Held annually since 1992, the ASTW Awards for Excellence is a celebration of our members’ achievements in writing, photography and communications.
With the pandemic still playing havoc with the travel industry, when we made the decision to go ahead with the awards in 2021, it felt like a huge leap of faith. The most pressing question was – would members have anything to enter?
And the answer was a resounding yes - around 500 entries were received across 17 categories
Naturally, judging forms an integral part of the awards process and we are proud to introduce you to our illustrious judging panel hailing from six countries who kindly donated their time and expertise to select the finalists and winners in the ASTW Awards for Excellence in 2021.
Please note, each category was judged by three independent judges, however in accordance with the T&C’s, the specific category they judged remains confidential.
Jane Archer
Jane is an award-winning freelance travel journalist and one of the UK's leading cruise experts. During her 30-year career, she has travelled the world and been on more than 400 ocean and river cruises around Europe, the Caribbean, India and Egypt, and to far-flung places such as Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland, the Galapagos and Kimberley. Her features appear regularly in national newspapers in the UK including the Daily Telegraph and The Times, as well as in lifestyle magazines, online and in various trade titles.
Jennifer Bain
Jennifer 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.
Tracey Bond
Travel and lifestyle writer Tracey is the president of Travcom (New Zealand Travel Communicators) and is the Development Manager for NZME. She is a self-described lover of sunsets, cocktails and discovering new places.
Max Brearley
Max is a freelance writer specialising in food, drink and travel. A Yorkshireman by birth, a Londoner at heart, he's currently to be found in Perth, Western Australia… doing a fine impression of a bearded lobster. His passion for a good yarn and great produce has led him to forage for native foods in the north-west of WA, follow abalone from ocean to plate in the south-west and dig for black truffles in the towering Southern Forests. Writing for delicious, The Australian, The Guardian, Halliday and Conde Nast Traveller, the next farm gate or kitchen door exploit is never far away. As a proud Yorkshireman, he may call WA home but he hankers after a decent Yorkshire pudding and a proper pint of beer; but for now smashed avo, ocean views and a cold local drop will have to do.
Sue Bryant
Sue Bryant is an award-winning writer and editor specialising in travel. She is cruise editor of The Time and 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.
Jennie Carr
Jennie, a member, and formerly on the board, of the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW), has been at Silver Travel Advisor for nearly a decade since the company’s creation. She edits The Silver Traveller as well as curating and creating much of the website’s online content. Jennie is a respected speaker at UK travel industry events. A keen traveller, with experiences in the Caribbean, Europe and Africa, her notable overseas moments include surviving Aeroflot flights in 1983, hill climbing in Göcek & Kalkan in Turkey and two 100-mile treks in the Namibian desert. Jennie has worked with people from many countries and has a good knowledge of cultural differences, and what to expect when travelling to Japan, Russia and Kazakhstan! She loves islands - her challenge is to equal Ben Fogle in his book, The Teatime Islands.
Meera Dattani
Meera is a freelance travel, lifestyle and cultural journalist, editor and copywriter. She currently co-edits Adventure.com (part-time) and has a special interest in wildlife tourism, sustainable travel, heritage tourism and decolonising travel writing.
Her articles have appeared in publications such as The Guardian, The Independent, Evening Standard, Wanderlust, National Geographic Traveller, Travel Weekly and Rough Guides. Prior to a life of freelancing, Meera was the senior editor at Virgin Media for three years. She is a member of ATTA (Adventure Travel Trade Association) and the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) and has been nominated for many awards including Travel Media Awards, Caribbean Media Awards and Cruise Journalism Awards.
Sue Dobson
Sue is an award-winning travel writer and magazine editor based in the UK, whose life-long passion for discovering the world through art, music, religion and culture has taken her to every continent. She is the author of several guidebooks including The 50 Greatest Churches and Cathedrals.
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, Cruise Critic and in various trade publications. She also wrote three substantial cruise guidebooks for a leading travel chain.
Rita Erlich
Melbourne-based Rita is a food writer and occasional lecturer, and consultant. She writes about food in all its forms and meanings – restaurants, recipes, nutrition, history, culture, agriculture, wine – in newspapers, magazines and websites. Her latest book is The Makers: a story of food, family and foreigners, published by Hardie Grant. Over the years she has collaborated with a number of chefs on their books. For 15 years she co-edited The Age Good Food Guide from 1984-1998. Now she has launched a career in broadcasting. She broadcasts regularly with Travel Writers Radio, on SoundCloud.
Caroline Eubanks
Caroline is a graduate of the College of Charleston and a member of the Author’s Guild, the Society of American Travel Writers and the Professional Travel Bloggers Association. Her first book, This Is My South: The Essential Travel Guide to the Southern States, was published in 2018. Caroline started out as an intern at an alt-weekly and leveraged her travel blog into a freelance writing career. She has written for BBC Travel, Fodor's, The Daily Beast, National Geographic Traveler's Intelligent Travel, AFAR, Thrillist, Roads and Kingdoms, Marriott Traveler, Shermans Travel, AAA.com, Modern Luxury, and Frommer's. Her travel website, This Is My South, is devoted entirely to traveling in the southern USA, including attractions, accommodation, and restaurants. It was recognised by Southern Living as a blog to follow in 2015. Her other blog Caroline in the City documents her personal travels with millennial-focused topics.
Mary Anne Evans
Mary 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 guidebooks on 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.
Liz Fleming
Liz is a highly respected award-winning member of the Society of American Travel Writers and as far as she 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. She makes regular radio talk show appearances and is always ready to jump into the next adventure.
Elaine Glusac
Winner of the writer of the year Lowell Thomas award, Elaine has won numerous awards for her work, including the Gold Medal as Travel Journalist of the Year in 2019 from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), and the Silver Medal as Travel Journalist of the Year in 2018. In 2019, the judges said, “Elaine Glusac’s portfolio demonstrates a mastery of every form of travel writing, from a breaking news story about the FAA’s refusal to regulate airline seats to beautifully written features about her adventures in under-frequented spots on the globe.” In 2018, the judges noted, “her writing voice is that of the wide-open traveling companion who knows to sit at the bar, make friends and listen carefully for the story.” In addition to freelance work, she writes the Frugal Traveler column for The New York Times.
David Gordon
David is a broadcaster and writer based in Northern Ireland. He has been involved in the travel media for 25 years and is a recent winner of Northern Ireland “Travel Journalist of the Year”.
His work has been published in national newspapers in the UK and Ireland, along with international magazines. His broadcast work includes his own Travelbites podcast and feature reports on TravelRadio Australia and Around the World Radio/TV in California.
Maggie Grady
A lover of the travel experience and an avid reader of all to do with it, in a former life Maggie Grady was a travel trade editor and writer. At the age of 30, Maggie had the dubious honour of being employed by the publisher of Travelweek as “the oldest cadet journalist in Victoria”. From there she worked her way up to deputy editor before moving to Hong Kong where she was editor of Travelnews Asia. On her return to Australia, Maggie transferred to the head of PR of the now-defunct Traveland. She then went onto the more lucrative job of heading Corporate Affairs in a global bank, a position she held for around 12 years.
Michelle Grima
Michelle 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. She has worked closely with a number of tourism-related clients, particularly in the Blue Mountains. Michelle has held the position of visitor experience manager at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah. She is also a former journalist and editor.
Lisa Habermann
With more than twenty years’ experience as a journalist, editor and sub-editor Lisa has branched out as a life-writing coach. Her life-writing classes began as a small four-week course in a neighbourhood house and since then she has presented workshops and delivered her bespoke course to hundreds of people. Lisa holds a Master of Arts in writing and literature and Archer magazine described her writing style as ‘engaging, warm and funny’.
Ellen Hill
The communications coordinator for Blue Mountains Tourism, Ellen Hill has earned a reputation as the ``go-to’’ contact for the region for travel media seeking comment, story leads and hosted itineraries.
An award-winning writer published throughout regional Australia, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Traveller, Jetstar, The Senior Traveller, The Senior (Travel), NRMA Open Road and more, Ellen also traipses the country as a freelance journalist and travel writer with photojournalist partner David Hill in search of feature stories, character profiles and travel yarns, usually in a grubby hatchback piled to the ceiling with gear, a lanky son and, sometimes, a pampered pet rabbit called Callum.
Leonie Huxendurp
As an environmental scientist, Leonie is passionate about sustainability and has more than 28 years of experience working in natural resources including providing consultancy services to a range of NSW government organisations. In addition to her environmental qualifications, she holds a Master of Arts in Journalism / Communications (UTS) and a Graduate Certificate in Journalism (UTS).
Diana Jarvis
Diana is a current Board member and the Photographer’s Representative of the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW). As a photographer and writer, Diana specialises in sustainable travel, outdoors and the environment. She’s photographed 10 guidebook destinations for Rough Guides, numerous Greentraveller guides covering British National Parks and written a variety of articles for roughguides.com about the art of travel photography. Diana is a regular photographer for National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine and has also been published in The Independent, The Evening Standard, Canadian Geographic, Travel Africa and Travel Weekly. She is also the editor of Eye for the Light at Travel Photographer of the Year eye.tpoty.com.
Tim Johnson
Tim is one of Canada’s most prolific travel writers. He’s clocked up 145 countries on all seven continents, 50 U.S. states, 10 provinces and three territories in Canada, and all the states of Australia. He writes for a variety of publications including CNN Travel, the Globe and Mail, Bloomberg Pursuits, The New Yorker, AFAR, National Geographic and the Robb Report.
Lisa Kjellsson
Lisa is a UK-based freelance travel writer and a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers. She covers spa and wellness travel, ecotourism, indigenous cultures, and equestrian escapes for the likes of The Sunday Times, City AM Magazine, Jetsetter, Boat International, The Robb Report, Sleeper and Condé Nast Traveller. Lisa’s work has taken her to environments as diverse as the frozen wilderness of the Arctic, the grassy plains of the Kenyan bush and the sweeping sand dunes of Oman’s Empty Quarter desert. She is passionate about promoting sustainable travel and experiences that foster a greater understanding of cultures around the world.
Chloe Knight-Gregson
Chloe plays a key role in digital marketing as Tourism Australia's social media producer. During her nine-year tenure at Tourism Australia, Chloe has helped cement Australia as a leading global destination in social media. Communicating with millions of fans, supporting the tourism industry and sifting through the hundreds of holiday snaps submitted to #seeaustralia daily means that Chloe has seen and heard her fair share about travel. Funnily enough, she still doesn't know where her favourite Aussie destination is, but four-wheel driving through outback Queensland and snorkelling with manta rays in the Southern Great Barrier Reef are both up there with the best.
David Latta
Based in Sydney, Australia, David Latta is an award-winning editor, journalist and photographer. His work has appeared in scores of Australian and international newspapers and magazines including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Courier-Mail and Travel & Leisure.
In the past two decades, he has largely concentrated on travel and tourism, editing more than a dozen B2B titles and major conference and incentive travel publications. David is currently working on three novels including a thriller set in Sydney during World War II.
Ben Lerwill
Ben is an award-winning freelance writer based in Oxfordshire, England. After starting his professional writing career in 2003, his work has appeared in more than 50 national international publications including National Geographic Traveller, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Observer, BBC Travel, The Telegraph, Wanderlust and Time Out.
Ewan McDonald
President of Travcom NZ, Ewan 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.
Ian McIntosh
Ian was a founding member of the ASTW. He edited and wrote Going Places in the Adelaide News, the biggest tabloid travel section in Australia. He left newspapers for a few years to join the newly created Northern Territory Tourist Commission where he took on the formidable task of putting the destination on the global map. The role centred on new resorts, roads, transport links and massive marketing campaigns. He returned to The News in Adelaide as special projects manager before establishing his own full colour magazine plus state regional newsletters for the trade in Australia and New Zealand - Travelnews Australia. Accolades included a prized Telstra small business award. These days he remains in close contact with the industry via his weekly Australia’s Top10 Travel Deals column. He is also a contributing editor for e-global travel media and has extensive worldwide travel contacts through Facebook and Twitter.
Ian McMahon
Ian entered travel journalism in 1974. Returning to Australia after a nine-year stint in London working on a range of business titles, he landed the job of Melbourne bureau chief for Traveltrade. He quickly realised that the job beat working for a living and continued in travel journalism for the remainder of his career. In 1976 he moved from Traveltrade to Travelweek which he edited for more than 25 years. In 2004 he partnered with the late Eddie Raggett to establish the monthly Travel Bulletin, which he edited for a decade until it was sold to Travel Daily. He also contributed to a range of publications in Australia and overseas and for 10 years he presented a weekly radio travel segment for Doug Aiton’s drive time program on 3LO (now ABC Melbourne). He has twice received ASTW ‘Journalist of the Year (trade and industry)’ awards as well as numerous other awards and citations.
Jacquelin Magnay
Jacquelin Magnay is the Europe Correspondent for The Australian, based in London and covering all manner of big stories across political, business, Royals and security issues. She is a George Munster and Walkley Award-winning journalist and has held senior media roles in Australian and British newspapers. Before joining The Australian in 2013 she was the UK Telegraph’s Olympics Editor.
Angela Moffat
Angela is a Sydney-based author. With a background in the charity sector and qualifications as a hypnotherapist and holistic therapist, she enjoys writing books to help people create the best life possible and follow their dreams and achieve their goals. Her first book, Reach Your Goals is a practical self-help guide and she’s currently working on her next book titled Confidence Booster.
Fran Molloy
Based south of Sydney, Fran is a journalist, university lecturer, freelance editor and copywriter. She writes feature articles and profile pieces covering a range of topics for publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, ABC online, in addition to Australian and international magazines. Fran currently teaches environmental journalism at the Sydney campus of New York University and has also taught at Southern Cross University, UTS, the NSW Writers’ Centre, the Australian College of Journalism and the University of NSW.
Janyne Moore
Janyne has 19 years’ experience working as a journalist. She was an on-the-road reporter and newsreader at Sydney Radio 2UE and also produced the Ray Hadley Morning Show on Radio 2GB. She moved into public relations and c-founded In The Media PR generating widespread media coverage for clients like the Cancer Institute NSW, Nike Damn Am event, UbiCar, the Garvan Institute and MooGoo.
Peter Muhlbock
From 1969, Peter spent more than 40 years at News Limited in Sydney where he completed a four-year cadetship in the photographic department. He worked as a photographer on The Sunday Telegraph for nearly 20 years covering news, features and sport. During this stint he was promoted to Picture Editor of The Sunday Telegraph and followed that with two years as a Picture Editor on The Daily Telegraph. With the introduction of digital imaging, he was asked to head up the new imaging department, which he did until his retirement in 2010. Since then Peter has continued to be passionate about photography building a healthy portfolio from his travels. He has volunteered as a photographer for Special Olympics Australia covering many local and overseas sporting events.
Belinda Murrell
Belinda is an award-winning, internationally published author - with a history of writing in her family that spans over 200 years. Belinda has written more than 35 books including The Sun Sword trilogy, the popular Lulu Bell and Pippa’s Island series, and her Australian historical timeslip novels. Searching for Charlotte, is a biography written with her sister Kate Forsyth, inspired by the fascinating life of their great-great-great-great grandmother, Charlotte Waring Atkinson, who wrote the first children’s book published in Australia in 1841. Her latest book is The Golden Tower, a timeslip/fantasy set in a magical Italian Renaissance-inspired world.
Alan Orbell
Alan’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 freelancer, he was appointed launch editor of the 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.
Barbara Orr
An experienced editor and writer from the US, Barbara 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 the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), having also served as Vice President and Active At Large. She is the recipient of multiple writing and photography awards, including the 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 is also an award-winning photographer, as well as an embarrassingly inept but enthusiastic artist.
Kirk Owers
With a background in photojournalism, travel photography and portraiture, Kirk runs his own photography business on the Mid North Coast of NSW. His philosophy of photography is based on spontaneity by capturing moments in time to tell a story.
Over the past few years, Kirk has built up a reputation as a natural, unposed wedding photographer. Additionally, he freelances as a magazine travel photographer.
Mar Pages
Mar is a Singapore-based former management consultant and Googler turned online entrepreneur, publisher and all-round champion of female empowerment. Drawing on her vast experience of travelling to more than 100 countries, Mar recently started Solo Female Travelers (www.solofemaletravelers.club) which has an online reach of more than 125,000 women. Her women-only tours (www.sfttours.com) are designed for solo female travellers and provide employment opportunities for women.
David Rogers
David is a freelance photographer based on the South Coast of NSW. After growing up in the area, and a stint of city life where he worked with some of the world’s leading brands in Australia’s top publishing houses, he returned to his roots to focus on photography. He now focuses on combining his two passions – photography and media to help brands achieve their marketing goals through powerful imagery and to remind people of the beauty of our planet.
James Rushforth
The British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) Photographer of the Year (2018 and 2019), James is one of the world’s most awarded photographers with 12 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. His work has been published in numerous magazines and national newspapers including National Geographic, The Times, The Guardian, and The Telegraph (UK). James also writes tutorials and blog posts for 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.
Alexia Santamaria
Alexia is a New Zealand freelance writer with a passion for travel and good food. She’s lived in Japan, France, Scotland and England and frequently travels overseas on assignment. She’s now based in Auckland with her husband and kids. Alexia loves discovering new sights and sounds in New Zealand with her family and is constantly blown away by the surprises they find in the many unexpected corners of that country.
Eric Stoen
Eric is a writer and photographer specialising 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 eight, 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; in 2017 Forbes named him the World’s #4 Travel Influencer. He’s an ambassador for Travelocity, AFAR Magazine and Universal Orlando.
Susan Schwartz
Susan is an award-winning podcaster and blogger. With a passion for cocktails, wine and beer, her byline appears in publications including Mail on Sunday, Condé Nast Traveller, Sainsbury’s, Grazia, Vanity Fair Italia. Susan was awarded the TravMedia Sit-Up Award for Rising Star of the Year in 2019. She is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW).
Emma Thomson
Winner of 2019 British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) Writer of the Year Emma is a respected travel writer for the UK national press, who spends roughly three-quarters of the year away on assignment covering adventurous off-the-beaten-track destinations. Commissions have ranged from a world-first expedition crossing Namibia’s Skeleton Coast unsupported, to traveling the length of the Silk Road from Xi’an to Istanbul. A passionate advocate of responsible tourism, she has lived with families around the world including Indigenous Australians and nomads in Mongolia, and frequently visits countries that are recovering from natural disasters or political upheaval, penning features that help travellers regain their trust in these destinations. She’s also an experienced travel-writing panelist at consumer travel shows and workshops, and contributes to podcasts, radio and TV.
Richard Tulloch
Richard began to travel extensively through his work as a writer of plays, books and television for young people. He wrote the original Bananas in Pyjamas show and more recently has penned plays adapted from The 13-Storey Treehouse series. He now divides his time between Sydney and Amsterdam. Since 2009 he has been a regular contributor to Fairfax Media, specialising in active travel stories.
Antonia Windsor
Antonia is a London-based writer and presenter specialising in travel. Her articles have been published in many newspapers including The Australian, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, The Financial Times and The South China Morning Post as well as in a wide range of consumer travel publications such as National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller and Food and Travel. Alongside her journalism, she also scripts and presents podcasts and videos, which have appeared online at The Guardian, The Telegraph and most recently The Times. She has a travel podcast with comedian Jon Holmes called Jon and Antonia Take on the World and both she and Jon recently hosted the BGTW Gala dinner at the Savoy in London.
