amanda castleman - freelance journalist

Amanda Castleman is a freelance journalist, specializing in travel, adventure, the environment and women's issues. Her articles have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, MSNBC.com, Wired, Salon, Italy Daily and The Athens News, as well as the UK's BBC, Guardian and Mail on Sunday. Despite her yoga-and-yogurt appearance, she's a former wilderness guide. Her Honduras dive article won a 2007 Lowell Thomas award (travel writing's ersatz Pulitzer).

She writes a travel column for MSN Daily Access and is a regular contributor to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Road and Travel. Amanda has worked on more than two dozen books, including Greece, A Love Story and Rome in Detail, as well as titles for National Geographic, Frommer's, Michelin, DK Eyewitness, Time Out and Rough Guides.

American by birth, this author spent eight years in Europe. She lived on a traditional narrowboat, moored on the Oxford Canal in England. She also endured two years swilling espresso in Italy, as a Visiting Writer at the American Academy in Rome, then ranged farther afield to Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. Seattle, her native city in the Pacific Northwest, is once again her home base.

She has also worked as an editor, staff writer, graphic and web designer. Amanda now teaches through Writers.com, the Richard Hugo House and Travel Writing Class.com, which next offers a week-long workshop in Rome, spring 2008. Bring her an apple and she'll reveal the best espresso in the Eternal City...

Lago di Como, Italy

Didyma, Turkey

Giselle Abraho in
Wadi Rum, Jordan

Calm as a Hurricane's Eye
Winner of the Lowell Thomas bronze, 2007, adventure writing
Road and Travel: Everything in Honduras is slow, slow as I've never experienced. Heat leaches muscle fiber, skeletal strength and all ambition. Coral sand grits under my bare feet, after the espadrilles unlace. Even the lightning pulses long and lazy on the ocean's horizon. Tropical diving downshifts yet another gear, if such a thing is possible.

At the Seashore with Medea
A Marriage Unravels in Athens
Greece, A Love Story: Plum shadows outline the Parthenon. This buttress of land, the art upon it – defying time and Turkish detonations – are so ancient. The moon even more so, a bruised apricot. My woes, suspended briefly between the two, have no weight.

Bears Behind Trees
Road and Travel: In Alaska, I hope to miss the forest for the bears. And indeed the state wantonly strews them everywhere: bears prowling through coastal waterfalls, bears nosing in roadside berry patches, bears charging across tidal flats.

Wild and wicket: extreme croquet
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Players take a genteel picnic pastime into all-terrain overdrive, hacking across rotten logs and mole holes ... Read more recent publications.

Zen and the art of moped mayhem
MSN: All roads do lead to Rome, specifically to Piazza Venezia. Buses blast around the rotary, as tiny Fiats dart across the undefined lanes. It's a swirling, sucking whirlpool of metal. And I'm riding the wave bareback on a beat-up moped. This is Italian traffic, al fresco ... Read more recent publications.

A Look Under the Hood
Cold-water divers explore Puget Sound's jade underbelly
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: I grew up on the coast of Puget Sound, galloping along drift logs and squelching across mud flats. Yet the inland ocean remained a cipher: a reflecting pond for the snow-shadowed mountains. Now I've plunged through the looking glass.

Petra, Jordan: A life in ruins
Road and Travel: Hooves tattoo down the Siq, that sinuous half-mile crack of canyon. Dusk drips down the walls. Gods squat in the shadows; ancient desert lords hacked into the scarlet sandstone. We cower, alone and forsaken.

Summoning Spring in Oxford
MSNBC.com, and Road and Travel: England’s 'city of dreaming spires' sacrifices its beauty sleep to celebrate May morning ... Read more articles available for reprint.

Mushing in the Rocky Mountains
Road and Travel: Tongue flapping, the spotted mongrel churned the chest-deep snow. He lunged, twisting on the tugline: just one bell on the tangled wind chime of baying hounds. Then – hike! – the team shot forward over the crusted powder.

Four decades of the Iguana
MSNBC.com and Moviemaker: Sun, sin and celluloid in Puerto Vallarta
Forty years ago, John Huston’s gritty Night of the Iguana put Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on the paparazzi map. Other movies – from Predator to Kill Bill Vol. 2 – have since followed in the big man’s footsteps, capturing the area’s sugary beaches, coastal cliffs and rainforest-swathed Sierra Madres... Read more features.

Journey to the volcano's sapphire heart
Athens News: The blast – the most powerful in human history – detonated with the strength of 150 hydrogen bombs. Three-quarters of Santorini vanished, leaving only a rind, curving around a six-kilometre-wide bowl of blue ... Read more articles on Greece.

Croatia: Stone Cold Beauty
Road and Travel: After a breakup, some women binge on chocolate. Others buy shoes. I went to the Balkans: substituting wander for lust.

Lair of the Bear
Northwest Travel Cover Story: We gave no voice to the frustration. Yes, the man had lied about his health, hiding those telltale white pills. And we’d made a grave navigational error. But shouting accusations would not get us out of the wilderness.

Discworld: Ultimate champions prepare to defend national titles
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Toddlers lurch on the grass. A 41-year-old mother and punky teen sling a Frisbee disc back and forth. The scene could be any park, anywhere in America. Except these are national champions: Cat Pittack and Shannon O'Malley, members of Seattle Riot ... Read more sports stories.

Tangled up in Wild Blue
Single State of the Union: The ship slid from the dock, my dreams churning in its wake. I wanted so very badly to go, go, go, get gone from the tulip fields, the silage and sleech of Skagit Valley.

Hong Kong: Diary of a Gweipo
travelgirl:The Fragrant Island, frankly, confuses me. Capitalist guilt and it-girl greed fuse my brain. Should I nab some Louis Vuitton Epi bargains? Barter for a black-market movie? Saddle my bureau with yet another inlaid jewel box, ethically purchased from a cooperative of oppressed artists? Torn, I do the only thing conceivable: dance until dawn in a scarlet wig and pink aviator glasses ... Read more travel stories.

Website designed by Amanda Castleman. Last updated November 2007.

		Amanda Castleman is a freelance journalist, specializing in travel, adventure, the environment and women's issues. Her articles have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, MSNBC.com, Wired, Salon, Italy Daily and The Athens News, as well as the UK's BBC, Guardian and Mail on Sunday. Despite her yoga-and-yogurt appearance, she's a former wilderness guide. Her Honduras dive article won a 2007 Lowell Thomas award (travel writing's ersatz Pulitzer). She writes a travel column for MSN Daily Access and is a regular contributor to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Road and Travel. Amanda has worked on more than two dozen books, including Greece, A Love Story and Rome in Detail, as well as titles for National Geographic, Frommer's, Michelin, DK Eyewitness, Time Out and Rough Guides. American by birth, this author spent eight years in Europe. She lived on a traditional narrowboat, moored on the Oxford Canal in England. She also endured two years swilling espresso in Italy, as a Visiting Writer at the American Academy in Rome, then ranged farther afield to Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. Seattle, her native city in the Pacific Northwest, is once again her home base. She has also worked as an editor, staff writer, graphic and web designer. Amanda now teaches through Writers.com, the Richard Hugo House and Travel Writing Class.com, which next offers a week-long workshop in Rome, spring 2008. Bring her an apple and she'll reveal the best espresso in the Eternal City...
Lago di Como, Italy Didyma, Turkey Giselle Abraho in Wadi Rum, Jordan		Calm as a Hurricane's Eye Winner of the Lowell Thomas bronze, 2007, adventure writing Road and Travel: Everything in Honduras is slow, slow as I've never experienced. Heat leaches muscle fiber, skeletal strength and all ambition. Coral sand grits under my bare feet, after the espadrilles unlace. Even the lightning pulses long and lazy on the ocean's horizon. Tropical diving downshifts yet another gear, if such a thing is possible. At the Seashore with Medea A Marriage Unravels in Athens Greece, A Love Story: Plum shadows outline the Parthenon. This buttress of land, the art upon it – defying time and Turkish detonations – are so ancient. The moon even more so, a bruised apricot. My woes, suspended briefly between the two, have no weight. Bears Behind Trees Road and Travel: In Alaska, I hope to miss the forest for the bears. And indeed the state wantonly strews them everywhere: bears prowling through coastal waterfalls, bears nosing in roadside berry patches, bears charging across tidal flats. Wild and wicket: extreme croquet Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Players take a genteel picnic pastime into all-terrain overdrive, hacking across rotten logs and mole holes ... Read more recent publications. Zen and the art of moped mayhem MSN: All roads do lead to Rome, specifically to Piazza Venezia. Buses blast around the rotary, as tiny Fiats dart across the undefined lanes. It's a swirling, sucking whirlpool of metal. And I'm riding the wave bareback on a beat-up moped. This is Italian traffic, al fresco ... Read more recent publications. A Look Under the Hood Cold-water divers explore Puget Sound's jade underbelly Seattle Post-Intelligencer: I grew up on the coast of Puget Sound, galloping along drift logs and squelching across mud flats. Yet the inland ocean remained a cipher: a reflecting pond for the snow-shadowed mountains. Now I've plunged through the looking glass. Petra, Jordan: A life in ruins Road and Travel: Hooves tattoo down the Siq, that sinuous half-mile crack of canyon. Dusk drips down the walls. Gods squat in the shadows; ancient desert lords hacked into the scarlet sandstone. We cower, alone and forsaken. Summoning Spring in Oxford MSNBC.com, and Road and Travel: England’s 'city of dreaming spires' sacrifices its beauty sleep to celebrate May morning ... Read more articles available for reprint. Mushing in the Rocky Mountains Road and Travel: Tongue flapping, the spotted mongrel churned the chest-deep snow. He lunged, twisting on the tugline: just one bell on the tangled wind chime of baying hounds. Then – hike! – the team shot forward over the crusted powder. Four decades of the Iguana MSNBC.com and Moviemaker: Sun, sin and celluloid in Puerto Vallarta Forty years ago, John Huston’s gritty Night of the Iguana put Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on the paparazzi map. Other movies – from Predator to Kill Bill Vol. 2 – have since followed in the big man’s footsteps, capturing the area’s sugary beaches, coastal cliffs and rainforest-swathed Sierra Madres... Read more features. Journey to the volcano's sapphire heart Athens News: The blast – the most powerful in human history – detonated with the strength of 150 hydrogen bombs. Three-quarters of Santorini vanished, leaving only a rind, curving around a six-kilometre-wide bowl of blue ... Read more articles on Greece. Croatia: Stone Cold Beauty Road and Travel: After a breakup, some women binge on chocolate. Others buy shoes. I went to the Balkans: substituting wander for lust. Lair of the Bear Northwest Travel Cover Story: We gave no voice to the frustration. Yes, the man had lied about his health, hiding those telltale white pills. And we’d made a grave navigational error. But shouting accusations would not get us out of the wilderness. Discworld: Ultimate champions prepare to defend national titles Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Toddlers lurch on the grass. A 41-year-old mother and punky teen sling a Frisbee disc back and forth. The scene could be any park, anywhere in America. Except these are national champions: Cat Pittack and Shannon O'Malley, members of Seattle Riot ... Read more sports stories. Tangled up in Wild Blue Single State of the Union: The ship slid from the dock, my dreams churning in its wake. I wanted so very badly to go, go, go, get gone from the tulip fields, the silage and sleech of Skagit Valley. Hong Kong: Diary of a Gweipo travelgirl:The Fragrant Island, frankly, confuses me. Capitalist guilt and it-girl greed fuse my brain. Should I nab some Louis Vuitton Epi bargains? Barter for a black-market movie? Saddle my bureau with yet another inlaid jewel box, ethically purchased from a cooperative of oppressed artists? Torn, I do the only thing conceivable: dance until dawn in a scarlet wig and pink aviator glasses ... Read more travel stories.


Website designed by Amanda Castleman. Last updated November 2007.