About

Welcome aboard Taste for Travel.  I’m Heather – a writer, editor, author, content provider, Pilates enthusiast, coffee fan. I believe travel, food and culture are inseparable. I like a side order of the unexpected. Homelands: Australia, Greece, New Zealand. I believe in respectfully connecting with a place rather than rushing through. Compassionate, ethical travel is important to me.

I inherited my lovely mother’s boundless curiosity about our world. Being able to go beyond my own back yard is a gift I never take for granted, and like most people, can’t always afford. My seafaring great, great grandfather’s spirit of adventure has also been handed down. Captain M.T. Clayton, a 19th Century master maritime painter and adventurer, sailed tall-masted ships around the world.

• Like many travel bloggers, my content was fairly generic for a while. For longevity, a blog needs focus. My main areas of information and insights for women travellers are Mediterranean countries, particularly Greece. Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East feature too. Blogging is a moveable feast, so I may tweak the menu again. The digital medium is tirelessly adaptable.
• Meeting locals and fellow travellers along the way is one of the best bits about going places. I like to write about that.
• Transplanting yourself into another culture takes guts. I explore cross-cultural challenges.
• Food is often the way we most keenly taste our travel experience, so I feature flavours from many places.
• Content is curated to reflect up-to-date information.
• Travel has hazards. I write about downsides too.
• Books rock my world like nothing else. I review travel-related books. I interview authors and give away the books so my bookshelf clutter doesn’t build up.
• Ask Sally is occasional tongue-in-cheek advice from our relationships and travel etiquette “guru” Sally Slaughter.

 I wrote about my own travel and culture shock in contributing chapters to Foreign Women in Greece, a guide to surviving life in the land of the gods. I then wrote about other people’s odysseys in my debut non-fiction book, Asylum: Voices Behind the Razor Wire, published by Lothian Books in 2003 (reprinted the same year) and shortlisted for a Dobbie Award, a major literary accolade, in 2004. The book revealed the plight of asylum seekers running from persecution and war-torn countries, and seeking sanctuary in Australia only to end up behind razor wire in the kafka-esque system of mandatory immigration detention. I’m writing another book now – and yes, it’s about journeys. It seems to be the story of my life.

My copywriting and editing skills
are for hire. Why should you hire me?

• Experience: I have many years experience in media, from writing for print through to TV and digital.
• Editing: I’ve been editing copy for 20 years. I know how to make mediocre copy sing, and I fact-check rigorously.
• Quality copy: My writing is accurate and grammatically correct.
• Writing style: My writing is empathetic, as well as informative and entertaining.
• Adaptability: I understand the needs of a changing media landscape and how to write quality content on a wide variety of subjects.
• Punctuality: I never miss a deadline. No excuses.
• Pay: I don’t write for free, for “exposure” or any other nebulous bullshit.
• Contact: info@tastefortravel.com.au

 Thanks for visiting, and come back soon!
Better still, hire me.