Mary Winston Nicklin is a writer/editor with more than 20 years of experience in media and publishing. Based in Paris and Virginia, she writes for publications such as National Geographic, The Washington Post, AFAR, and Condé Nast Traveler with a focus on culture, travel, history and the environment. She authored Lonely Planet’s Experience Paris and Experience France (2024), and National Geographic’s Hidden Paris. Extensive research for this bookazine- on newsstands starting in summer 2024- took her to metro “ghost stations,” the inner sanctum of the French National Library, the sole surviving pavilion of Les Halles, the 19th-century reservoir known as the “cathedral of water”, the Bastille’s subterranean crypt, and more.
In addition, she’s the editor of Bonjour Paris, which is the oldest English language website about the City of Light (online since 1995). She commissions articles, publishes a popular weekly newsletter, and develops partnerships and marketing strategies. She also served as the digital editor of France Today magazine for nearly a decade.
She believes in the power of travel as a means of cultural exchange and economic growth. She also has a thing for hotels, particularly the grandes dames steeped in stories — thankfully indulged by many years as a contributing editor for Luxury Travel Advisor. Assignments have led her on voyages around the world, yet Europe is her main focus.
As an undergraduate at Harvard (History & Literature), Nicklin was awarded the Hoopes prize for her thesis about early American maps entitled “Mapping the Myth: America’s Continent and the Fulfillment of Virginia’s Pacific Dream.” This passion for history continues to pervade her narratives.
Fun fact: She once ran a hotel, with French crêpes on the restaurant menu, next to a national park in El Salvador.
