A Look At My Books. Here's My Year In Review
My 2022 career stats, travels and plans/goals for 2023.
Is anyone else slightly disturbed and confused that it’s the end of December?! I don’t understand how this year went by so quickly. Yes, it’s an eye roll cliché, but it feels accurate as hell.
Since I can’t remember what I did last week, my spreadsheets are my memory, my planner, my bookkeeper, basically my everything. At the end of each December, I do a year in review, so I figured I’d bring it over to Substack and share my professional wins, stats and more.
Where I Traveled This Year
As some of you may already know, my partner and I have been traveling full-time for over four years (according to my spreadsheet 1,635 days exactly). This year I went to six new countries, went back to a few favorites and discovered some new ones.
Click on each destination to see my favorite story from my trip there.
Qatar - 7 days
Tanzania - 5 days
Seychelles - 6 days
Maldives - 36 days
Thailand - 58 days
Vietnam - 49 days
South Korea - 24 days
Switzerland - Architectural Digest story coming soon! - 2 days
Greece - 80 days
Norway - 6 days
Svalbard - Thrillist story coming soon! - 4 days
Faroe Islands - 11 days
USA - 48 days
Australia - Departures story coming soon! - 20 days
Article Stats
Articles Pitched: 521 (repeats, not all unique pitches)
Articles written: 124
12% yes rate, 35% no rate and 16% unanswered rate
My slowest/lowest income months: January, September and October
My busiest/best income months: March, July, and August
Thanks to all the PR friends and editors who made this a great year!
Publications I Wrote For
Alcohol Professor
Architectural Digest
BBC
Caviar Affair
CNN
Conde Nast Traveler
Conde Nast Traveller UK
Conde Nast Traveller Middle East
Essentialist
Fresh Magazine
Hotels Above Par
House Beautiful
House & Garden
HuffPo
Insider
Islands
Lonely Planet
National Geographic UK
Ozy
Robb Report
Shondaland
Smartmouth
Stray Magazine
The Daily Beast
The New Zealand Herald
The Points Guy
Thrillist
Travel + Leisure
Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia
Tripsavvy
Zagat (RIP)
Copywriting This Year
I worked with 8 clients this year, including a luxury tour operator, a high-end vacation rental site and a luggage company.
But my biggest win (and labor of love) was writing an entire hotel website for a major hotel brand!
My Upcoming Travels
January - Australia & Vietnam
February - Vietnam & Laos
March - Singapore & Maldives
2023 Travel Goals
Bhutan & Antarctica are at the top of my wish list.
If you’d like to work together while I’m in any of these locations, please send me an email at klockhart14@gmail.com
Please Share This Newsletter With Your Colleagues
If you find my newsletter helpful, or if you know someone who might, please share it with them. Thanks!
Other journalist newsletters you should definitely subscribe to: Follow my friends and brilliant colleagues so you can stay up-to-date on their pitching needs too: Jill Schildhouse, Alice Dubin, Aly Walansky, Cassandra Brooklyn, Ali Wunderman and Elen Turner.
Amazing year you had!