Paige R. Penland was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised in nearby Oak Ridge, the “Atomic City," where her earliest influences included traditional Appalachian culture and radioactive weapons of mass destruction. Paige later attended the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where her hopes of eventually earning a Biology PhD were quickly dashed when organic chemistry coincided with the peak of her recklessly irresponsible youth.

Happily, her newly discovered passion for reckless irresponsibility inspired her to not only change majors (to 20th-century history, specifically the Cold War), but also backpack across the Americas and Europe, organize political protests, learn some Spanish, and most importantly, write for her friends indie magazines. They didn’t pay much, but did provide the experience and clips required for her first “real” job, at Lowrider magazine.
There, Paige learned how to identify by sight every Chevrolet to ever roll off the assembly line, not to mention customize any one of them for maximum impact (hint: it’s hard to go wrong with fender skirts). She also covered Chicano political organizations and Latino cultural events, convinced living legend Dolores Huerta to pose on a car, and was given the opportunity to write her first book, Lowrider: History, Pride, Culture.

She then moved on to Lonely Planet, the world’s largest travel publisher. She started out as an editor and online content writer, but couldn’t resist when asked to update the guidebook to Florida, where she saw her first space shuttle launch. Subsequent assignments took her to the crackling glaciers of Alaska, down the windswept coast of California Highway 1 and back to the sage-scented sandstone dreamscape of that reckless youth, Santa Fe & Taos.

Her next travel assignment covered Costa Rica, where she’s been living, on and off, ever since. She also enjoyed visiting the neighbors, and even wrote her own darned travel guide, A Week or Two in Southwest Nicaragua, for folks interested in visiting the beaches and volcanoes less traveled. Lonely Planet subsequently hired her to write their Nicaragua & El Salvador book, which finally gave her the resources she needed to cover beautiful but isolated spots like Bonanza, Nicaragua, where no other travel writer (to her knowledge) had ever gone before.

Thanks to so many years of experience living in the country, her next guidebook, Great Destinations Costa Rica, was a decided improvement on the Lonely Planet guide, and includes side trips to her favorite vacation spots just over the borders in Nicaragua and Panama. Next, she traveled from pura vida (“pure life,” Costa Rica’s favorite phrase) to Día de los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”) with Great Destinations Oaxaca, Mexico, due out in November 2009. And while she always enjoys her adventures into the region’s roughest and wildest places, she was more than happy to cover Mexico and Central America’s stunning selection of five-star properties for Luxury Latin America.com *

Paige is currently writing another guidebook for Great Destinations, this time to warm and wonderful of El Salvador, a compact country of surprising beauty. Next up, she’s excited to return to one of her favorite places in the world, Southwest Nicaragua, to write another guidebook for Great Destinations.

If you’d like to talk to Paige about work (or play), please feel free to contact her at paigerpenland AT hotmail.com.