Travel Media List: Editors, Reporters and Podcasts
Travel PR teams in 2026 should pitch the editors who assign stories at Afar, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler and Robb Report, plus the trade editor at Travel Weekly and podcasts such as Afar's Unpacked. Travel Weekly's April 27, 2026 editors roundtable names six of them with titles. Every entry below carries a dated source because editors change roles.
Which travel editors did Travel Weekly name in 2026?
Travel Weekly's 20th annual Consumer Editors Roundtable, held in northern Morocco on March 24, 2026 and published on April 27, 2026, named editors from Afar, Condé Nast Traveler, Culture Travels, Robb Report and Travel + Leisure.
Editor
Outlet and title
Source and date
Katherine LaGrave
Executive editor, Afar
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
Paul Brady
News director, Travel + Leisure
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
Erin Florio
Global features director, Condé Nast Traveler
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
Mark Ellwood
Editor at large, Robb Report
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
Leroy Adams
Editorial media director, Culture Travels
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
Johanna Jainchill
Editor in chief, Travel Weekly (trade)
Travel Weekly, April 27, 2026
What do these travel editors say readers want?
Two editors at the roundtable described reader demand in terms a pitch can answer. Katherine LaGrave of Afar said readers ask how to travel smartly and still make a trip work, not whether to travel at all. Paul Brady of Travel + Leisure said readers are looking for expertise amid information overload and uncertainty, and that machine-generated answers leave them unsatisfied, according to Travel Weekly.
Pitch a named expert and a plan for traveling through disruption. Why it works: both editors described what their readers ask for, and a pitch that supplies an assignable expert and a how-to matches that stated demand, as reported by Travel Weekly on April 27, 2026.
Which other travel editors have documented titles?
Three more editors have documented titles, but their sources are undated or older, so confirm each one on the outlet's masthead before pitching.
Editor
Outlet and title
Source
Julia Cosgrove
Vice president and editor in chief, Afar
Afar author page, undated
Jacqui Gifford
Editor-in-chief, Travel + Leisure
Wikipedia entry for the magazine
Jessica Puckett
Senior editor, transportation and travel news, Condé Nast Traveler
Prowly outlet profile, undated
Which travel podcasts should PR teams pitch?
Four travel and travel-industry podcasts have recent listings: Afar's Unpacked and Travel Tales, Condé Nast Traveler's Women Who Travel, and Skift's weekly podcast.
Show
Producer and host
Detail
Source
Unpacked
Afar
Season five covered topics such as LGBTQ+ travelers and AI travel advisors
Afar podcast roundup, updated August 11, 2026
Travel Tales by Afar
Afar
Season six wraps its final story arc in 2026
Afar podcast roundup, updated August 11, 2026
Women Who Travel
Condé Nast Traveler, host Lale Arikoglu
Apple Podcasts lists the years active as 2017 to 2025, so confirm the show is still producing episodes
Apple Podcasts listing
Skift podcast
Skift editors
Weekly interviews with travel executives and entrepreneurs
SheerLuxe roundup
Katherine LaGrave also hosts the Unpacked: Five Questions series, according to her Afar author page.
How should a PR team confirm a travel editor's title?
Confirm the title on the outlet's masthead and match the editor's section to the pitch, because the same job carries different names at different outlets. The roundtable table above shows an executive editor, a news director, a global features director and an editorial media director, each with a different scope.
Read the editor's recent stories before sending anything. Why it works: a title such as news director or features director signals a different kind of story, and recent bylines show which kind the editor has assigned lately, so the pitch lands in the right inbox with the right format.
How is this list different from EPR's travel journalists list?
This list names the editors who assign and approve travel stories, while EPR's ten leading travel journalists list profiles well-known writers and presenters. Use the two together: pitch the editor for the assignment and the writer for the byline.
Lead the next travel pitch with a named expert and a plan for traveling through disruption, confirm the editor's title on the masthead, and send it to the one editor whose section fits.
Afar's author pages list Julia Cosgrove as vice president and editor in chief and Katherine LaGrave as executive editor, who oversees the print magazine. Travel Weekly named LaGrave as Afar's executive editor on April 27, 2026.
Which trade publication runs the travel editors roundtable?
Travel Weekly runs the Consumer Editors Roundtable, now in its 20th year, and its editor in chief, Johanna Jainchill, moderated the 2026 session.
How current is this travel media list?
The six editors in the first table come from a Travel Weekly article published April 27, 2026. The other entries are undated or older and are flagged for confirmation.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team is the staff byline for news, analysis and features on communications, reputation, AI visibility and digital discovery. Everything-PR has published since 2009. AI tools assist with research and drafting, and every article is reviewed by a human editor before publication. Coverage follows the Editorial Policy, and substantive corrections are noted on the article under the Corrections Policy.
