About

Janet Podolak has traveled the world to produce a regular newspaper travel section for the Northeast Ohio newspaper where she’s long been on staff. Her blogs give depth and breadth to those stories with photos, videos and insider tips, observations and advice. She’s also a notable food writer so her blogs are liberally seasoned with recipes and market visits. As a scuba diver, she favors watery destinations, but she’s smitten with France, well acquainted with much of Canada, the Caribbean, and Hawaii; and is fascinated with Myanmar, Greenland and Cuba.

In February 2015 she won a Gold first place award from the North American Travel Journalists Association competition for 2014 travel writing for her three-part series on Cuba, developed from a visit she made in May 2014: “A Window in time”; “Shaking perceptions”; and “Hemingway an icon in Cuba.”. In May 2015, she was honored by the Midwest Travel Writers Association and its Mark Twain awards. She won second-place in the Series category for her multi-part Cuban series, third-place in the Photojournalism category, and third-place in the Socially Responsible travel category.

The News-Herald’s Janet Podolak has been honored with a trio of awards from the Society of American Travel Writers. They were announced at the organization’s recent Central States meeting in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

Her winning stories all appeared in 2014 Travel sections, published in The News-Herald the second Sunday of each month and at other times in the Morning Journal of Lorain.  She took two awards in the category for  Best Consumer Reporting, winning a first place for “Sleep by the Hour”  and an Honorable Mention for “Travel Tarmac by Car”.

Podolak won a second place in the category Best Travel Article featuring Ecology/Conservation/Preservation for “Turtle Bay-place beyond expectations on the fabled North Shore of Oahu”.

Entries in the annual competition came from newspaper and magazine stories authored by writers living in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Podolak,  a member of SATW since 1990, has been with The News-Herald since 1971. She lives in Mentor. Many of her blogs can be found on her website www.janetsjaunts.com.