Laura Kiniry

Laura Kiniry is a San Francisco-based journalist specializing in travel, food, and culture and the ways in which they intertwine. She’s been freelancing for 15+ years, writing articles on everything from how to tea taste your way across Taiwan for Smithsonian, where she’s a regular online contributor, to her beloved Philadelphia pretzel (she’s originally from South Jersey, just across the Delaware River from the City of Brotherly Love) for Serious Eats. Her other regular outlets include BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, and various AAA pubs.

When she’s not traveling the globe, Laura loves going on long walks through her home city and taking endless pictures of street art, architecture, and everything and anything interesting. She occasionally harvests olives in Puglia, Italy, with a family she met while on assignment.

Laura’s BBC Travel article, “For Salvadorians, Pupusas Mean Comfort” (done in collaboration with videographer Daniel Kavanaugh), won honorable mention in the 2019-2020 SATW Foundation Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition’s multimedia single work category. Her Smithsonian piece, “These Supper Clubs are Using Food to Cross Cultural Divides,” was one of the outlet’s “Twenty-Five of Our Favorite Stories from 2020.”