About

Qin Xie on Kangaroo Island

Qin Xie is a freelance food and travel writer who regularly contributes to newspapers, magazines and websites around the world. She is based in London, but travels frequently for assignments, often spending several weeks in a destination to truly get a feel for the place.

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

Find her on social media:

Current projects:

Qin regularly writes features, round ups and travel advice for The Times; puts together reports, front-of-book pieces and online articles for National Geographic Traveller and Conde Nast Traveller; and contributes to various other publications on an ad hoc basis. Although not exhaustive, Muck Rack is a good place to see some of her latest work.

In addition, she works on several special projects a year. In the past this has included editorial consulting on commercial projects for The Independent, copywriting for food and travel clients, and co-authoring the Experience London guide for Lonely Planet.

She also writes Culture Explorer, a travel blog, and a personal finance newsletter called Money Talk.

Background:

After studying philosophy and economics at the University of Bristol, Qin went on to train as a journalist at Harlow College, where she gained her NCTJ certificate.

Early on in her journalism career, Qin trained as a chef at Leiths School of Food and Wine, which fed into her food writing. She completed stages at Roganic, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck, The Square and Lima as part of the training. Qin also holds the Level 3 Award in Wines and Spirits from the WSET and judged for the International Wine Challenge.

She is the co-author of two books. Hunan: A Lifetime of Secrets from Mr Peng’s Chinese Kitchen was published by Random House April 2014. It was voted one of the 20 best food books of 2014 by Observer Food Monthly. She also co-authored the Experience London guide for Lonely Planet, 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. She was also shortlisted as Blogger of the Year at the HeadlineMoney Awards in 2022.

In 2021, she won Honorable Mention at the 2020-2021 SATWF Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. And in 2023, she won Trade Writer of the Year at the Visit USA Media Awards, and was shortlisted for the same categories in the Aito Media Awards and Travel Media Awards.