Cristina Velocci is a freelance writer living in New York. She grew up on the north shore of Long Island and is all too familiar with the LIRR and Penn Station, both of which she believes have taken years off her life while providing her with enough outlandish fodder to one day publish her first book. She received a degree in English and communication from Boston College, where she first discovered her passion for journalism by writing for the school paper as a student life and celebrity gossip columnist. Along the way, she spent the summer between her sophomore and junior years studying abroad in Madrid, taking Spanish language courses and exploring the city. She credits this experience with the beginning of her insatiable case of wanderlust.

Since then, Cristina has traveled to South Africa, St. Michael's, Maryland, Iceland, Montana and French Polynesia to write travel stories as a staffer at Doubledown Media, publishers of niche luxury lifestyle titles Trader Monthly, Dealmaker, Private Air, and Corporate Leader, where she contributed articles on topics ranging from fashion, travel, real estate, food, spirits and product reviews until the company was no more.

Her work has also appeared in Family Circle, the Improper Bostonian, regional women's monthly Blush, teen quarterly Relate, Long Island Bride & Groom, the amNew York, Metromix.com and UrbanDaddy.com, among others.

In addition to traveling, Cristina loves cupcakes, dogs (of all kinds), handwritten notes on well crafted stationery and notecards, and watching old Audrey Hepburn films. She finds dangling modifiers to be amusing, unless they mysteriously appear in her own copy.