Michael Luongo is an award winning freelance journalist and photographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, Out Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, and many other publications. His focus is on Latin America and the Middle East, and he has been to all seven continents and over 80 countries and has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. His specialties include conflict zone travel, business travel, gay travel, and human rights issues.

Miranda Kennedy’s first book, Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India, was published in 2011. The Daily Beast called it “sharp social commentary” and “a compelling, humorous travel memoir.” The book grew out of Miranda’s five years as a South Asia correspondent for National Public Radio and APM’s Marketplace Radio. Her stories have also appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, The Nation and Slate.

As National Geographic’s “Digital Nomad“, Andrew Evans has sent live updates from kayak, camel-back, airplane, helicopter, cargo ship and sailboat — atop arctic glaciers and from deep within the tropical jungle, while staring in the face of wild animals or from the summits of rare mountains. He is the author of four books, including bestselling guidebooks to Ukraine and Iceland. He has contributed to several other books, including 100 Great Cities of the World.

Pam Mandel is a freelance writer and photographer. She’s been blogging since 1997. She’s written travel stories for Conde Nast Traveler online, Afar, World Hum, Gadling, Perceptive Travel, and a handful of food, travel, and in-flight magazines. She’s worked on two guidebooks — BC and Hawaii — for Thomas Cook. She’s a cofounder of Passports with Purpose, a group that works with travel bloggers to raise money for NGO projects around the world.

Andrew McCarthy is an editor-at-large for National Geographic Traveler. He’s written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Travel+Leisure, and many others. He was named “Travel Journalist of the Year” by the Society of American Travel Writers in 2010. His memoir, The Longest Way Home, debuted in September of 2012. He is also an actor , having appeared in dozens of movies and on television.

Rachel Friedman is the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure (Bantam Books, 2011). She has written for The New York Times, New York and Bust magazines, Nerve.com, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. She is a contributor to the The McSweeney’s Book of Politics and Musicals (Vintage, 2012).

Peter Chilson is the author of two books about Africa: The travelogue Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa, and the fiction collection Disturbance-Loving Species, which won the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference prize for short fiction. His essays and fiction have appeared in The American Scholar, Ascent, Audubon, Best American Travel Writing, Gulf Coast, North American Review, thesmartset.com, and elsewhere.

Doug Mack is a freelance writer based in Minneapolis and the author of the travel memoir Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day: One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide (Perigee Books/Penguin). His stories tend to focus on fresh, offbeat takes on familiar topics and places, and have appeared in such publications as World Hum, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Onion AV Club, and the Lonely Planet travel writing anthology A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures Around the World.

Lisa Napoli is the author of Radio Shangri-La: What I Discovered on my Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. She has been a reporter and back-up host for Marketplace, the public radio show, and was one of the first journalists to chronicle the dawn of the Internet age at the NY Times and MSNBC. She can now be heard each day on the legendary public radio station, KCRW in Santa Monica.

Gary Buslik is the author of A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean, and The Missionary’s Position. His new novel, Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls, is scheduled for launch this spring. His shorter work appears in many travel and literary anthologies, often in Best Travel Writing.

Richard Grant is a freelance journalist based in Arizona and the author of three travel books. His first book, American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders, won the Thomas Cook travel-writing award. It was followed by God’s Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre, and most recently Crazy River: Exploration and Folly in East Africa.