Jan Halliday Now Contributing Writer for milesgeek.com

With the posting of “Film Festival in Scenic Port Townsend“, Miles Geek welcomes Jan Halliday as a contributing writer.

Jan grew up in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. She has written for newspapers, magazines and guidebooks for over 45 years, covering the west coast from Barrow, Alaska to LaPaz, Mexico.

She’s written about the Napa Valley wine country, the gardens of the Willamette Valley, river rafting in Hells Canyon, migratory bird counts on the Makah Indian Reservation, sea urchin harvesting in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, whale watching in the San Juan Islands, the Los Angeles House of Blues, staying at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Laguna Beach, the missions of California, the Heard Museum art collection in Phoenix, Arizona, the red rock of Moab National Park in Utah: You name it, she’s probably been there, written about it.

In the mid-1990s, Jan worked with Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians to write Native Peoples of the Northwest, A Traveler’s Guide to Land, Art and Culture. The book is a detailed account of where travelers can meet more than 57 tribes living in the states of northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, British Columbia and Southeast Alaska (an area made up almost entirely of islands).

She followed with a second book, Native Peoples of Alaska, A Traveler’s Guide to Land, Art and Culture, which covers a huge, mostly roadless region. With the help of Alaska Airlines Magazine, which paid for her flights to major hubs in Alaska, she hitched rides on bush planes and float planes to travel to remote Yupik, Inupiat and Athabascan villages accessible only by small plane. Both books are now out of print, but in the past 15 years, she has continued to network with artists, museum curators, tribal cultural committees and tribal tourism contacts.

She currently offers personalized tours for art collectors to the studios of the best Native artists in the Pacific Northwest, famous for it’s totemic art. Tours include the best lodging, food and drink of the region. She also leads personalized tours (the best way for you to meet people one on one) based on your interests, whether it’s waterfalls, birding, or a tour of specialty nurseries or maritime museums, historic vessels, sailmakers and boatbuilders.

She believes that while the internet is a great place to get started, you can spend hours trying to put together an itinerary that still misses the best the region has to offer–those obscure, little publicized places that will be remembered for years after your visit.

She currently resides and works in the National Historic District of Port Townsend, Washington, a Victorian-era seaport 60 miles north of Seattle. You can contact her directly at [email protected]