Media in Minutes

Exploring Authentic Travel Journalism with Robin Catalano: From Archaeology to Award-Winning Narratives

• Angela Tuell • Season 4 • Episode 26

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Discover the captivating world of travel journalism with our esteemed guest, Robin Catalano, whose impressive portfolio includes features in The New York Times and National Geographic. Journey with us as Robin recounts her serendipitous path into journalism, from a childhood love for writing, sparked by her high school English teacher, to her unexpected pivot from archaeology to journalism after a transformative internship. Robin unveils her diverse career adventures, from corporate communications to magazine editing and her passionate return to journalism for the love of in-depth, long-form storytelling. Her dedication to travel, conservation, and food and beverage narratives underscores her commitment to high-quality content and the pressing need to protect our natural world.

In this episode, Robin takes us behind the scenes of her storytelling process for Hidden Compass. She shares the intricate, two-year journey of crafting a narrative on Salem's Merchant Trade and an adventurous fossil hunt in New Brunswick with a paleontologist. Experience the resilience and revival of historic Chinatowns in Vancouver and Victoria through her eyes as she balances personal bucket lists with storytelling opportunities. Robin, embracing the role of an "uninfluencer," challenges the glossy veneer of social media to present authentic travel experiences. Tune in for her insights on working with PR professionals and her award-winning approach to bringing strong characters and honest narratives to life.

Learn more about Robin at robinwriter.com. 

Read her work in the New York Times, National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, TIME, Smithsonian, Conde Nast Traveler, BBC, Robb Report, AFAR, Hemispheres, US News & World Report, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Fodor's, Roadtrippers, Thrillist, AAA, ROVA, Seattle Times, Albany Times Union, and more!

Connect with her on:  


Thank you for listening!  Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the Media in Minutes podcast here or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/media-in-minutes/id1555710662  

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host, angela Toole. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those who report on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world From our studio here at Communications. Redefined this is, and human cultures. She can be found sipping cider and plying the waters of upstate New York in her inflatable kayak. Robyn's work has appeared in the New York Times, national Geographic, bbc Travel and Leisure, washington Post, smithsonian, condé Nast, traveler, rob Reports and many more. She was selected as the 2020 Writer-in-Residence at Arrowhead and is also a 2022 finalist in the IFWTA Excellence in Journalism Awards, and last year, robin was the winner of an SATW Lowell Thomas Award for Sustainable Tourism Reporting. This year, she was a two-time winner in both the SATW and ASJA annual writing awards. Hi Robin, how are things in New York?

Speaker 2:

They are cold and snowy.

Speaker 1:

We've got that too. Did you get a?

Speaker 2:

lot of snow. We got about four inches overnight and it's still kind of coming down lightly right now.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Okay, that's. That's a good amount. So I'd love to start with you've had such an impressive career in journalism. Can you tell us a bit about your journey and what inspired you to become a journalist?

Speaker 2:

Sure, first I would say thank you very much. That's super kind and I'm very happy to hear it, and I'll come back tomorrow and have you say that again. Okay, good, I would say I mean more than anything, I think I fell into it. I have been writing since I was eight years old and I actually used to make my own little magazines. Believe it or not, I still. Yes, I was a gymnast and I used to create magazines about my favorite gymnasts. That was kind of my own entree into the publishing world.

Speaker 2:

And I think as I got older, you know, I developed a variety of interests. I kept writing, but I was determined to go into archaeology in university. On my last day of high school, I was having a conversation with my honors English teacher and he said I would hate for you to leave here and never write again. And that stuck with me, and I think that was maybe the first time that I thought to myself you know, this is not only something that I like, but it's something I'm good at, and so I should think about that on a professional level. So then, what happened from there? Well, I did actually major in archaeology, but also English. Okay, I kept that going.

Speaker 2:

And then by the time I did my grad school, I was pretty firmly in the English literature creative writing camp. I thought I would be a university professor at that point, oh OK. But I started working as an intern for a local publication and that was my first journalism job. I did a variety of jobs in the interim. I've been everything. I was a corporate communications manager, social media manager, magazine editor, book editor, and I still keep a foot in some of those worlds. But I eventually came back to journalism because I had missed the long form storytelling. I just felt like I was getting that with, you know, social media and blogging to some extent as well. I was doing that for a home decor company. So yeah, for me it just it sort of felt like a little bit of a homecoming to come back to journalism.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know, long form journalism is not as plentiful as it used to be either, unfortunately.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not. Yeah, it's really. I don't want to say a dying art, because I think there are plenty of people who would do it and do it well if given more opportunity, right, something that you know. I guess publishers are sort of beholden to their advertisers and what performs the best. So you know they continue to produce more of the content that they believe performs well. But I really miss, you know, those meaty stories where you really felt transported to the place. It wasn't just a service journalism story and there's no shade on service journalism stories. They have their purpose as well but I think those really rich stories. We're missing a lot of that right now in travel publishing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely. I love those too. So, as you mentioned travel, you specialize in travel conservation, preservation and food and beverage journalism. How do you decide what topics or stories to pursue?

Speaker 2:

I would say I'm still a generalist in the travel world, but the topics that you've mentioned, those are ones that have really become personal passions over time and the ones that I'm maybe most knowledgeable about. I wouldn't say that I decide what to pursue so much as I listen and then sort of home in on a little nugget of information, and it could be a really obvious news peg, like some you know, a grand opening of a major museum, or it could be some little esoteric bit of trivia. But once I find it I really dig into it, like with the crazy approach of a homicide detective, Like I just got to know what's on the other.

Speaker 1:

That's fabulous. So I'm assuming the stories take you quite a bit of time, sometimes as well. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Anything service journalism, you know, the more narrative stories they do take me a while to produce, maybe too long, even by some. But for me that's I don't know it's part of the process of making sure that what I'm putting out into the world is good and not just something that I've dashed off.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, absolutely. That's true journalism, and you mentioned conservation. Can you talk a little bit about why this issue is so important to you and how you approach it in your writing? Sure?

Speaker 2:

I think what it really boils down to is that, you know, humans, for all the good we have done in the world, we've also done a tremendous amount of harm, and this is especially when we think about the natural world that could be, you know, plastics, pollution, overhunting of a species to near extinction, and you know we've done a lot of harm to cultures as well, and a lot of them are marginalized. So I think, as a, as you know, supposedly the most intelligent species on the planet, we're now in a place where we need to fix what we've wrought. So for me, you know, I wouldn't claim that my approach is solutions journalism, necessarily, and I think that that term implies perhaps that everything else is non-solutions oriented. But I do love stories that pose both a question and even a suggestion of an answer, because I think that's what we're looking for as people we want to know. Ok, yeah, this is a bad thing. How do we make it better?

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely, and you've had the opportunity to tell some fantastic stories. Is there a particular article that stands out as especially fulfilling or important to you?

Speaker 2:

I think there are probably a few. I've done a couple of pieces for Hidden Compass which I really love working with Hidden Compass. They are very much in the mold of the you know the through the merchant trade in Salem, massachusetts, and that was. It was a challenge because it was sort of hard to dig up the information on it and find the right subjects to interview and it took a very, very long time to put that story together. I think from the first bit of research all the way through to the final draft was about two years total, not that I was, I would pay my bills if that's all I did Right Kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

I had to keep going back and adding and taking away and reshaping, so when it was finally done it just felt really good to first of all to have achieved bringing together that giant amount of information and kind of distilling it down to something people could understand. And you know it's an important topic that doesn't get a lot of coverage. I did another piece for them as well on fossil hunting in New Brunswick, canada, and that that's the sort of thing that appeals to the archaeologists in me.

Speaker 2:

You know it's paleontology, but but great so I had the opportunity to do sort of a fossil ride along with the um I believe he's the gosh I'm blanking on his name I think he's like the provincial director of um paleontology in New Brunswick. Okay, so that was super cool just to be in this place that has this incredible history and to talk kind of shop geeky things, talk about and the beginning of the earth and all of that kind of stuff. And then I would call it one more thing. We have two more seconds.

Speaker 2:

So this year I actually was able to tell a story that kind of crosses politics and dark tourism and this is not really a topic that I've made forays into in the past, but I took a trip to Cyprus and just kind of finding out how the invasion of Cyprus had affected the people who lived there, both Turks and Greeks. This is back in 1974. So we're now on the 50th anniversary. Really hearing about the stories and seeing Varosha, which is the supposed abandoned city, seeing how all of that happened was so incredibly eye-opening for me in realizing what we're doing with tourism as well. Tourism doesn't always, or isn't always, a force for good. I guess we should say. So being able to tell that story that was really meaningful, incorporating the voices of people who remember what it was like when the invasion happened.

Speaker 1:

Yes, wow, we will definitely, definitely link to all of those in our show notes. And I have to ask how do you select your next destination and do you typically go and experience and then pitch stories to editors, or how does that work?

Speaker 2:

It's a little bit of a mix. So I definitely have, you know, my own bucket list of places that I would like to go. So those are kind of they're always at the top of my mind when I think you know where do I want to go next. I do get a good number of invitations, and sometimes it's to a place that I hadn't really thought about, and when I see the invitation it then sort of prompts this thinking process in me of like, well, why didn't I think of going here before? And this could be an incredible story. So sometimes it's a left of field thing and it's just, it's a whim. Maybe You're like, oh yeah, I think I can tell the heck out of that story, so I run with it.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. So what are some of the most surprising things you've learned about a culture or a location, maybe aside from what you just mentioned a little bit ago, but during your travels?

Speaker 2:

I think that let's see my trip to British Columbia last year. I visited two Chinatowns, in Vancouver and Victoria. Victoria's is the oldest in North sorry, second oldest in North America, wow. Okay, vancouver's is the second largest. So that's both after San Francisco. So telling that story about sort of the evolution of Chinatown they have, you know, as Chinatowns around the country have, they've struggled in the last couple of decades but they're starting this little revival that really I think will start picking up steam in the next couple of years and turn into something really incredible how the Chinese immigrants came here, how they were treated, what their early lives were like, and what it is like for them to live there now and what it means to still have this community.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that sounds fascinating, if you could. This might be a hard one. If you could trade places with one of the people you've written about, or even in the play, you know one of the places that you've written about for even a day, who or where would that be?

Speaker 2:

Oh, it would probably be Matt Stimson, who is the paleontologist that I talked about in New Brunswick. I would love to have his job for a day. It would be fabulous to just be, you know, looking for fossils and collecting them, and then, you know, archiving them in the museum. That would be an awesome job.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that does sound great. I used to love that, especially as a child One of my favorite things as well learning about the fossils and that whole area, so it's great that you can do some of that in your work. So, as someone who's won multiple awards, which we mentioned in the intro for your writing, including in sustainable tourism tell us a little bit more about those awards and what you think makes a great story. You know be able to. I know you're not writing them to necessarily win the award. What has made them that way?

Speaker 2:

I think so, the awards themselves. So I've won a couple of awards from ASJA, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, from SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers, and I was a finalist in the I'm going to get their name wrong because it's really long, but I think it's IFTWA International Food Wine Travel or Food Travel Wine Journalists Association Okay. International food wine travel or food travel wine journalists association okay. Um, I think probably the most common theme among these stories is just that they have strong characters, a compelling arc, um, some creative choices of words, um, definitely honesty and a lack of sentimentality. I try not to present anything with sort of like a gauzy filter over it, because I think it's really important to show travel as it is.

Speaker 1:

And it's.

Speaker 2:

You know, travel isn't always good and positive and beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Something we lack, especially if we're only looking at it on social media. On social media, we tend to see all of the beautiful images, but it's around the corner. So I think that that's kind of where my stories go is talking a little bit more about you know, maybe a little bit more in depth and a little bit more about the parts of travel that maybe are not beautiful and Instagram ready, and I don't know, maybe for me that's a formula that works.

Speaker 1:

We need that so much more in our world on everything, not just travel. But you're right, and we also set so many expectations when we travel that it is going to be like exactly what we've seen on social media and all perfect and wonderful, and that's not always the case and, like you said, that doesn't show the entire place Exactly. Yeah, in your own words I you mentioned being an uninfluencer. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I started calling myself the influencer a few years ago because I have seen a lot of my peers who are tremendously successful with their social media and I give them major kudos for that. But I at one point had started feeling like, oh, I'm really doing something wrong here. Why don't I have 10,000 followers? And you know why are people not interacting with every single post I put out there?

Speaker 2:

But after a while I started to realize that, you know, if we're going to throw around the word authenticity which frankly, we throw around a little too much but if we are going to throw around that word, we are not being authentic if we only put the best parts of life online and if we're so tethered to our phones that we're not actually mindful of what's happening around us. So I got to the point of feeling like you know what, it is okay if I forget to post on social media. It's okay if I don't post on social media while I am in the destination. I can do it after, I can do it a year after if I want to. So, yeah, I think finally, kind of cutting that cord and realizing that I did not have to be on social media all the time actually freed me up to be a better storyteller, just in articles, and you know what? That's what I'm good at. I'm good at stories, longer form stories. I'm not necessarily great at Instagram reels.

Speaker 1:

That is totally okay. Yes, I would love to know your thoughts on PR professionals as well and working with us. Do you have any pet peeves or advice for those of us who have story ideas for you?

Speaker 2:

Sure, I would say I guess we can. We can start with the negatives and then go to the positive. Sure, okay, at Peeves there was a trend for a while it seems like it's petering out, and I'm very glad for that where people would use the word invite in the subject line and what they were inviting me to do would was interview a client of theirs oh, really, a story for publication, and that's not an invite. To save that word for an actual in-person invite, whether it's, you know, we're meeting over coffee or a press trip. So I'm not big on the misleading subject lines and I think you know I've posted quite a bit about this on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

I think you know publishing is sort of in a phase right now. It's going through a little bit of a reckoning because it's not the landscape that it once was. It's competing with a variety of different outlets, with social media growing up right now, and while it does, we all need to be a little bit more tolerant of sort of the rules of publishing which are basically, you know, most of our editors don't even want to hear from us until after the trip has already happened. So when a PR person reaches out to me about a trip and they say, oh yes, we'd love to have you. But then, a few conversations in, they say, oh yeah, and by the way, you need to have confirmed coverage.

Speaker 2:

No, that's an absolute no. And I'm not going to do it Because, as you know, a freelancer, I don't have the freedom to say that I will definitely get this confirmed with a publication and frankly I shouldn't, because how know what about that experience is going to stand out enough to write about. Right, you know, it's really important to have the experience first. I certainly like to brainstorm with PR folks. You know, even in the lead up to a trip I like having some brainstorming sessions so that I can kind of kick my research off in one direction or another. Yeah, but really being on the trip and doing the research is where the ideas kind of come together, and I think that part of the process you just can't skip, that you can't go right to a confirmed assignment.

Speaker 1:

On hosted trips. Do you prefer group or individual?

Speaker 2:

Definitely individual, and that's mostly because over the past year there have been a couple of my editors who have. I'm not sure that they have said it quite as directly as this, but the basic premise was they didn't like being pitched stuff from group trips because they felt like they were getting a lot of similar pitches. So for me it's really important to be able to differentiate what I'm doing from other writers. I don't mind so much if it's a very small group trip from other writers. I don't mind so much if it's a very small group trip, like I did a group trip to Australia back in oh gosh, I think it was August and that was super small. It was supposed to be three people. One person dropped out, so it was just two of us and the PR person. That was great because I knew we were not going to be overlapping in the stories that we were trying to tell. But it's so much harder when it's six, eight, 10, 12 people.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, definitely. What outlets are you most writing for now? I know you mentioned Hidden Compass. What are some others?

Speaker 2:

I would say that I'm most writing for any particular outlets. I'm a little bit of a mercenary and I write for anybody who likes a good story and is willing to pay me. That's good, that's good Money that can actually pay bills. We're not talking about 50 bucks, right? Yeah, for me. I kind of cast a wide net. I usually will. I'll target a particular publication, especially an editor that I have a standing relationship with and I have a sense of their preferences. So I will go to them first with a story idea and then, if they pass, for whatever reason and sometimes those reasons are very, you know, it's not about the pitch itself, it might be oh, we just ran a story on this destination, on a different topic, right? So when that happens, I then cast the net wider and wider and wider until I finally land with the you know right place at the right time kind of thing, right?

Speaker 1:

Makes sense. What are you the most proud of in your career?

Speaker 2:

this far, I think probably just being persistent enough in the face of many closed doors. For those of us who don't live in a major market and I never have I live close to New York City. I'm about three hours north of the city, I'm about two and a half hours from Boston, so there are major markets nearby but I have never had the desire to live in them. I'm just not a city person. But for those of us who do not live in a major market, it is that much harder to build a career, and especially in journalism. So I think just the fact that I stuck around and I grew a thick enough skin, you know, to put up with all of the rejection to finally get to a point where I felt like yeah, you know what, I'm pretty good at this and I should be proud of what I'm putting out there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it's a very. For those who are not in it, it is a very difficult career to be a freelance journalist. I mean, you're really driving it yourself and depending on how much you know, how great you are as well. But how much motivation you have and self-starter, you know all of that. And thick skin, like you said, it takes a lot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know, a lot of it is about networking and, again, right place at right time. Sometimes it's just a matter of timing and I think you know not that I would call myself a model or an actor but I think it's similar in the sense that you could be the most beautiful person in the world or the best singer in the world.

Speaker 2:

But if the right person isn't the one who sees you and appreciates that your career probably isn't going to go anywhere. It's the same for writers Does not matter how talented you are. It certainly helps if you're talented, but it matters more that you are willing to stick with it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that is so true. So before we go, I must ask what's next for you. Are there any exciting projects or stories you're currently working on or looking forward to in the future?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've got a couple on my plate right now. So I do have a very timely story which I can't divulge too many details on yet, but it's based on where I live in upstate New York, so there's some really cool stuff happening next year. So this story is going to be for the Washington Post. I'm very excited about it. I'm also working on a story. I just came back from a trip to Iceland and I'm working on a story that will incorporate glaciology and some lore you know some Icelandic. It's going to be kind of complicated, it's a little ambitious and I'm probably it'll be one of those stories where it's going to be kind of complicated. It's a little ambitious and I I'm probably it'll be one of those stories where it's going to take me forever to get it out. I want to get it out the way that I'm envisioning because I just feel like there's something really cool about this connection. So I'm very, very jazzed about that story idea.

Speaker 2:

And then I'm just I'm looking forward to potentially going to a couple of places that have been on my list for a while. I really would love to do some gorilla trekking in Africa. I would love to explore New Zealand. I have not been there yet and I would love a really nice tropical South Pacific kind of trip. You know, maybe girl diving in Fiji or something really conservation story in the Maldives. Maldives is, of course, a really good conservation area in general because they've been so affected by sea level rise, so I feel like there are just there are so many stories everywhere There'll never be enough time to tell them, but I will tell a few.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I want to tag along on those trips too. That would sound fantastic, and I know we mentioned social isn't a priority, but how can our listeners connect with you online? What is the best way?

Speaker 2:

Sure, so definitely for PR folks. They can connect with me on LinkedIn. I am doing, I would say, a weekly or bi-weekly tip just for PR pros, okay, so those are pretty good to follow In terms of people. You know, maybe other listeners, readers, whatever. You can definitely find me on Instagram. Although I post fairly sporadically, I am at once more to the shore, yeah, but those are probably the two best places to find me. Otherwise, you know, you can just Google my name and travel writing and you'll pull up some of my stories.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much and we look forward to reading what's next. Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for inviting me. That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to our show. We'd love to hear what you think. You can find more at communicationsredefinedcom slash podcast. I'm your host, angela Toole. Talk to you next time.