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  • I blog about travel, culture, art and more for the Huffington Post, one of the most-read blogs on the web, and write a column about travel and luxury lifestyle twice a month for The Street. I'm teaching a travel writing workshop over at the Renegade Writer. I've contributed to American Archaeology, AmericanStyle, Boston Magazine, Business Traveler, BusinessWeek, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Continental, Group Travel Planet, Fast Company, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Journal, Men's Journal, Money, Mother Jones, New York Magazine, Psychology Today, Robb Report, Reason, Sierra Magazine, USA Weekend, The Washington Post, Working Mother, Yankee, Yoga Journal, among other places. I've been a Contributing Editor at Inc., and Editor-at-Large at American Demographics magazine, a New York Times Professional Fellow and a National Press Foundation Fellow. My articles have won awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the American Society of Business Press Editors. I started my career writing books, and am the proud author of Americans at Play, which is about trends in outdoor recreation and travel (New Strategist 1997) and Best of Health, which is about trends in health. (New Strategist, 2000).

Featured Work

  • Into the Wild--Inc.
    The senior managers of Timbuk2, a San Francisco-based manufacturer of messenger bags, gathered on a gently sloping granite ledge at an altitude of 12,000 feet, overlooking the blue-gray shimmer of one of the dozen or so Ice Lakes, slopes of stubby pine trees, and beyond onto ragged peaks. It was the middle of June, but snow still mounded on the ground. A thunderstorm had just skirted the campsite and the wind screamed constantly, cold and fierce. The group was halfway through a seven-day backpacking trip organized by the National Outdoor Leadership School, or NOLS. Accompanying them were two NOLS instructors and me; I'd tagged along to see what would happen.
  • Island of the Midwinter Sun --Men's Journal
    Can a Caribbean island withstand a cruise ship assault?
  • Your Name In Stick Up Lightbulbs: New York Magazine
    How infomercial king AJ Khubani finds the "but wait there's more" products that make millions.
  • Gary Heavin is On a Mission From God: Inc., October 2006
    This story just won a 2007 outstanding article award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. It's a profile of Curves, the 30 minute fitness franchise, and its charismatic leader, Gary Heavin. There's one Curves for every two McDonald's in the United States, which was reason enough to spend two weeks in Waco figuring out what makes such a simple concept make such big bucks. This story is the first feature on Curves to run in a national business magazine.
  • A Wild Pair--Robb Report
    My profile of a luxury safari lodge in Kruger National Park.
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December 2007

From Hitchikers to Private Jets: The Season Begins in Aspen -Huffington Post, 12/20/2007

Img_0330I'm in Aspen now, and the high season, which will start on the Friday before Christmas, is just about to begin. For right now, it's a bit quiet, and the big excitement is that Heidi Klum is here (because husband Seal will be performing), and the scuttle is that paparazzi got kicked out of the lodge at the Buttermilk mountain where they were lying in wait for pics of Klum and brood on skis.

    Aspen is about ideas, and one idea here is that celebrities can be free to just chill out and not be bothered by their celebrity -while getting, of course, the full-fledged celebrity treatment. This doesn't make any sense if you stop to think about it for a moment, but what can you say about a place that has officially sanctioned, apparently town government-installed "thumbing stations" for hitchhikers, and at the same time enough private jet traffic that you must clarify whether you have arrived at the public or the private airport when arranging transport into town?

    Read the rest of this report on Aspen, the first of two, on the Huffington Post.

    December 20, 2007 in On Culture & Trends, On Lifestyle, On Places & Travel |

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    How to Pick an Awesome Scotch --TheStreet.com, 12/20/2007

    44423 I met Johnny Walker, the director of wine and spirits for Malmasion, an excellent boutique hotel chain in the UK, while I was in Scotland over the summer, and immediately knew I wanted to write about him. Here's a fun little story for TheStreet.com about Walker's picks for the best in scotch.

    December 20, 2007 in On Culture & Trends, On Lifestyle, On Places & Travel |

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    Is Searching for Local Food Snobby? --Huffington Post, 12/12/07

    I've just started to blog about travel for The Huffington Post, which is the fifth most-read blog, according to Technorati.
    Here's a link to my first piece, about local food in Nashville and whether it makes me snob to want it.

    December 12, 2007 in On Places & Travel |

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