From charming chateaus in Lake Como and bejewelled Lisbon palaces to ancient ruins in Peru and vast Chilean deserts, Edwina Hart’s Instagram account suggests a life of never-ending bucket-list adventures.
With a job as a freelance travel writer and photographer, who works for the likes of Vogue Australia, Lonely Planet and The Telegraph UK, this assumption isn’t far off.
We talk to Sydney-based Hart about the bizarre inspiration behind her career, the highs and lows of travel writing and one jet lag hack she swears by.
How did you get into your career in travel?
I studied journalism at university, so I knew I wanted to be a journalist of some kind. I worked in music radio for a bit and thought I was going to do that. Then I read Ernest Hemingway’s A Movable Feast, which is a memoir of his time in Paris.
That book inspired me to quit my job, book a one-way ticket to Paris and apply to be a ‘tumbleweed’ or a writer-in-residence at Shakespeare and Company, which is that very famous bookshop along the Seine in Paris.
I basically lived out my dream and I got to live for free and work and spend time in this bookshop writing reading and spending time with other writers. It was such a formative experience that made me realise writing was my passion, and that’s what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
I spent a lot of time working on that and trying to get my photography up to a certain level; spending time on Youtube, hiring books, meeting up with photographers and asking them questions. I was very ambitious, and I decided to pitch Vogue, of all publications. My travel article was commissioned and it sort of went from there.
What are some of the highlights of the job?
I feel so much joy and happiness in what I do, so I’m grateful for every opportunity I get. There are just so many highlights.
I think the satisfaction of when my vision of what I want to write and the photos come together in an 8-page magazine spread. That’s always satisfying and always exciting.
Also, the people you get to meet. You get flown in somewhere and you get to meet the most interesting, talented, incredible people, and have deep conversations with them, from all around the world, whether it’s a really talented winemaker, or an artist, or a designer, or a hotelier, anyone. You basically just drop into their lives and get to ask them questions about how they got to be where they are.
I saw this guy who was making mozzarella in a little shop in Sicily, and poked my head in and said hello and that I was a travel writer doing a story on Syracuse. And he said ‘come in, come in let me show you how to make the mozzarella’. It’s this beautiful interaction where you’re asking about someone’s story, and they really want to tell it as well. And I think I love that part of it, too.
What is always in your carry-on bag during flights?
This is very particular, but I don’t eat plane food. I really believe it makes my jetlag worse because it’s really salty. I always bring lots of water, and I drink litres of water on a flight, and I pack little fruits and nuts and sandwiches and stuff, and my own little meals. I probably look like a loser unpacking all my little bits but I feel because it’s low sodium, it helps with the jetlag.
I always bring a scarf because you can scrunch it up and make a pillow, if you’re cold you can use it as a blanket. If you’re in a destination like, say, during a stopover in the Middle East, you need to cover up, you’ve got your scarf, so you can use it for modesty. If it’s a different colour, it kind of changes your outfit. So scarves are a little thing I always carry with me for multiple purposes.
What are some challenges people may not think of?
Everyone wants to travel, but the reality of travel writing is that you also have to write. I think people forget that because the travel side is wonderful and exciting, but then you also have to sit down and work at a desk.
It can be a dream job, but it’s still a job.
You’re jet-lagged, you might be on safari in South Africa and getting up really early but then, in a couple of hours, you’ve got a deadline for a story you’re writing about a palace in Rajasthan in India. You’ve got to switch your brain between.
In terms of photography, I think the major stress is the weather. Often as a journalist, you’re travelling off-season, so you’re not going in the peak time when it’s necessarily the most amazing weather. If it’s a rainy day in Paris, you can make that work. But if it’s thunderstorms, rain and grey skies and you’re meant to be covering a tropical destination, it’s very stressful.
It definitely can be exhausting too. There might be an opportunity to travel somewhere, and you have one day at home to unpack all your tropical gear, then pack all your gear for a polar expedition before you fly out again. It is a different lifestyle, and I love living in that way, but I’ve stopped booking tickets to live music and gigs because of how many times I would book tickets for something and then I’ll just be away.
Tell us about a favourite trip you’ve taken for work
Ever since I was little and I read about Shackleton, I dreamed of visiting Antarctica. And then, quite early in my career I got a 3-week trip to Antarctica, and it was everything I would have wanted it to be.
It was with Hurtigruten, which is a beautiful eco-conscious brand, and they’ve launched this new ship, the MS Roald Amundsen. When we arrived, it was sunset and the sky was this seashell-pink colour, and we were in this crystalline bay, which was completely smooth like glass.
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We were flanked by these bright white ice cliffs, a half-moon was hanging above the ice cliffs, and there was a colony of penguins. I’m not someone who cries, but I was actually so overwhelmed with joy I wept, I was inconsolable with joy. It was one of the most profoundly beautiful places I had ever been. So for me, that was a huge highlight.