Samantha Falewée is a senior print editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, where she seeks enriching stories at the intersection of luxury travel, wildlife conservation, and Indigenous culture.
Samantha draws on her extensive travel experience (six continents) and eight years of previous magazine editorial roles—she began her career as an intern in 2010 at National Geographic. Samantha has sent writers on assignment to track maned wolves in Brazil’s cerrado grasslands, learn from Indigenous communities in central Costa Rica, and participate in leopard habituation in South Africa.
Samantha’s mission is to deepen human understanding and connection to the natural world around us through storytelling. A France-U.S. citizen, she speaks French and was certified by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (Level II) in 2016. She is an avid, certified scuba diver (SSI Advanced Open Water).
Samantha is a board member of ASME Next, the leading organization for early-career print and digital journalists, part of the American Society of Magazine Editors. In 2024, “Isle of Freedom,” a piece Samantha edited for Travel + Leisure, was awarded the Gold Award (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Travel) by the North American Travel Journalists Association. That same year, Samantha was invited to speak as a panelist at the world’s largest international Indigenous tourism conference, in the unceded Algonquin Anishinabeg Territory in Ottawa, Ontario.
On occasion, Samantha represents Travel + Leisure to the brand’s Travel Advisory Board, a noted group of 26 of the top travel advisors and agency owners collectively managing more than 7,000 travel designers and driving more than $14.5 billion in annual sales. Her writing has been published in Wine Spectator, Whisky Advocate, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso, Rova, and Cigar Aficionado, in addition to a book review for National Geographic.
Some of Samantha’s favorite hotels and lodges include:
Six Senses Ranthambore, in Rajasthan
andBeyond Xaranna, in the Okavango Delta
St. Regis Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Shash Diné Eco Retreat, in the Navajo Nation
The Royal Mansour, in Marrakech
Kalaloch Lodge, in Washington
Explora Los Torres, in Patagonia
Paws Up Resort, in Montana
The Silo, in Cape Town
Soho Beach House Canouan, in the Grenadines
In her free time, you can find Samantha outside with her dog, Sunny. Her last name rhymes with “far away.”