s social media accounts are followed by more than 14 million people with the team creating up to ten pieces of content across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, and Weibo each day. Nick started working in social media in 2009 in the United Kingdom and more recently was head of social media at Virgin Australia prior to joining Tourism Australia.
Stuart Innes
Stuart Innes was Travel Writer-Editor of The Advertiser newspaper in South Australia in the 80s and 90s and, until retiring in 2012, it’s Tourism Writer. He was one of the longest-serving ASTW committee members, including four terms as president during which he introduced the annual travel writing awards. He is a former judge of the South Australian Tourism Awards.
Alan Kennedy
Alan has been a journalist for the past 40 years. He began his career with a cadetship on The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, and has worked throughout Australia and in London. After working on the development of Australian Business magazine in the early 1980s, he pursued a successful career as a freelance journalist, concentrating on the car industry. As motoring editor of both Australian Business and The Bulletin, he wrote extensively on industry policy. He spent 19 years at The Sydney Morning Herald – firstly, as motoring editor. He edited the Stay In Touch column for three years, before becoming deputy editor and then editor of the sports section. He returned to reporting for his last few years with the Herald, covering the America’s Cup and Olympic sailing, the AFL, Formula One and tennis. Alan has been a member of the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA), now part of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), for 40 years and has been active in the union for most of that time. He chaired the Australian Consolidated Press House Committee, then, after joining the Herald, became chair of the Fairfax House Committee. He was president of the journalists’ section of the MEAA for eight years. He was on the Walkley Awards judging panel for nearly 10 years. He was a member of the Australian Press Council from 2005 until 2016. He left The Sydney Morning Herald at the end of 2005 and now works as a freelance journalist.
David Kirkland
David Kirkland is one of the most widely published tourism photographers and writers in the Asia Pacific region (though, more recently, his work has taken him to the Middle East and the African continent). He specialises in capturing memorable promotional photographs for national tourism authorities and producing world-class images for international resorts and boutique properties. David became a professional travel and tourism photographer and author in 2000 after more than a decade of managing tourism authorities in Australia. His earlier background was in journalism and public relations. He has written and photographed 15 books, and he owns the largest on-line photo library dedicated specifically to travel and tourism in the Asia Pacific region. www.davidkirklandphotography.com
Matt Kirouac
A native of New Hampshire, Matt moved to Chicago in 2006 to attend culinary school. While cooking, he developed a love for food writing, and has written and edited for food- and travel-focused outlets like Culture Trip, TripExpert, Zagat, Plate Magazine, What Should We Do, and numerous others. He’s the author of Unique Eats & Eateries of Chicago, and the co-founder and co-host of the Parklandia podcast with iHeartRadio, talking all about travel and national parks. Check out his work at www.mattkrc.com.
Shirley LaPlanche
Shirley LaPlanche joined the ASTW mid 1980s while editor of the Hospitality Section for The Australian. In 1990 she went freelance writing on a regular basis for the Australian Tourist Commission and travelling extensively on stories for magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas. Her deep interest in eco-tourism led her to write her book Stepping Lightly on Australia which was published in 1995 by HarperCollins and sold worldwide. She says she is now semi-retired but is still travelling as often as time and money allow and still writing the occasional piece for her favourite magazines and newspapers.
Ben Lerwill
Ben Lerwill is an award-winning freelance travel writer based in England. His writing has appeared in more than 50 national and international titles, including National Geographic Traveller, BBC Travel, The Guardian and The Sunday Times.
Jules Lund
After 15 years hosting some of the biggest TV and radio shows in Australia, Jules Lund is now on a mission to unlock the world’s creativity through his tech company, TRIBE. With offices in five cities across the globe, TRIBE is a self-serve marketplace connecting 10,000+ brands with 50,000 everyday creators to generate premium content at scale, speed and a fraction of the cost. Known for his showmanship, Jules travels the world helping marketers get the jump on the next multi-billion dollar category. www.tribegroup.co; @juleslund
Ewan McDonald
Ewan McDonald has been Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and Features Editor with NZME, publishers of the NZ Herald and other print and online platforms. He is president of Travcom, the NZ Association of Travel Writers, Photographers and Communicators, and is a multi-award winning travel writer.
Denise McNabb
Denise McNabb has specialised in aviation, travel and business writing and editing on both sides of the Tasman for more years than she cares to remember. She came to Sydney in 2009 as the first Australia correspondent for the Fairfax New Zealand group of newspapers and was editor of Aviation Business magazine in Sydney before she returned to New Zealand last year where she is a freelance writer. Denise was the first New Zealand journalist to win the Airservices Australia Aviation Journalist of the Year in 2008. In 2007 she won the inaugural NZ Brook Asset Management Business Journalist of the Year award. She was inaugural secretary of New Zealand Travel Communicators when it was formed in 1992 after returning from her first stint in Australia where she was a member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers when travel editor of the Sunday Mail and the now defunct News in Adelaide. She co-founded the New Zealand Herald travel section and created for its publishers the tourism magazine arrival for inbound travellers at Auckland Airport. She has written for Vacations & Travel Magazine, the aviation and the business travel section for The Independent Business Weekly, The Press and The Dominion Post in New Zealand, and News Local, Platinum magazine, the US-based Global Business Travel magazine, and travel trade publications.
Aaron Millar
Aaron is an award-winning travel writer, journalist and author. He contributes regularly to The Times, The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller (UK), CNN and many other national and international publications. He is The Times of London’s North American travel specialist and National Geographic Traveller’s USA columnist. He is the host of the podcast Armchair Explorer, where the world’s greatest travel writers tell their best story from the road, and is the 2014 and 2017 British Guild of Travel Writers Travel Writer of the Year, the IPW Best Destination Writer 2017 and Visit USA’s Best National Newspaper Writer 2014, 2016, 2017 & 2018. Aaron grew up in Brighton, England but is currently hiding out in the Rocky Mountains of Louisville, Colorado.
Janyne Moore
Janyne has 15 years’ experience working as a journalist including her time as an on the road reporter and newsreader at Sydney Radio 2UE and Executive Producer of the Ray Hadley Morning show on Radio 2GB before moving into Public Relations. Janyne co-founded In The Media PR generating widespread media coverage for clients like Cancer Institute NSW, Nike Damn Am event, UbiCar, Garvan Institute and MooGoo. www.inthemediapr.com.au
Kayte Nunn
Kayte Nunn is a former book and magazine editor, and the author of four novels, the latest of which, The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant, was published in Australia in June, 2019, and will be published in the UK in 2020. Her previous book, The Botanist’s Daughter was a top ten bestseller when it was published in Australia in July 2018, and has been published in Italy, Germany, France, Serbia and Spain, as well as in the UK. She lives in the NSW Northern Rivers.
Alan Orbell
Alan Orbell’s travel writing career began on the now defunct Travel Agency Magazine published by Canadian company Maclean-Hunter. He was appointed editor of St James Press’s Travel Bulletin in 1977 and in the 1980s purchased the magazine from the company when it was taken over by Reed International. After a brief period as a freelance he was appointed launch editor of new magazine Selling Long Haul – later Selling Travel – in 1989 and subsequently became publisher and then part-owner of the publishing company, BMI Publishing. After selling the company in 1995 Alan remained with BMI Publishing as publisher/managing editor until April 2015 after which he continued to write on a freelance basis.
April Orcutt
April Orcutt writes a weekly travel column for the Los Angeles Times and has written for National Geographic Traveler, BBC Travel, Vacations & Travel, Hemispheres (United Airlines’ inflight), TravelandLeisure.com, Travel.AARP.org, National Geographic Traveller India, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, AAA (American Automobile Association) magazines, Alaska Air (Alaska Airlines’ inflight), and more. April has won top honours in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition (Gold), Visit California’s Eureka! Awards, and U.S. Travel Association’s IPW Awards.
Kirstie Pelling
Kirstie Pelling is a writer and journalist based in the North of England. She is Co-Director of The Family Adventure Project – a blog aimed at providing families with advice and inspiration for travelling and being in the outdoors. Together with her husband Stuart Wickes and three children she has biked, hiked and paddled in dozens of countries. The family’s latest adventure was an epic interrail trip from home to Istanbul with three teens and five folding bicycles. Kirstie won the British Guild of Travel Writers’ Travel Blogger of the Year Award in 2016 and 2018.
Oliver Pelling
Oliver Pelling is the Australia editor for Adventure.com and a freelance writer. He has written for the likes of Rolling Stone Australia, Smith Journal, New Zealand Herald, Huck magazine, and more besides, and works predominantly in the realms of travel, sustainability, music and (sub)culture. He’s happiest when he’s not writing bios.
Adrian Phillips
Adrian Phillips runs Bradt Travel Guides – the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher – and is also a leading UK travel writer and broadcaster for outlets including the BBC, ITV, Sky, The Telegraph and National Geographic. He currently holds the awards of Travel Writer of the Year (BGTW Awards), Consumer Writer of the Year (Travel Media Awards), Magazine Writer of the Year (LATA Awards) and Travel Writer of the Year (silver) (AITO Awards).
Diana Plater
Diana Plater was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA but grew up in Sydney, Australia. Her journalism has appeared widely in newspapers, magazines and online. She has covered Indigenous and race issues since the beginning of her career and was based in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s during the Sandinista/Contra war. She has written several non-fiction books, including Taking Control: How to aim for a successful pregnancy after miscarriage, stillbirth or neo-natal loss, and the Cootamundra Girls Home chapter in Many Voices, Reflections on experiences of Indigenous child separation published by the National Library as well as a play, Havana, Harlem. Raging Partners, written with Ollie Smith, was short-listed for a 2001 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. Whale Rock, published in 2019, is her first novel.
Barbara Ramsay Orr
Barbara Ramsay Orr is a freelance journalist, author of the Frommer’s Guide to the Niagara Region, third and fourth edition, and Globe Pequot’s Day Trips From Toronto. Barbara is the immediate past president of SATW, having also served as Vice President and Active At Large. She is the recipient of multiple writing and photography awards, including Lowell Thomas Awards for Excellence in Travel Journalism. Her work has appeared in many national and international publications, including Chatelaine, Canadian Living, NUVO, The Globe and Mail, American Express UK and Readers Digest. She’s also an accomplished award-winning photographer, as a well as an embarrassingly inept but enthusiastic artist. Follow her adventures at www.upperendtravel.com.
Christopher Reynolds
Christopher Reynolds has written about travel, the outdoors, arts and culture for the Los Angeles Times since 1990. Since 2009, he has climbed Mayan pyramids, roamed Red Square in a snowstorm, been shushed at the New York Public Library and jumped from the tallest building in Soweto (rope attached).
James Rushforth
James Rushforth is one of the world’s most awarded photographers with twelve international photography competition wins. His most recent achievement saw a double first place at the prestigious International Photography Awards, where he was also named Special Photographer of the Year. In 2018, he was named Photographer of the Year at the British Guild of Travel Writers awards. His work has been published in numerous magazines and national newspapers including National Geographic, The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. James also writes tutorials and blog posts for a number of popular media platforms such as Viewbug and 500px and has appeared as a judge in several global competitions. James is also an experienced and professional climber, mountaineer, skier and travel writer.
Jock Serong
Jock Serong has worked as a criminal lawyer and surf media feature story writer. He was founding editor of Great Ocean Quarterly. His four published novels, most recently Preservation, have won awards both in Australia and internationally. He lives on the coastline of southwest Victoria with his family.
Megan Singleton, Blogger at Large
Megan Singleton (@bloggeratlarge) is an Auckland based award-winning travel writer and blogger. She founded one of New Zealand’s largest travel and lifestyle blogs, Blogger at Large in 2009 after beginning her blogging career in 2006 for a nationwide travel agency where she cut her teeth blogging twice a day, five days a week for three years. Megan’s travel writing career started in 2000 and her work is published around the world on websites, magazines and newspapers. She is also a weekly travel correspondent on two radio stations in New Zealand.
Susan Skelly
Susan Skelly has held executive positions with mastheads including Qantas The Australian Way, The Bulletin, and Good Weekend. She is an author and an award-winning feature writer, specialising in travel, luxury, and design for newspaper and magazine titles in Australia and abroad and for her website, Excess All Areas.
Amanda Statham
Following a BA Hons degree in Politics from Newcastle University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism from De Montford University, Amanda has enjoyed a successful career. Amanda is Travel Editor of Cosmopolitan and www.cosmopolitan.co.uk and was travel editor of You and Your Wedding magazine for eight years. She writes for national newspapers, magazines and guidebooks and has also presented films and university lectures on travel writing.
Eric Stoen
Eric Stoen is a writer and photographer specializing in family travel, based in California. His goal is to encourage everyone to take their kids to unique destinations, and he provides first-hand information through travelbabbo.com to make it easier to plan those trips. He’s travelled with his kids (ages 8, 10 and 12) to 49 countries on seven continents. He’s won Conde Nast Traveler’s Photo of the Year award and is a NATJA gold award winner for travel writing, and in 2017 Forbes named him the World’s #4 Travel Influencer. He’s an ambassador for Travelocity, AFAR Magazine and Universal Orlando. @travelbabbo
Ben Stubbs
Ben Stubbs is a lecturer at the University of South Australia. He has a PhD in travel writing. Ben has written numerous feature articles, essays and guidebooks for publications in Australia and overseas. His first book explored the ‘New Australia’ socialist utopian colony in the Paraguayan jungle. Ticket to Paradise: A Journey to Discover the Australian Colony in Paraguay Among Nazis, Mennonites and Japanese Beekeepers was published by HarperCollins in 2012. 18/07/2019His next book, After Dark: A Nocturnal Exploration of Madrid (2016) begins from the premise of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who once wrote that we are blind half our lives because of what we miss during the night. Ben was drawn to explore the Spanish capital at night like the flâneurs of the past. He set out when the sun went down to explore this often-maligned city and to experience Madrid as a trasnochador—one who lives After Dark.
David Swanson
David Swanson has been a freelance travel writer-photographer since 1995. His stories and photos have appeared in National Geographic Traveler, American Way, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News, and San Francisco Chronicle, and he was a contributing editor at Caribbean Travel & Life magazine for 14 years, where he wrote the award-winning Affordable Caribbean column. David is currently President of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers, the world’s largest organization of travel communicators.
Richard Tulloch
Richard Tulloch began to travel extensively through his work as a writer of plays, books and television for young people, most famously writing the original Bananas in Pyjamas and recent plays adapted from The 13-Storey Treehouse series. He now divides his time between bases in Sydney and Amsterdam. Since 2009 he has been a regular contributor to Fairfax Media, particularly specialising in active travel stories.
Jacinta Tynan
Jacinta Tynan is a News Presenter with Sky News, Columnist for Sunday Life Magazine, author and mother of two young boys. With more than 25 years’ experience as a journalist, she’s regarded as a commentator for her generation with her candid and heartfelt columns about life, love and motherhood. Jacinta has published four books including Mother Zen – described as a manifesto of modern motherhood – and manages a website motherzen.com
Jacinta also writes travel stories focusing on travelling with kids as a solo parent. Her work has been published in various publications including Escape, Sunday Life, Kidspot, Holidays With Kids and Mindfood Magazine. She also produces and presents Change Makers on Sky News, interviews with inspirational people making a positive difference in the world.
She is the proud patron of SISTER2Sister, a mentor program for teenage girls, an Ambassador for Barnardo’s Mother of The Year, Monkey Baa kids theatre and is an official Australia Day Ambassador. @jacintatynan
Kathryn Webster
For the past 12 odd years Kathryn Webster has been the editor of AA Directions, the New Zealand magazine for AA Members, which has a significant proportion of travel in its editorial mix. She was President of TravCom New Zealand for three years and is still on its committee.
Annabelle White
Annabelle White is a New Zealand Food and travel media personality who has and does appear on Tv/ nationwide radio, magazines and newspapers. The author of 11 cookbooks and former food editor for NZ House & Garden and NZ Womens’ Weekly and the food columnist for the Sunday Star-Times for over 23 years – this former history teacher followed her love of communicating food and travel into a busy full time job. She has an MA Hons first class in history and geography and a few years ago was awarded a distinguished alumni award from the University of Waikato. www.annabellewhite.com.
Arnie Wilson
Arnie Wilson – former regional UK TV reporter, former UK national newspaper reporter, deputy news editor and diary columnist, former Financial Times writer for 15 years (specialising in skiing but also writing regular non-skiing travel) former editor of the Ski Club of Great Britain’s magazine, Ski+board, and former regular columnist in Australia’s Theskimag!) Now freelancing
Ruth Zukerman
Ruth Zukerman is a leading tourism and hospitality professional with a successful career spanning more than 25 years in Australia, USA and Asia.
Well respected in the areas of public relations, marketing, business development, communications and crisis management Ruth has worked with a range of high-end global brands including Four Seasons*Regent Hotels, Conrad and Intercontinental Hotels and Hyatt Corporation in the USA.
With a passion for hospitality her vast experience has included Regent International Hotels based in Australia responsible for global sales, marketing and public relations. She spent 10 years with the Conrad Bali, opening the resort as Director of Sales & Marketing and six years in the role of Director of Public Relations during the time when incidents such as terrorism greatly affected business to Bali. Ruth was part of a small team responsible for restoring tourism from Australia by means of PR campaigns and crisis management to expand develop and promote tourism to Bali.
