Samantha Falewée is a travel journalist and editor — she seeks enriching stories at the intersection of travel, wildlife conservation, and Indigenous culture. Her mission is to deepen human understanding and connection to the natural world around us through storytelling.

Samantha began her career as an intern in 2011 at National Geographic; most recently, she was a senior print editor at Travel + Leisure. In 2024, Samantha left the magazine to pursue a master’s degree in Animal Studies at New York University. In addition to her freelance journalism, Samantha advises travel clients on special projects ranging from media strategy to industry positioning.

Samantha draws on her extensive travel experience (all seven continents) and more than ten years of editorial roles. As a journalist, she has reported on pastoral tribes’ response to climate change in northern Kenya, interviewed scientists on the Amazon River about endangered pink river dolphin habitat loss, and shadowed researchers studying the effects of avian influenza in Antarctica. As an editor, she has sent writers on assignment to track maned wolves in Brazil’s cerrado grasslands, help habituate leopards in South Africa, and explore Albania’s growing agritourism industry. She has studied wildlife tracking in the Makuleke Concession with the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa.

In 2024, “Isle of Freedom,” a piece Samantha edited for Travel + Leisure, was awarded the Gold Award (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Travel) by the North American Travel Journalists Association. That same year, Samantha was invited to speak as a panelist at the world’s largest international Indigenous tourism conference, in the unceded Algonquin Anishinabeg Territory in Ottawa, Ontario.

In 2025, she wrote a TIME magazine cover story about a cultural center in western Mongolia dedicated to the collaboration between raptor conservationists, Kazakh eagle hunters, and travelers. Around the same time, her article for Condé Nast Traveler, “In the Canadian Rockies, Indigenous Tour Guides Offer Adventure with Respect of Land,” was shortlisted for Consumer Magazine Feature of the Year (North America) by the Inspire Global Media Awards. A story she assigned and edited for Travel + Leisure, “Nature’s Keepers,” received an honorable mention in the Sustainable Travel category from NATJA.

Previously, Samantha has served as a board member of ASME Next, the leading organization for early-career print and digital journalists, part of the American Society of Magazine Editors. Her writing has been published in Condé Nast Traveler, TIME, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso Life, Adventure.com, Rova, Wine Spectator, Whisky Advocate, and Cigar Aficionado, in addition to a book review for National Geographic.

Samantha has represented Travel + Leisure to the brand’s Travel Advisory Board, a noted group of top travel advisors and agency owners collectively managing more than 7,000 travel designers and driving more than $14.5 billion in annual sales.

A France-U.S. citizen, Samantha speaks conversational French. She is an avid, certified scuba diver (SSI Advanced Open Water).

Some of Samantha’s favorite hotels and lodges include:

  • Six Senses Ranthambore, in Rajasthan

  • The Mount Nelson, in Cape Town

  • Hôtel Musée Premières Nations, in Wendake

  • St. Regis Bora Bora, French Polynesia

  • Kalepo Camp, in Samburuland

  • Shash Diné Eco Retreat, in the Navajo Nation

  • The Royal Mansour, in Marrakech

  • andBeyond Sandibe, in the Okavango Delta

  • Explora Los Torres, in Patagonia

  • Soho Beach House Canouan, in the Grenadines

  • Royal Malewane, in Kruger National Park

In her free time, you can find Samantha outside with her dog, Sunny. Her last name rhymes with “far away.”