I contributed to this Travel + Leisure roundup of the hottest destinations of 2016, writing about the Andaman Islands in India and Zanzibar in Tanzania.
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Recent Work
I’ve been to Morocco twice, and both times I was less enamored with Marrakech, which I assumed would be my favorite part of the country, but utterly mesmerized by Fez.
I was recently named a contributing editor for super-slick design magazine Surface, and for this month’s issue I did a piece on the hip new Old Clare Hotel in Sydney’s…
The Cape Town CBD is booming well after dark. I take you on an inner-city bar crawl for the December issue of Travel + Leisure.
Heading to the oft-overlooked Australian city of Adelaide? Here’s a guide I did for the New York Times on how to spend 36 hours there.
If you’re looking for a colorful place to stay in Melbourne, don’t miss my New York Times review of the Larwill art hotel.
South Africans are serious about their curry… but upon closer inspection, I find that Durban curries are a completely different realm than the Indian curries I’m used to. I went to the seaside city to learn more about what makes Durban’s cuisine so unique, and in the process ate way more curries than any human ever should in a five-day span. Read all about it in my New York Times feature.
I reported the New York Times’ guide to spending 36 Hours in Cape Town — and it eventually made their list of top 10 most-read 36 Hours columns.
For New York Magazine’s Winter Travel 2015 special, I interviewed Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom, founders of the Indian lifestyle site POPxo.com, about their Delhi nightlife picks. Read it here.
Awards & Books
Awards
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2021: Honorable mention for the Grand Award, Travel Journalist of the Year
- South Asian Journalists Association, 2021: Outstanding Arts and Culture Reporting for “Zanzibar in the Rain,” New York Times
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2020: Bronze in Short Work on Travel for “Raise the Roof,” Condé Nast Traveler
- South Asian Journalists Association, 2019: Outstanding Arts, Culture, and Lifestyle Reporting about South Asia for “Force of Nature,” Surface magazine
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2018: Gold award in US/Canada Travel for “A Muslim American’s Homecoming: Cowboys, Country Music, Chapatis,” New York Times
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2018: Bronze in Service-Oriented Consumer Work for “My Town,” Virtuoso Life
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2017: Gold in Culinary-Related Travel for “Eating Bunny Chow in Durban,” Saveur
- South Asian Journalists Association, 2017: Outstanding Arts and Culture Reporting for “Eating Bunny Chow in Durban,” Saveur
- North American Travel Journalists Association Awards, 2016: Two Silver awards in Destination Travel and Adventure Travel for “7 Days, 1500 Miles in Namibia,” New York Times
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2016: Gold in Foreign Travel for “7 Days, 1500 Miles in Namibia,” New York Times
- Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, 2015: Gold in Personal Comment for “Returning to Hyderabad, Once a Land of Princes and Palaces,” New York Times
- Solas Awards for Best Travel Writing, 2013: Silver in Most Unforgettable Character for “Spitting Distance in Jodhpur,” Wall Street Journal
Books
- New York Times Cultured Traveler: Contributed a feature on Bosnia & Herzegovina to this upcoming anthology
- Best American Travel Writing 2021: “City of Saints” from Travel + Leisure was selected for the 2021 edition of this anthology, edited by Padma Lakshmi and Jason Wilson
- New York Times 36 Hours World: 150 Cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich: Contributed 36 Hours guides to Johannesburg and Mumbai for this anthology
- My Life Abroad: A Selection of Expat Stories: Contributed to this compilation of expat stories from around the globe, recounting my experience as an American in South Africa, in the chapter “From New York City to Cape Town.”
- The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35: Contributed my essay “When Coconuts Attack” to this travel anthology.