Helen Hokin

Specialist areas

Helen Hokin is an online and broadcast journalist specialising in food and travel. Helen is the founder of Food Tripper which launched in 2009 as a website for people who travel to eat. Since then Food Tripper has grown into an authoritative online publishing business, a series of branded eBooks and an award-winning TV production business which produced the Food Tripper series for Travel Channel. Whether online or on TV, Helen produces unique and entertaining content reflecting the latest news and trends in food related travel. Previously Helen was for five years the Food Editor and Restaurant Critic at Food & Travel Magazine. She has reported on gourmet travel trends and hospitality news from around the world and in her TV and written work she has interviewed some of the world’s leading food personalities including Nobu, Alain Ducasse, Daniel Boulud, Emeril Lagasse and Heston Blumenthal. She is appreciated for her sense of humour, light approach and putting interviewees at ease. During the dot com boom, Helen was hired by Weight Watchers, in New York City, to edit and launch the very first Weight Watchers websites for the UK and Europe. Here she applied her knowledge of nutrition and healthy eating, having lived and breathed the Mediterranean Diet, during a spell living and working in Barcelona. Helen has appeared on Market Kitchen, The Holiday Show, Travel Today, Travel Channel, Talk Radio and many regional radio stations from Swansea Sound to Cheshire FM. Her taste buds have been called upon to judge The World Cheese Championships, The Great Taste Awards, The Guild of Food Writers’ Jeremy Round Award for Best First Book, The Best Hotel in Cheshire and The Great British Chilli Cook Off. She has worked as an undercover inspector for The Which? Good Food Guide and has appeared on stage as a panelist at The Great Food Debate at Abergavenny Food Festival and Destinations Travel Show. She has contributed widely to publications including The Independent, Olive, Which?, Fresh, Food & Travel, Caterer & Hotelkeeper, Journey and Handbag.com. An entrepreneur at heart, Helen has grown her career from journalist to web publisher to TV presenter, producer and director. She continues to edit Foodtripper.com with contributions from over 60 journalists based around the world. Helen has a Masters Degree (M.Sc) with Distinction in Hotel & Restaurant Management and is a trained chef. She also has a Masters Degree (M.A.) in French Literature & Language.