Little did my parents know that a short trip to Europe in high school would launch a lifetime love of travel, languages, exploration and cultures. Since that short trip, I have been to 40+ countries and all seven continents. Friends once complained that I filled too many pages in their address books (yes, old-style paper books).

Trained as a news journalist, I first spent a decade as a daily newspaper journalist also earning a Pulitzer Prize as a member of a news team, then freelanced and wrote books, then ran a trade news business covering outdoor and fitness with my husband, Michael Hodgson. My writing focus finally turned to travel with the launch of HI Travel Tales, also with Michael. Today, I tell stories and relate experiences in both words and with my photography.

I won a 2018 honorable mention from the North American Travel Journalists Association for my Illustrated Story / Online about a short trek in Patagonia, plus HI Travel Tales was named one of the top 6 independent blogs for 2018 as a winner of an honorable mention. Side fact: I also work as a translator (German into English), and we spend quite a bit of time at our base in Berlin, exploring from there.