02: Becoming a Travel Journalist with Ashlea Halpern
This week on the podcast, I’m incredibly thrilled to chat with the brilliant Ashlea Halpern.
Ashlea is a travel editor and journalist whose journey has taken her from cutting together magazines in her childhood to traveling the world for a living and telling poignant stories of travel and adventure for prominent publications.
Today, Ashlea is the editor-at-large for AFAR Media and founding editor of The Urbanist, a pop-up travel blog from New York Magazine. She served as a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler, special projects editor at Bon Appétit, Strategist editor at NYMag, and senior editor at Time Out New York. Her writing and photography have appeared in a variety of titles.
Ashlea has visited more than 65 countries and lectured about travel writing at Stanford University. Her favorite destinations from the last few years include Uzbekistan, Jordan, Swedish Lapland, Turkey, Tasmania, and Minnesota. (That last one she liked so much, she moved there in 2018 and co-launched a website, Minnevangelist, devoted to trumpeting its greatness.)
In this episode, we get to uncover Ashlea’s incredible drive, confidence, and determination—all the things that we need to have on the creative path. I admire Ashlea’s work and I’m so excited to have her on our show!
“Don’t apologize for being good at something.”
Want to start taking action on your creative dreams? Download my free guide to publishing your travel stories to get the 10 steps towards making this creative dream your reality!
What you’ll learn in this episode:
How being an only child helped Ashlea crystallize what she wanted to do in life
How moving nearly 40 times planted a seed for Ashlea’s nomadic lifestyle
The pressure of starting a storytelling career in New York—and why it doesn’t have to start there
Why Ashlea had an epiphany during a study abroad in London
The importance of service journalism in the travel journalism
Navigating the male-dominated journalism space without female mentors
Where Ashlea got her confidence of knowing she had what it takes to act on her ideas
How we can learn to separate our sense of worth from our work when pitching our ideas
The frequent reason stories get canceled (it’s not what you think!)
Why Ashlea believes freelancers have to demand to be paid fairly
How COVID-19 is disrupting travel and the way we work
Ashlea’s advice to aspiring travel journalists
Featured on the show:
Follow Ashlea on Instagram | @ashleahalpern
Follow Minnevangelist on Instagram | @minnevangelist
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