ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is an experienced, award-winning professional journalist who has been focusing on the environment and consumer rights since long before it was fashionable.
My multi-media background includes magazine and newspaper writer and photographer, radio and television news producer and on-air reporter, guidebook author and editor, and presentation skills coach.
Despite growing up in NYC – or perhaps because of it – I developed an early appreciation for travel, the environment and the outdoors, and write about adventures in the 100+ countries I have visited to ski, scuba dive, hike, bike, raft, spa, prowl ancient and mythical archeological sites, or chill out on the beach or at a sidewalk café.
My travel articles have appeared in USAToday, NY Times, airline inflights Delta Sky and UAL Hemispheres, Budget Travel, Redbook, AAA magazines, New York Post, and on websites including Orbitz, Travelocity, Fodor’s, Yahoo News, AOL Autoblog Green, SmarterTravel.com, HuffingtonPost.com, FoxNews.com, RandMcNally.com and Edmunds.com and SeniorsSkiing.com.
My love of NYC’s subway system notwithstanding, I write extensively on automobiles and driving, especially safety and value, including for US News & World Report, New York Times, AOL/Autoblog Green, AAA Car and Travel.
I also wrote a column, Green Wheeling, syndicated by Motor Matters and published in newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and on webzines.
I’ve also been known to pull on a helmet to test drive new models around a racetrack at warp speed, or sit happily in the passenger seat as a professional driver shows me when to downshift to cut corners on turns.
A product of parents who owned and operated neighborhood retail stores in my hometown NYC, I champion consumer rights and issues and small businesses like my parents’.
Over the years, my articles on negotiating the consumer marketplace have appeared in magazines including Family Circle, Redbook and Associated Press newspapers.
If you want to read some of those articles, click here.
I’ve written or contributed to more than one dozen travel guidebooks about New York City, the Hudson Valley, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Caribbean, Canada and skiing, for publishers including Fodor’s, Michelin and DK.
My two most recent guidebook project was updating and editing much of Fodor’s Germany and Fodor’s New York City, both published in late Fall 2022.
My most recent guidebook with my name on the cover is 100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die, published by Reedy Press. It’s filled with memorable, quirky and delicious things to experience in the greatest city on the planet.
My previous NYC guidebook was 100 Peaceful Places in NYC.
If you want an autographed copy of either one, email me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com and I’ll send you one.
I also write, edit and publish a website for NYC residents and visitors, recently rebranded as NYC Travel Guru, with updates on the best things to see and do in my hometown, and save money in the bargain.
I am a member of the North American Travel Journalists Assn. (NATJA) , and International Motor Press Assn. (IMPA), where I am serving currently as 1st VP.
I was a longtime member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), where I served two terms on the Board of the Freelance Council, and the North American Snowsports Journalists Assn. (NASJA).
And I’m a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Go Tigers!
Before switching to print and the web, I was the consumer reporter for WABC-TV “Eyewitness News” and before that for WCBS-AM “Newsradio 88″ in New York City, investigating and reporting on frauds and dangerous products for the local stations and for their parent networks, ABC News and CBS Radio.
All that on-air experience makes me an expert speaker and panel moderator.
I share those newsroom and on-camera skills as a media interview coach, leading workshops and training seminars for corporations, industry associations, authors, and celebrities normally found on the gossip pages.
We writers know how to interview others, but we need to be coached on how to be on the other side of the desk and be the subject of an interview, especially if the interview is live television. Just ask anybody who has wasted their 15 minutes of fame.
I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and raised two children as a single parent working mom when I was widowed.
I am fiercely proud of the wonderful, accomplished adults they have grown up to be, and equally proud to have helped pave the way for today’s generation of female broadcasters and bloggers.
Even though I’ve visited some one hundred countries, I always return to New York City, because there’s no place like home. It’s also where the washing machine is.
Please contact me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com with suggestions about ecoXplorer, including which cars and travel destinations you would like to know more about, and for invitations to have me speak to your group or meeting.