Travels With JB

Facebook Twitter Envelope

Travels With JB

Travel news and reviews
Facebook Twitter Envelope

Travels With JB

Travel news and reviews
Menu

About Travels With JB

Growing up I always thought I would be a teacher but when a local Melbourne newspaper offered me a job, my career direction changed and I became a journalist.
For the first few years I wrote about everything from supermarket shopping to politics until I found my niche – travel. As a result I have written for local and international consumer and travel industry publications including the Sunday Herald Sun, Business Travel News Asia Pacific and travelBulletin. I have also edited magazines such as Weekends for Two, Unique Places to Stay and AFTA Traveller (the official publication of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents) and contributed to several guide books on Australia. For 13 years I edited Melbourne Where, a magazine aimed at visitors to Victoria.
During my career I’ve held public relations roles with several tourism organisations including Tourism Victoria. I am a former committee member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers and a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. I have judged Victorian Tourism awards, taught journalism at Deakin University and public relations at the RMIT University. I hold a Graduate Diploma in Tourism and Hospitality Management and a Masters in Communication.
Over the years I have interviewed a number of travel experts including this camel in Egypt!
Over the years I have interviewed a number of travel experts including this camel in Egypt!

Why this blog?

Writing for Melbourne Where meant I experienced all that’s great about the city and country Victoria, while my work with consumer and travel industry publications has allowed me to travel worldwide. Given I have always enjoyed sharing my first hand travel experiences a blog seemed the logical next step.

What will you read about?

The blog features two sections:

Entertainment includes review of the shows, events, movies and attractions which I can personally recommend.

Travel features critiques of accommodation, destinations and transportation. It includes my reviews and those from my colleagues and friends who are keen to impart their knowledge and experiences – and whose opinions I trust. While some of these stories were written years ago,  I believe they still capture what’s so magical about these destinations.

In Mongolia
Over the years I have met many welcoming people including this family in Mongolia.
My trip to Antarctica remains one of my favourite travel experiences.
My trip to Antarctica remains one of my favourite travel experiences.

You also need to know ..

A number of the travel experiences I write about are hosted – which means someone apart from me is paying the bills! It’s a dilemma that faces any travel writer or newspaper in publishing travel articles – do you accept hosting or do you pay yourself? Ideally everything would be self-funded, however the cost of sourcing the information could never be covered by the revenue a travel writer makes – unless, perhaps, all articles were about camping!
While the ethics of travel writing is worthy of a blog on its own (or maybe a PhD which I did start but never finished) I have made it clear whether I have been hosted or if it is a self-funded trip.
As the many students I have taught and editors I have worked with know, I am dyslexic and while I have a number of strategies in place, spelling errors might occasionally sneak through! However as I have always taught and written – it serves to reinforce that nothing should stop you from achieving your goals. And for me, my life-time career goal and passion is travelling and writing about my experiences in the hope of educating, inspiring and helping others with a similar passion.

Jenny Burns