By NATALIA VANEGAS and KARUNYA KRISHNAN
CNJ216
Posted on Dec. 5, 2007

Miami Herald Travel editor Jane Wooldridge designed her first newspaper when she was 6 years old.  On a piece of paper, she wrote out the news and handed to her friends and family.

Wooldridge studied British political history in Oxford University but has always been a passionate journalist, she said.  She wrote for both her high school and college papers.

“I guess I have always wanted to be a news reporter,” she said.

Wooldridge has been involved in travel reporting for more than 15 years and became the Herald’s editor in 1999.  Before that, she covered “just about everything you could possibly write in a newspaper”—from business and local news to obituaries and fashion.

“To be a good travel writer, you really need to have the journalism background,” Wooldridge said. 

Since her first newspaper, innovation has always appealed to Wooldridge.

In 1994, she launched “the first of its kind” website for the Miami Herald, as Wooldridge proudly refers to the extensive database of resources she developed for travelers in Florida.

The journalist now oversees all travel material at the Miami Herald Company – Sunday travel section, blogs, online travel and magazine content, and new media elements, such as photo slideshows and video.  She also frequently appears on panels, television and radio.

Last year, Wooldridge won one of the most prestigious awards in the business, the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year award by the Society of American Travel Writers.

“She is an avid reporter in search for a story,” said Joan Chrissos, features editor, supervisor, and colleague for 20 years.

Wooldridge works up to 60 hours a week and travels four months out of the year. “She is really driven by her passion for travel,” her assistant travel editor and co-worker, Margie Lambert, said. 

Wooldridge likes to cook and entertain on weekends. But her career is also a hobby to her.  “If you take all the things you love to do and make it your job, the struggle is to turn off the motor,” Wooldridge said.
When she is able to turn the motor off, Wooldridge spends any spare time she has with her husband, Stetson, an architect and developer.

“I didn’t like him at first,” Wooldridge said. “He turned out to have a wonderful, clever sense of humor.  He grew on me.”

They met on a blind date, when she was 34. They married three years later and have been married for 13 years. 

Her passion for travel started young. Wooldridge began with backpacking trips in college. She then continued traveling on her own, writing freelance articles, along the way. 

She often runs into unexpected situations while on assignment, which she learned to appreciate. 

“The best of real travel is getting beyond your comfort zone,” she said. 

Last December, Wooldridge traveled to the West African country of Cameroon. She said the roads were often blocked off, sometimes non-existent. Her car broke down 13 times in one day, and she was stopped several times at checkpoints by police holding AK-47 guns, asking for bribes. 

When she finally arrived at a village, angry members of a tribe surrounded her car. The tribe, she later found out, had a history of hostility and cannibalism. “They thought we were sent by the government to spy on them,” she said.

“It’s the kind of trip where you really have to take it as life presents itself,” Wooldridge said. “You get the best out of it when you take what it throws at you in your stride. That’s what real travel is about.”