Catherine is a freelance travel writer specialising in responsible travel.  She graduated with a Masters degree in Responsible Tourism Management in 2007. Her Masters research project was a detailed study of the UK travel media, analysing the role travel journalists have in making tourism more sustainable.  

 

 Following her studies, Catherine went on to write articles for leading UK newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, The Observer, Metro and Green Parent magazine. Although based in London, UK, Catherine is an Irish national, and was delighted to be invited to write a regular column for The Irish Times. This appears fortnightly in the travel section, GO, and is called Ethical Traveller. Catherine also writes regular destination features for The Irish Times, all of which take an ethical or responsible angle.

 

Catherine published her first guidebook in June 2008, Ecoescape:Ireland.  This is part of the Ecoescape series, founded by Laura Burgess. See www.ecoescape.org for details.

 

 Catherine also writes for the travel industry. In 2008 she was commissioned by Failte Ireland , the Irish Tourist Board, and Greenbox to produce Ireland’s first ever Ecotourism Handbook, launched  March 2009. For Greenbox, she also compiled a booklet featuring all tourist accommodation to have been awarded the EU Flower Ecolabel for best practice in ecotourism. Catherine also worked with Tourism Ireland, to write a new ecotourism section of their website. Her most recent work was writing a Sustainable Tourism booklet for Visit England, launched at the Best of Britain and Ireland exhibition in London, March 2009. She speaks at many conferences on the subject of responsible tourism.  Catherine is also one of the speakers at the World Travel Market 2009 conference, entitled The Business Case for Responsible Tourism.

 

In the last eighteen months, her travels have enabled her to explore many extraordinary places. However, for Catherine, the most exciting aspect of travelling, and what she likes to write about most of all, is the people she meets. The people who are really working to support a more responsible travel movement. Trips include weaving with the Berbers in Morocco, working with the Maasai in Kenya, learning how to press olives in Crete, and sleeping in a tipi on an organic farm in Fermanagh. Featured trips during 2009 include a swimming holiday in Croatia, hiking in the Mercantour National Park, France, with the help of a donkey, and cycling in the Scottish Highlands.

 

 

In 2010, she has many other travel plans, as well as a new travel book, and working as co-editor of Greentraveller.co.uk, with the highly regarded green travel writer, Richard Hammond.