Joanna Cooke biography

When Joanna was a teenager, she told the school careers advisor she wanted to be a travel writer when she grew up. Nevertheless, it was still a bit of surprise when she found herself doing exactly that.

While lucky enough to enjoy family holidays to France, Greece, Spain and USA as a child, her first big solo adventure was interrailing from London to Istanbul and back as a teenager. She remembers calling her parents from a payphone opposite the Hagia Sofia to say she had arrived safe and sound, the call to prayer sounding in the background.

Joanna spent a few weeks in Mexico on the then sedate west coast, prior to a year abroad at the University of California at Santa Barbara – an exchange with the University of Sussex. Joanna found time to explore her temporary home, albeit on a student budget and mentality: falling in love with the rugged Californian coast whilst crammed into a shared car, turning up to Yosemite in the freezing winter in a spring jacket, hiking the Grand Canyon in 49°C despite all the clearly positioned signs advising against it.

After gaining her degree in American Literature, she got an editorial assistant position at map and reference book publishers Philip’s, before the stars aligned and she found herself at travel publishers Insight Guides. Responsible for updating and then commissioning travel guides, Joanna walked the streets of New York in -12°C for the city guide, using the cold as an excuse to try as many different nationality foods as possible and to spend more time than was strictly necessary sat in hotel foyers.


Working for backpacker’s favourite Lonely Planet, Joanna was commissioning editor for Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, France, Spain, Greece and the Balkans and created award-winning travel guides to Paris and London. She became Associate Publisher and then Managing Destination Editor and looked after the internationally based digital and print editorial team. She was there for more than a decade before taking up the position of Managing Editor at Responsible Travel in 2019.

Joanna has a particular appreciation for wide sandy beaches, whether birdwatching at Holkham, Norfolk, watching kite surfers off Spain’s Costa de la Luz, or enjoying a lazy Christmas Day on the sand in Uruguay. Other favourite destinations include Florida’s Everglades, Western Australia’s bays and vineyards, Argentina’s glaciers, Greece’s pine-forested coast and Spain’s tapas bars.

She has written for Insight Guides and Lonely Planet, most recently as contributing writer on Lonely Planet's 'The Joy of Birdwatching', and a new guide to electric vehicle road trips, but has made a career out of shaping writing as an editor.