A travel writer, editor and photographer, Jay Cooke caught the bug early growing up outside Manhattan and soon hit the road to wander parts east, west and south. He's taught English in Prague & Korea, slopped fish in Alaska, driven a cab in Austin and bungee-jumped out of a Swiss gondola for a Fuji-TV adventure show.

Since the late 1990s he's based himself in San Francisco, where he hangs with his lovely wife Mai and daughter Sophie, and hops BART over to Oakland and his Commissioning Editor job at Lonely Planet Publications.