Jen Murphy is an award-winning journalist who splits her time between Boulder and Maui. She started her career at Food & Wine magazine, then worked on staff at AFAR and Sunset. As a freelancer, she’s carved out a niche around her love of health, fitness, and adventure sports. She regularly contributes to Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Robb Report, Town & Country and Outside magazines. She is the author of the Yoga Man(ual) and was the editor of the Wildsam Field Guide to Hawaii and New England.
How did you get started traveling?
I grew up on the Jersey Shore and my summers were spent at the beach or camping. We didn’t travel much beyond the borders of New Jersey. I’m embarrassed to admit that my first international trip was a high school spring break fling to Cancun. How cliché. In college I studied abroad in Australia and that’s when I really got the travel bug. Australians are such avid travelers and that lifestyle really resonated with me. I ended up spending six months traveling around Australia after university and returned home with a very different perspective of travel.
How did you get started writing?
I have kept journals since I was in grade school. I always loved writing and originally went to school for journalism and Russian politics. I thought I’d be a war reporter or political reporter. A woman named Nicole Bernier Ahern came into my class as a guest lecturer my junior year. She had worked on staff at Conde Nast Traveler and then started freelancing, mostly covering food, travel and lifestyle. I had no idea that you could make a living from that. She needed help researching the Zagat guide to Boston and I immediately volunteered. She became my mentor throughout college.
What do you consider your first “break” as a writer?
The research I was doing for Nicole was unpaid but while I was studying abroad she started to assign me small pieces for Conde Nast Traveler and eventually began to give me paid work. I also got accepted into the American Society of Magazine Editors internship program the summer of my junior year of college. Food & Wine selected me as their intern, which I thought must have been a mistake as I was a very picky eater, had no cooking skills, and I couldn’t legally drink. That internship taught me that curiosity is key to being a great journalist and editor. I didn’t know a lot about the food world but I learned it and was endlessly curious. I ended up staying at Food & Wine for nearly a decade.
As a traveler and fact/story gatherer, what is your biggest challenge on the road?
I’ve become an ace road warrior. I am adamant about working out on the road and try to keep to some routine, even if it’s as simple as doing five minutes of meditation each morning. It’s hard to juggle deadlines. You could have a few stories in the works at once and you need to be handling edits and writing all while reporting the assignment at hand.
What is your biggest challenge in the research and writing process?
I love the research process. When it comes to writing, I have to be in the right mindset. I am an early bird and often get up around 4:30 am and write until 7 or 8 am. Those are my best writing hours. When emails and calls start coming in I lose my train of thought and by the end of the day my brain is overstimulated. Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of writing in an ideal setting/mindset and in that case I just need to block out my emails and make it happen. I get a surprising amount of writing done on planes. And I come up with some of my best ledes and ideas on runs or hikes.
What is your biggest challenge from a business standpoint?
I feel like journalists are being paid less and less these days. People want more digital content but pay half as much compared to print. I often break down rates into per hour rates to prove a point to my editors. Many times when I reframe things they’re willing to pay more. Often journalists are paid by the word and that doesn’t factor in the time spent researching, traveling, and editing.
Have you ever done other work to make ends meet?
I wrote a fitness column for the Wall Street Journal for nearly 20 years. I always had that column as a side hustle when I was on staff at magazines because the pay was so low.
What travel authors or books might you recommend and/or have influenced you?
I really enjoy historical fiction. I’m a huge fan of Maggie Shipstead’s writing, particularly her novel Full Circle. I also love Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Susan Casey’s The Wave. I also admire the work of Sophy Roberts. She is very intentional about the stories she chooses to report.
What advice and/or warnings would you give to someone who is considering going into travel writing?
Nothing is ever free. If you are getting into travel writing for the free trips you’ll be disappointed. I love travel, but I also make sure I still travel for myself and not solely for work. When I have a story idea that I’m really excited about I often pay my own way and hope I can get assignments that give me a return on my investment. People don’t want to read your travel journal or diary. You should be sharing a larger idea or perspective with your writing. Take meticulous notes. I journal when I’m traveling because a lot of assignments come post-travel and you want to be sure you have loads of colorful details and impressions from trips.
What is the biggest reward of life as a travel writer?
I love sharing other people’s stories. When a hotel owner or tour operator tells me that my story put them on people’s radar it feels so incredibly rewarding. I also feel very lucky that I get to see so much of the world and experience other cultures and ways of life. I still get tingles when I board a plane.