After two decades of writing and editing at daily metro newspapers up and down the East Coast, Diane Daniel became a freelance journalist in 2002, writing about her favorite things: the outdoors, travel, and fascinating folks. She's most interested in what she calls preservation travel--travel that preserves cultures, community, history, buildings, and the environment. In the past decade, she has climbed mountains in Ecuador, Argentina, and Indonesia; bicycled Montana's Lewis and Clark Trail; snowshoed backcountry Maine; and kayaked with manatees in Florida. Closer to home, she has camped along the Roanoke River Paddle Trail, paddled around Bald Head Island, cycled much of the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoyed the fruits of Yadkin Valley wineries, and toured scores of farms in the Carolinas and Virginia. In addition to travel, Diane's stories have examined community supported fisheries, food waste, organic Christmas trees, electric cars, and noise pollution. Diane's work has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Southern Living, Gourmet, National Geographic Traveler, Raleigh News & Observer, Our State, Ode Magazine, and other papers and magazines. In 2008, she won a national Lowell Thomas Award for her Times travel story on regional home exchanges.Diane lives in Durham, North Carolina, not far from where she grew up. While she may have lost her drawl, she still says "y'all."