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Emily C. Brands

What can be more fascinating than going to a new city and absorbing the feel of life there, be it artistically through museums/theater/galleries or gastronomically through the regional cuisine? Sitting in a cafe or a lounge watching people enjoy themselves in simple pleasures such as eating or meeting with friends often speaks volumes about that culture, and I love seeing how these basic interactions play out in different places around the world. My home for the last ten years has been New York, and while this is my #1 city, every other city out there in the world has something wonderful and interesting to say as well. This is the beauty of traveling: you experience, you absorb, and, most importantly for me, you eat. Would love to hear back from you, email me!

Jennifer Garcia-Alonso

Over the course of the last 10 years, I have lived in Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Madrid, New York, and Abu Dhabi where I now reside with my husband. This constant change has taught me how to quickly “learn a city” and find the best of what it has to offer. I love trying out that great Michelin Starred restaurant (of course!), but get much more enjoyment out of finding the truly local spot that has the best schwarmas (or tapas, or cheesesteaks, or whatever the case may be!). I am a hotel enthusiast, a spa lover (I mean, who isn’t), an (all too) enthusiastic shopper, and a lover of life. I have traveled throughout Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the US for both work and play…but there is still so much more to see. Email me! Would love to hear from you.

Rachel Levin

At home in Los Angeles, it’s not unusual to find me at a Lebanese restaurant, Cuban salsa club, and Korean tea house...all in one night! To me, travel is a state of mind, an orientation for exploring culture that doesn’t necessarily require jet lag. That’s why I write about the best of what I see, taste, and hear as an LA-based arts, culture, and travel journalist. But don’t write me off as just a hometown girl: I’ve got a serious case of international wanderlust that’s catapulted me to far-flung adventures in Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. Don’t be surprised if you next hear from me on the beach in Salvador Bahia, Brazil, learning to samba.

Rebecca Salois

My wanderlust ways were sparked by rainy day film screening in a sixth grade French class: as we watched flickering ‘70s footage of bellbottomed Parisian ladies tottering with their frivolously-coiffed poodles to a neighbourhood brasserie for tiny cups of espresso, I just knew I had to see it for myself. Though I never did find the Paris of that film, I’ve stuck with the travelling–at the moment I call “home” a traditional hutong in the grey-tiled streets of Beijing’s ancient Imperial City, but in the past decade my permanent address has bounced from a Parisian pied-à-terre to a Martiniquan villa with views of the Caribbean Sea, and from a chilly East Berlin housing block to a charmingly crooked-floored flat on one of Edinburgh’s medieval cobbled streets. Travel itself–be it a bicycle ride around my neighbourhood or a 3000-mile train journey–will always hold a certain allure for me, but actually what I love most is finding an interesting new place and sticking with it for a bit. Nothing beats settling into daily life in a new locale, whether it’s discovering the best place to buy toothpaste, or figuring out just where it is that the local poodle-walking ladies take their tea.

Shanen Lloyd

I received my first passport before I could even talk and I haven't stopped putting it to constant use since. I guess you could say I was bitten by the travel bug young. When I'm in one place for too long I start itching to hop on a plane and start a new adventure. Traveling the world gives me an opportunity to experience other cultures through all of my senses (discovering new foods a definite perk!). I don't know if it's the people, the culture or just the adrenaline rush of being in a new place, but I plan on keeping travel in both my personal and work lives.

Lindsey Olander

Currently marooned in the deathly quiet, winding-road town of Cheshire (“The Shire”), Connecticut, my thirst for excitement and exploration (at least, beyond the Main Street life of five Dunkin’ Donuts shops) has been so far quenched with frequent trips between Boston and New York. But even back home, it’s not unusual to find me meandering through art galleries or about town with a camera attached to my face. I live for capturing the good moments and collecting pieces of the adventure, wherever the adventure takes me. Forget whirlwind weekend tours; I want the whole package—the months long, temporary residence stay where timeframes are thrown to the wind, where it’s not a crime to frequent the same fantastic café, and where the only plan is to adopt a lifestyle and feel at home in another world.

The Purple Panel

We love to travel, but we simply can't be everywhere at once! That's why we've assembled a sophisticated cadre of "intelligence officers" to be our eyes and ears throughout the globe. Members of our Purple Panel are movers and shakers who live in the cities they write about and really know all the best places in town, from the shack serving the best torta to the chicest glove shop waiting to outfit your little fingers. Working in different industries from art to fashion to finance, panelists globetrot quite a bit themselves. They're volunteers who lend their insider knowledge for the love of travel, and they've earned our utmost confidence. Keep an eye out for their posts on the Diary of the Purple Passport.

Tara Abell

Traveling started as a purely educational task for me: go to Italy with my high school Italian class and learn more Italian. But once I arrived and saw the cafés of Rome, the artifacts of Pompeii, and the beaches of Capri, I realized traveling was about so much more than textbooks and vocabulary flashcards. It was about absorbing the culture, connecting to history, and maybe even some lounging by the ocean too. Ever since that trip, I swore I would see more of the world and learn a little something about each new place–and myself–along the way. Because really, what’s more educational than discovering you have no sense of direction while lost on London’s winding streets, or learning how to shout a new colorful phrase at a soccer game in Barcelona? To me, each stamp in my passport represents a set of lessons I could never find in any book.

Venus Tsang

You know that feeling—that never-ending urge to get out there, to keep going, to never stop? That’s the feeling I wake up to, that I’ve always woken up to. I was on a plane before I was 10 months old, and I’ve been traveling ever since. I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and as a kid I looked forward to school holidays not because I could watch TV but because it meant my family would take a trip somewhere: Japan? Italy? Australia? America? My mom loves to tell stories about me as a five-year-old, when my favorite thing to say was “Are we there yet?” Fast forward 20 years, and I’m still not there yet. I now live in New York City, and I’ve left my footprints around the globe, but there’s still a whole world in front of me. And tomorrow, I hope I’ll wake up with that feeling again.

Danielle Alvarez

I suppose I was predisposed to travel. By the age of one, I had been on a plane twice, and by ten, I'd had my passport stamped at least a dozen times. My small suburban middle/high school also had a very prominent international exchange program so that I was not just exposed to not just foreign places, but to the amazing people that came from them. These one-on-one interactions, paired with an awareness of the indifferent cultural ignorance that plagued some, led to a lifelong initiative of embracing travel and understanding. I've studied two languages, lived in three different world cities (other than home), traveled to at least twenty countries, and roadtripped across the United States, and yet I still yearn to experience more. So, I make it a point to explore, always. I've spent most of my life in New York, and I'm still discovering new restaurants, art galleries, boutiques, and gardens. (I have a thing for nature). And then, of course, I jetset whenever possible. I'm excited to see where the next few decades will take me.