Travel writer

Jacqui writes print and online travel features for the Sunday Star Times (published by Stuff), Otago Daily Times (published by Allied Press) and the New Zealand Herald (published by NZME) and has recently joined the Lonely Planet’s Oceania team as a guide book contributor.

Find her travel stories in MiNDFOOD, AA Directions (NZ), Luxury Travel (Aus), Explore (Aus), International Traveller (Aus), Adventure.com, BBC Travel (UK), AAA Traveler Worldwise (US) and many others.

Industry memberships

• Travmedia New Zealand

• International Food, Wine & Travel Writers Association (recent past member).

Hosted travel

Jacqui travels independently and courtesy of tourism and destination agencies. Past hosts include Switzerland Tourism, Heritage Expeditions, Tourism Australia, Cook Islands Tourism, the Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau, Brand USA and more.

In May 2018, Jacqui attended the IPW International Travel conference with the New Zealand delegation in Denver, USA.

“Working with Jacqui Gibson is a breath of fresh air!

She is fun, curious and easy going. She is adventurous and hard-working. Jacqui produces thoughtful stories; not your run-of-the-mill travel stories. Jacqui goes deeper to find meaningful stories that resonate with current affairs.

She continues to write stories and supporting social media long after her visit. I highly recommend working with Jacqui and would have her back to the San Juan Islands in a heartbeat.”

- Barbara Marrett, Communications Manager, San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau.

Feature writer

Jacqui’s features appear in Heritage New Zealand, DWELL, E-Tangata, Wilderness, New Zealand Geographic, Shepherdess and VetScript magazines and IPANZ’s Public Sector Journal.

Copywriting

A copywriter for more than 20 years, Jacqui turns out websites, brochures, annual reports and other content, including video, for government and business clients.

Grants

In 2018, Jacqui received an Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism grant to write about an iwi-led science initiative in Northland. In 2021, Jacqui received a Public Interest Journalism Project grant from NZ On Air to write a feature called The Living Forest for Wilderness magazine.

Awards

In 2019, Jacqui won the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers’ Association (IFWTWA) Excellence in Journalism Award, was a finalist in The Foodies, the New Zealand Food Media Awards for Best Feature Writing and took out the 2019 Agriculture Journalism Encouragement Award recognising excellence among journalists new to agriculture reporting.

In 2023, she was joint runner-up in the Voyager Media Awards for travel journalism. The awards are open to print, digital and broadcast journalists, video journalists and photo-journalists and photographers throughout New Zealand.