Author of over a dozen Lonely Planet guides, freelance writer Conner Gorry's first foreign adventure was to Vieques at age 8. That formative experience ignited a fascination with Latin America that, three decades on, is a way of life.
Following her mother's advice that money spent on travel, health, or education is money well spent, Conner received a BA in Latin American Studies from NYU and an MA in Political Science from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Unforgettable experiences both, partly thanks to the monster monthly bills that continue to roll in. A little too much money well spent, perhaps?
After writing encyclopedias for a time and churning out features for the San Francisco Chronicle and others, she landed on Lonely Planet's roster, realizing her traveling-working dreams. Her guidebook writing duties have taken her all over the Western Hemisphere, from post-civil war Guatemala to post 9-11 NYC; up Big Island volcanoes and down Bolivia's (and the world's) 'Most Dangerous Road.' She paddled her way along the Na Pali Coast in a kayak and picked along Cuba's secret beaches barefoot. She has frolicked with giant tortoises in the Galápagos and spotted Harpy eagles in Venezuela. In 2006, she finally made it to Panama.
For the past several years Conner has had the unique opportunity to cover the Cuban Health System, warts and all. Forget politics: these health professionals are heroes, something she learned watching a machete wound being patched on Honduras' remote Mosquito Coast, a free CT scan being performed in the violence-plagued slums of Caracas, and thousands of doctors and nurses showing up each day to heal and care for their people despite paupers' salaries and other conditions particular to Cuba. Following the harrowing 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, she was embedded with Cuban doctors in their field hospitals in the NWFP and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Assalam Alekum.
Conner currently calls Havana home, where she smokes a daily cigar and works as a journalist and editor for MEDICC Review, Cuba Health Reports, Cuba Absolutely, and other publications. Future travel itineraries include The Yucatán, Panama, Guatemala, and Ireland.