Meet Me

Welcome to Everywhere Woman! My name is Jill, and I have a secret to share: I haven’t been everywhere. In fact, compared to many people who chronicle their travels on the internet, I’ve barely been anywhere. But whenever I do go somewhere, I document my adventures thoroughly and relentlessly, because I am a writer, and that is what writers do.

I’ve been a writer as long as I’ve been a traveler. When I visited Edinburgh, my first foreign city, at age 9, I kept meticulous notes of each day’s sights, sounds and surprises in a journal. On a high school tour through Eastern Europe, I documented everything, from the jokes the shopkeepers told me to the English cognates I overheard in cafe conversations. I blew through rolls of film taking pictures of tiny travel memories I wanted to recall when I was older — pieces of beach glass, a painting in a museum, an aesthetically pleasing storefront.

Years later, I went to college, studied journalism and became a professional writer — but I never stopped chronicling my travels for fun.

This story begins in Italy.

I started blogging in the fall of 2008 — the semester I left the U.S. to study in Paderno del Grappa, Italy. On weekends, holidays and extended breaks throughout the semester, I got the opportunity to not only explore the local surroundings but also travel to eight other countries across Europe: Spain, France, Ireland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany.

I took up blogging again after college, when I landed a summer fellowship and then a staff position as a reporter at The Seattle Times. I wrote about life as a reporter and life in Seattle, the first big city I’d ever lived in.

Then I moved to Boulder, Colorado, where I again took up travel writing. My husband and I traveled to Mexico together, my first experience outside the U.S. and Europe, and I discovered and fell in love with New York City.

Today, I write to you from New England.

In 2018, my husband and I moved to the wonderful and peculiar state of Rhode Island, and my perspective on travel changed.

No longer did I believe I needed to fly across borders and oceans to experience a world apart. After a whole life spent west of the Mississippi, New England was, to me, as much a foreign land as Italy was. In my first year here, I eagerly studied its customs and culture, carefully observed its pronounced and ever-changing seasons and delighted in its different architectures and sceneries.

Though I’ve now lived in New England a few years, I’ve yet to explore so much here. That’s why, while I still love to travel abroad, so much of Everywhere Woman is devoted to adventures closer to home — bike rides in Rhode Island, day trips to Cape Cod, weekend adventures to Maine and Vermont.

I hope you stay a while.

Wherever you live, whatever your travel bucket list, I hope you find something inspiring and entertaining here.

Like what you see? Have a question? Have feedback? Drop me a line any time at [email protected].

Cheers!