Qin Xie is an experienced writer and editor who regularly covers travel, food, and products for newspapers, websites and magazines.

She is based in London but travels frequently for assignments.

Contact her with story ideas, special projects and commissions here.

Current projects:

Qin Xie returned to freelancing full time in January 2021, following five years in-house as an editor on the travel desks of The Independent, The Sun and Metro.co.uk.

As a journalist, she currently writes for outlets including The Times, The Independent, National Geographic Travel, British Airways High Life, and The Sun. This website, qinxie.co.uk, is a collection of her published work to date. 

In 2021, she worked on several special projects, including editorial consulting on commercial partnerships for The Independent, copywriting for various international clients, and co-authoring a new London travel guide for Lonely Planet.

For her blog, visit In Pursuit of Food (inpursuitoffood.com – on kitchens, restaurants and chefs), or Culture Explorer (culture-explorer.co.uk – on travel). She also writes a weekly newsletter on personal finance for freelancers called Money Talk.

Background:

After studying philosophy and economics at the University of Bristol, Qin Xie went on to train as a journalist at Harlow College, where she gained her NCTJ certificate. After working on various websites, newspapers and magazines, she decided to specialise in food and later travel.

Her CV can be viewed on LinkedIn.

Early on in her journalism career, she decided to train as a chef at Leiths School of Food and Wine, gaining a Diploma. Since graduating, she has completed stages at Roganic, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck, The Square and Lima and continues to explore life in kitchens. Qin Xie also holds the Level 3 Award in Wines and Spirits from the WSET.

She is the co-author of Hunan: A Lifetime of Secrets from Mr Peng’s Chinese Kitchen, published by Random House April 2014. It was voted one of the 20 best food books of 2014 by Observer Food Monthly.

Qin Xie has also co-authored a new London travel guide for Lonely Planet, due to be published in summer 2022.

Awards:

In 2016, she was short-listed for the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards Food & Wine Writer of the Year.

She launched Money Talk as a personal finance newsletter in May 2020 and it was shortlisted for the HeadlineMoney Awards, in the Blog of the Year category, just a year later.

In 2021, she also won Honorable Mention at the 2020-2021 SATWF Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards.