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Lara Dunston, Travel and Food Writer

Lara Dunston

Travel and Food Writer

  • About Me
  • Travel Writing
  • Travel Services
  • Blog
  • Contacts

Travel Writing

Commission me

I’m a widely published travel and food writer, prolific guidebook author and successful blogger. See About Me for more details on my writing career, publications I’ve written for, guidebooks I’ve authored, and the destinations where I have expertise and experience. If you’re an editor who’d like to commission me, please email or get in touch via my Contacts page.

Hire me

I’ve been writing professionally since 1987 and over those many years have written features, film scripts, two teen fiction novels, media releases, research reports, speeches, courses, presentations, you name it. If you’d like me to create content for your publication, website, blog, or social media channels, or develop a content strategy for your business or organisation, feel free to email me with ideas or a proposal.

Learn from me

I’ve been teaching since the mid 1990s when I was invited to speak about low-budget filmmaking following the premiere of our feature film, Come By Chance, Australia’s lowest budget film at the time. I soon found myself writing courses and teaching classes in film history, scriptwriting, directing and producing for the International Screen Academy, Sydney Community College, and WEA in Sydney, which I did for some years.

But it was a transformational experience in South America in 1997 when I serendipitously became involved in a participatory filmmaking project, teaching documentary video making to women in shanty towns in Rio and Lima that really sparked a passion and inspired a move into full-time teaching.

A year later I was hired to start a film programme at a women’s college in Abu Dhabi, where I found myself teaching young Emirati women how to write, produce and direct for film, television and multimedia. My students were the first in the UAE to make films (on digital), which screened at overseas festivals and won awards. We also held the first film festival at Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation in 1999.

During my time in the UAE, first as faculty in Abu Dhabi, and later managing the communications programme at the Dubai women’s college, I was responsible for the creative development and success of almost a thousand young women. Over eight years, I taught dozens of classes in writing and production; edited and assessed hundreds of stories, scripts and films; wrote a dozen courses, including scores of lectures and course notes; and was responsible for the creation of two Bachelor’s degrees.

I’m now drawing on that abundant experience in education to offer a range of creative learning experiences for aspiring writers:

Workshops on Travel Writing and Food Writing

I’ll soon be announcing short workshops on travel writing and food writing which I’ll be holding in conjunction with a Siem Reap based tour company, cooking school, and street food operator. These will consist of short, punchy classes crammed with tips and hands-on workshops, crafted around enriching tours and culinary experiences that will serve as the inspiration and material for your writing. Watch this space!

Travel Writing and Photography Tours

My photographer husband Terence Carter and I hosted our first culinary travel writing and photography tour in Cambodia in May 2015 in partnership with Backyard Travel. We have also held Vietnam tours (more to come soon) and we host Cambodia culinary tours with an optional travel writing and photography component.

In addition, we are also offering specialised culinary tours, crafted with chefs, restaurateurs, food writers, and foodies in mind. See our Travel Services page for details.

Travel Writing and Food Writing Retreats

As we’ve found with our tours, they can also be exhausting due to the pace and time spent travelling and tiredness is not conducive to writing. For aspiring writers who prefer to stay in one place and stay focused on the writing, we offer these with enriching experiences from our tours, however, the pace is slower, with longer periods set aside for writing, and are based in one place.

Travel and Food Photography

Why would I not draw on the expertise of my seriously talented photographer husband Terence Carter whose beautiful images have been published everywhere from National Geographic Traveller to Delicious magazine? Terence will offer photography workshops and be available to provide support and advice during my workshops, tours and retreats.

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Brief Bio

Lara Dunston is a Cambodia based Travel & Food Writer and has regular gigs with: The Guardian, CNN, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, The Independent, Telegraph, National Geographic Traveler / Traveller, Get Lost, Wanderlust, Travel+Leisure SEA, DestinAsian, AFAR. Read more here.

Related Websites

Our travel website:
GRANTOURISMO TRAVELS

Our full service digital media agency:
GRANTOURISMO MEDIA

Our Cambodian retreats site:
SIEM REAP RETREATS

Partner Phtography Site:
TERENCE CARTER PHOTOGRAPHY

Latest on Instagram

How are you all doing? We’re back in beautiful S How are you all doing? We’re back in beautiful Siem Reap after a whirlwind trip to the Cambodian capital to get Terence an emergency passport and take the opportunity to start updating our Phnom Penh guides. But I still want to share some Phnom Penh pics with you, in case you’re planning a Cambodia trip. And you should! A post on that subject going up soon on Grantourismo.  We spent a full day cleaning the apartment, which flooded while we were away – seems they had wild storms in Siem Reap with horizontal rain! Good thing I wasn’t here as it would have triggered memories of the nightmare of an apartment we moved into after the pandemic began, which flooded *every* time it rained.  I made a beeline for the markets to buy some beautiful produce and have been busy recipe testing, cooking and writing, while Terence, in between shooting dishes for me, has been occupied with the new Grantourismo design.  You may only notice small design tweaks, as the main point was to move it to a new theme to speed things up, as it’s a big site, being 12 years old with thousands of posts. I’ll let you know when it’s done so you can test it for us x  Pictured: the famous stall at Psar Chas or Old Market in Siem Reap, which specializes in all things preserved and fermented, from prahok (fermented fish paste) and juicy Siem Reap sausages to smoked fish and buffalo jerky, a fantastic drinking snack.  #SiemReap #market #OldMarket #PsarChas #foodstall #cambodianfood #khmerfood #localfood #localproduce #fermentedfoods #preservedfoods #fermentedfish #prahok #buffalojerky #sausages #fishpaste #shrimppaste #foodwriter #foodblogger #travelwriter #travelblogger #culinarytravel #foodtravel #marketlover
Hello @foodpanda_hongkong Glad you liked our phot Hello @foodpanda_hongkong 
Glad you liked our photo, but you do not have the rights to use it. You’re stealing our livelihood when you steal our content. Remove it now. @foodpandaglobal is owned by the billion dollar company @deliveryhero — you should be paying for images instead of stealing them from us and other small publishers and photographers. Or creating your own content.
We do.
It’s reassuring that in a city that’s changed It’s reassuring that in a city that’s changed so dramatically in recent years — so many buildings have been demolished to make way for lofty apartment blocks and towering hotels, completely changing the character of some Phnom Penh neighbourhoods — to find a heritage building that’s received little more than a coat of paint. (It used to be a pale lemon colour.)  The home of UNESCO’s Cambodia offices, the 19th century villa has long been one of my favourite French colonial buildings in Phnom Penh. Whenever I stroll by I imagine it as a breezy bar and restaurant, open for architecture- and history-lovers to soak up the atmosphere, rather than private offices closed to the public. But at least it’s still standing.  #phnompenh #travelwriter #travelwriterslife #lifeofatraveller #travel #travelgram #traveladdict #travelling #travelblogger #heritage #architecture #colonial #indochine #french #frenchcolonial #villa #mansion #colonialarchitecture #frenchcolonialarchitecture #facade #balconies #balustrade #cambodia #cambodianarchitecture
I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace of posting af I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace of posting after so long away from social media 😂 We just got too busy and something had to give...  A few of you asked where the pizza shot was from @pizza4pscambodia in Phnom Penh, so here you go... half salami and chorizo, and Parma ham and house-made burrata, which is luscious and creamy.  Someone else asked what is Japanese pizza exactly... it’s not okonomiyaki, which I know a lot of US food sites call ‘Japanese pizza’, even though it’s not, it’s a battered pancake.  Firstly, the actual type of pizza is Neapolitan-style, the original pizza invented in Napoli (Naples) in Italy — thin soft base spread with tomato sauce, baked quickly in a pizza oven on super high heat, with a puffy, slightly chewy crust, and a base that becomes a bit wet in the centre.  However, whereas Neapolitan pizza has very strict rules, otherwise, it’s not Neapolitan, Pizza4Ps’ pizzas are ‘Neapolitan-style’, as they get very creative with their toppings, using Japanese ingredients such as seaweed. It’s this — and Japanese owners — that makes it Japanese pizza, a style that began in Japan post-World War 2, when an Italian-American war vet is said to have started the first pizzeria, making the Napoli style, not American styles, of pizza.  A couple of you also asked to see the dramatically different Phnom Penh skyline. The changes are breathtaking if you haven’t been to the Cambodian capital in a few years. I’ll share that pic shortly.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #pizzaoven #pizzalover #japanesepizza #neapolitanpizza #neapolitanstylepizza
That’s our pizza going into the oven at @pizza4p That’s our pizza going into the oven at @pizza4pscambodia yesterday, the Phnom Penh outpost of the Japanese-owned restaurant group. It started out with one hugely popular restaurant in Vietnam some years ago, hidden down a lane in Saigon’s Japantown, and now has restos scattered up and down the country.  Pizza4Ps’ Japanese pizza has a thin base and thick crust, and while it’s more Italian than the American-style so popular in Cambodia, it tends to be wetter than Italian pizza, especially if you order their pizza with a ball of heavenly house-made burrata, which the waitress slices into at your table, spreading the luscious creamy cheese over the pizza. So good!  There are also no rules when it comes to the toppings, so while we had to try our favourites from the mother restaurants — Parma ham and burrata, and their own chorizo and salami — we took note of their Cambodia inspired creations. These include a a very pretty nom banh chok pizza spread with a freshly pounded Khmer herb and spice paste and sprinkled with edible flowers, and a whole page of salmon dishes. Cambodians are crazy about salmon.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #pizzaoven #pizzalover #japanesepizza #restaurantdesign #restaurantinterior
One thing I have not missed as a travel writer dur One thing I have not missed as a travel writer during the pandemic has been the fast pace of these updating trips. No matter how hard we work to try to squeeze everything in, something always gets left out, as we run out of time each day. And we’ve been doing this for decades, it doesn’t get easier; we haven’t figured out a magic formula.  One place I was determined not to miss trying was the new-ish @pizza4pscambodia — the first Cambodia branch of a Japanese owned Vietnamese based restaurant group specialising in Japanese pizza. I was so pleased we got to enjoy a quick lunch there yesterday, even if we weren’t able to sample their 4Ps craft beers (liquor sales were banned for two days during the local govt elections) and even if the service wasn’t as good as it is in Vietnam.  Apart from the style of pizza, three things really distinguish @pizza4ps — they work with local farmers to source the best quality local organic produce and you can really taste it; they produce their beautiful cheeses and charcuterie in house when they can’t source it locally (their creamy burrata and mozzarella are sublime); and they are a zero waste restaurant. I’ll tell you more in the next post.  #phnompenh #cambodia #travelwriter #foodwriter #travel #food #foodblogger #travelblogger #travelingram #lifeofatravelwriter #lifeofafoodwriter #traveltips #restaurant #phnompenhrestaurant #pizza #pizza4ps #japanesepizza #restaurantdesign #restaurantinterior

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ALL MEDIA (WORDS AND IMAGES) COPYRIGHT © 2007–2022 LARA DUNSTON AND TERENCE CARTER | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DESIGNED IN APARTMENT RENTALS, HOTELS AND RESORTS AROUND THE WORLD BY GRANTOURISMO MEDIA. ASSEMBLED IN SOUTH-EAST-ASIA.

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