FOLLOW MARY MOORE’S LATEST TRAVELS IN HER BLOG
AUTHOR, TRAVEL WRITER AND EDITOR
The American-born, London-based editor of Essentially America magazine since its launch in 1994, Mary Moore Mason is recognized as one of the leading USA-centric consumer travel journalists. She has won many awards endorsing her unrivalled reputation in travel publishing.
In 2019 Mary Moore received two top media awards, one in London from the Visit USA Association and another at its annual convention in St Louis, Missouri, from the Travel South organization representing the 12 US Southern states.
Mary Moore also has won many other media awards in the past. In 2006 she was cited for her Outstanding Media Contribution by the Visit USA Association; in 2009 she was given a similar award from the state of California; in 2010, the top consumer travel writing award in a multi-national competition presented by the US Travel Association at its annual IPW conference in San Francisco; and in 2011 The Travel Journalist of the Year Award by TravMedia, the compiler and distributor of travel news around the world. She was also giving a special media award by the State of Oklahoma at another IPW convention and from 2014-2016 she served as the first American chairman of the prestigious British Guild of Travel Writers.
With a career in travel writing, magazine editing and transatlantic tourism promotion spanning more than five decades, Mary Moore has now produced a colourful and, some readers say, hilarious memoir titled Goodbye Hoop Skirts-Hello World! The Travels, Triumphs and Tumbles of a Runaway Southern Belle.
© Geoff Moore, The Travel Trunk
The life story of travel writer Mary Moore Mason is an unusual, colorful and sometimes hilarious account of adventures and upheavals, creativity and tenacity.
The descendant of a courageous survivor of American Indian captivity, Mary Moore was brought up as a potential (if ultimately rebellious) Southern Belle in the racially segregated American South.
She maneuvered her way into the previously all-male newsroom of a Virginia newspaper dedicated to the preservation of racial segregation - and then regularly attended mixed race parties.
She flew to Paris to reignite a summer romance with a handsome young Frenchman - and then decamped with his Sicilian-American friend to become a travel writer in Athens.
She then moved in the late 1960s to 'Swinging London' where she eventually married a trendy photographer known for his photos of the Beatles and such iconic American jazz musicians as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington - and helped rescue him from two misadventures.
She travelled the world writing about places as diverse as Thailand, Kenya and Oman, became a pioneer in the promotion - via airlines and tourist boards - of transatlantic travel to the USA, launched the first UK travel magazines exclusively covering North America -today she remains the editor of Essentially America - and was elected the first American chairman of the British Guild of Travel Writers.
Not only were there triumphs but also traumas some may make you laugh out loud.
“Memories of growing up as a white girl in America’s segregated South contrast with rollicking tales of dinners with Richard Nixon and Michael Caine, the Swinging Sixties and swimming (illegally) across the Texas-Mexico border. It’s straight out of a Girl’s Own adventure.”
—PJW, West London
Mary Moore’s other work can be seen in…
Mary Moore Mason as a youthful Southern Belle
Mary Moore was the only woman in the Richmond, Virginia, News Leader newsroom circa 1960.
With late ex-husband David Redfern, best known for his photos of the Beatles and iconic jazz musicians
The Texas "passport" presented to Mary Moore when she served as the UK media representative for the 'Lone Star State'
Displaying a copy of Essentially America, the UK travel magazine Mary Moore launched in 1994 and still edits. ©Geoff Moore, Travel Trunk
Interviewing an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas
En route to the USA on United Airlines
Presiding over the British Guild of Travel Writers Yearbook Launch in 2015 ©Nori Jemil
Accepting the Visit USA outstanding media contribution award in 2019. ©Tracey Spuyman
At a BGTW Awards Dinner with Kathy Arnold and Kim Dubois
At Richmond, Virginia's Fountain Book Store which sells her book
With magazine publisher/editor son in Manhattan ©Wendy Redfern
With the Travel South 2019 Ambassador Award. Photo by Wendy Redfern
Being rescued from a Jordanian desert motoring mishap
Walkerlands, the Mason-Redfern family's ancestral Virginia home, now an Airbnb
With fellow aviatrix Rose Gilbert at New York State's Rhinebeck Aerodrome
Fun time with granddaughter Rose, then age 6, now 9
Mary Moore and photographer daughter-in-law Wendy Redfern en route to France
Out on the town in California with Charlie Brown and Snoopy
Enjoying Alaska's Iditerod event