Cleo Paskal

Cleo Paskal’s varied print, radio, television and film assignments have taken her from Timbuktu to the Largest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. Along the way, Paskal has contributed to (among many others): The Economist, The Sunday Times (U.K.), The Independent (U.K.), Islands, Columbia Journalism Review, Conde Nast Traveller, Spy, Wired, Japan Times, Times of India, and once, when the rent was due, the Weekly World News. She was also a host of the BBC Radio travel show Four Corners, and wrote the Emmy Award-winning TV series Cirque du Soleil: Fire Within.

In the past five years, Paskal has won nine major travel-writing awards, including the Grand Prize from the North American Travel Journalist’s Association (and not including “Child Most Likely to Store Their Boxes in My Basement – Forever” from her dad). Her obsession with the world’s smallest countries has led to Paskal being hospitalized in Kiribati, having a child named after her in Samoa, and marrying a man from the Faroes Island. Her series on microstates aired on the BBC World Service and her travel column appears weekly in Canada’s National Post.