ABOUT ME
I'm a writer and travel magazine hoarder, a chocolate snob and random jingle composer. I can't help but observe — sometimes a little too intensely. I think that's why I love to travel: there's always something more to see. And while at home I can get away with being quiet or soft-spoken, travel forces me to be neither.
In my quest to see the world, I fell in with organizations trying to make it a better place. I realized that just as I could use words to evoke a sense of place, I could also use them to elicit compassion. With the right combination of stories, images, and facts, I could connect people to real change happening in parts of the world that needed it most. I'm constantly working to improve this formula.
Along the way, I started inventing stories of my own. As a lifelong mystery reader who devoured every Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie novel on the shelves, I was inspired to finally write the story I wanted to read. After four years, I just finished my first novel, DEAD LETTER, and I’m currently hard at work on the next. My mysteries center women who are rediscovering themselves, where a sense of place is indelible to their characters, and a sense of humor cuts the tension when, inevitably, a dead body turns up.
Fifteen years ago, I started the first iteration of Travel Girl Sees World, a blog to record my most memorable travel stories, with some advice and self-reflection sprinkled in. Many of these posts still live on this site, a testament to how I've grown and how I haven't changed a bit. I hope you'll enjoy them. — Sam