Storytelling & Life Writing

I love to write first-person stories that explore what happens to us when we travel. It’s not just about hopping on a plane to a far-flung destination, but how different sights and cultures begin to shape us, and maybe even make us re-examine who we think we are and what we may believe.

A lot of my writing exists at the intersection of travel and modern relationships. I’ve written about being dumped 36 hours after embarking on a loved-up 10-day adventure along the French and Italian Riviera, forging friendships and being romanced by a dressage instructor on the Côte d’Azur, and explaining to strangers 35,000 feet in the air why British matchmaking agencies are a complete sham.

Something magical happens when you step off a plane or train in another country, even if it’s a place you’ve frequented time and time again, as long as you allow yourself to be open to it. Sure, the scents and the sounds that surround you are different from home, but there can be a promise of possibility that lingers in the air. And isn’t that just delightful?

In addition to writing for The Independent, Business Insider, Stylist, Metro, and Grazia, I've contributed to the BBC, Cosmopolitan, The Times, and The New York Post, among others. I've also been a featured speaker on BBC Radio, The Moth, and podcasts on both sides of the Atlantic.

GET IN TOUCH

Featured Articles

STYLIST

Learn From My Mistakes: I Spent More Than £10,000 on a Matchmaking Service

THE REAL WORD BY TRAFALGAR

How I Built Lifelong Friendships With My Broken French

THE INDEPENDENT

Why I’m Finding It Impossible To Get Over My Pandemic Heartbreak

BBC The Invisible Price of Travelling Safely as a Woman

Solo female traveller Jen Kaarlo has travelled to 53 countries, most of them alone, and says solo travel for many women often comes with constant calculations around safety. For Kaarlo, choices such as arriving in daylight, pre-booking transport and avoiding situations where she feels overly vulnerable have become almost automatic.

While travelling through Panama, she booked a semi-private boat trip through the San Blas Islands but paid extra to guarantee she would not have to share a sleeping space with a stranger.

"In order to rent the cabin, I had to pay one fee," she says. "Then I had to pay between $100 and $200 (£80-£160) more to ensure that I had a private boat bed."

More routinely, she says she budgets extra for transport, particularly when arriving somewhere unfamiliar. At Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, she encountered a man who repeatedly approached travellers with an elaborate scam, an experience that reinforced her preference for pre-booking a car or taking a taxi rather than public transport. "Probably the biggest cost generally is the extra ground transportation… I avoid mass transit anytime getting into a new city unless I know that city really well."

In a similar way, Kaarlo says that after having her drink spiked in "an incredibly scary situation" in Paris, she changed how she approached solo travel.

And for Kaarlo, the cost is not just financial. "The cognitive overload, I think, is the biggest weight," she says.

Business Insider

“I was chatting to a friend-of-a-friend, a woman around my age, who was aghast at the idea that I was abandoning my life in the British capital to move halfway across the world to live with my two dads in Denver. So much so that her perfectly manicured hand almost dropped her spicy margarita when I told her the news…

As an expat, I always find myself coming back to a cost-to-closeness ratio. Many moons ago, I was having dinner with a new friend I'd been introduced to through mutual friends in Paris. Over escargots and red wine, he told me all about the glamorous adventures he had embarked upon, seemingly plucked right from the scenes of "The Devil Wears Prada."

…What stuck out to me all these years later is not how he knew every designer under the sun, but how he spoke about the calculations behind his trips back to the States.”

Grazia

3 STEPS TO PROTECT YOUR RELATIONSHIP

“Your social media feed may be awash with engagement and anniversary photos, but data would suggest many Britons aren’t experiencing happily ever after.

Not only are divorce applications at the highest level in 10 years — helped, in part, by the no-fault legislation passed in April of last year — but there is evidence from the last economic downturn that recessions and higher divorce rates are toxic bedfellows…”

Featured in Metro

I Threw a Divorce Party With Bubbly, My Closest Friends, and Dancing

Meet the ‘Rainbow Families’ Celebrating Their New Normal

Where I Work: The Writer Working From Home With a Cavapoo

Sorbet

A quick online scroll ascertains seduction doesn’t exactly have the finest of reputations.

When keeping close company with the likes of world-famous flirts and lotharios, not to mention deceptively charming spies dramatically swaying the tides of war, perhaps the term requires a much-needed PR makeover.

After all, the word ‘seduction’ stems from the Latin “to lead aside.”