Who is The Travel Wizard? That would be me — Karen Elowitt, a Florida-based travel editor, writer, photographer, animal lover, and Amazon (6 feet tall, size 11 feet). I grew up in dull suburban Los Angeles, where I dreamed of traveling the world and living anywhere but L.A… and my wish came true! In my 30-odd years of adult life, I’ve traveled to 135 cities in 32 countries, and lived in the U.S., the Caribbean, the U.K. and South Africa. I’ve swum with tiger rays in Mexico, trekked on horseback through New Zealand, gotten lost on the Metro in Moscow, and sweated in the Negev desert in Israel. I’ve made a living writing for both news and travel publications, including high-profile international ones, and tiny, obscure ones.
A few years ago I noticed that people never asked me for fashion advice, nor for help fixing their computers, nor for solutions to their relationship problems (which is probably for the best…) but they constantly came to me for travel advice and information. After helping numerous friends, family members and even total strangers successfully figure out how to find a companion for a cruise, find the best budget hotel in London, or quickly recover from jet lag, I figured I was pretty good at this. So I made it official (because of course nothing’s real unless it’s online) and violá – The TravelWizard.com was born!
Although I still love hopping on a plane and heading to places with exotic names, like Blaenau Ffestiniog (yes it’s a real place in Wales), Mullumbimby (Australia), or Kgalagadi (Botswana), I stay closer to home these days, and try to enjoy some time with my long-suffering cat, Jasper and my super-hunky husband. I love to get out into the world, but I’m paradoxically also a total homebody, introvert and geek. My idea of a great weekend is to lock myself in my bedroom and watch 10 episodes of Downton Abbey while reading textbooks about evolutionary psychology and eating bananas dipped in Nutella.
If you want to know more about my professional career and see my portfolio, click here.