My experience and expertise

Richard Varr is a well-rounded freelance writer, photographer and videographer with more than 30 years writing experience. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), he specializes in travel and feature writing, and is the author (main contributor) of the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guide to Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Dutch Country.  His first novel, Warming Up to Murder, is available online through Xlibris.com, Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

Richard writes frequently for Porthole Cruise and Travel Magazine and for the onboard magazines for cruise lines including Carnival, Holland America, Radisson Seven Seas, Princess, Disney, Royal Caribbean, Cunard, Seabourn, P&O, Costa, MSC, NCL and others.

His work and photography have also been published in newspapers including USA TODAY, Dallas Morning News, London Telegraph, Christian Science Monitor,  Sydney Morning Herald, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Lowell Sun, Arizona Daily Star Main Line Life (Philadelphia) and the Worcester Sunday Telegram.  Magazines have included Islands, AAA Home & Away, AAA Arizona Highroads, AAA Journeys, the Good Sam Club’s Highways, Coast to Coast and Trailer Life; The Rotarian, New Jersey Monthly, German Life, French Magazine (UK), Portugal Magazine (UK), Smart Meetings Magazine, Grit, Houston Woman Magazine, Long Weekends, Camping Today, and International Railway Traveler. Websites and online publications have included TravelWeekly.com, AOL Travel, GoWorldTravel.com, GoNomad.com and Galveston.com, for which he wrote blog posts twice monthly for six years. He has traveled extensively throughout North America, the Caribbean and Europe, while also visiting and writing about destinations in Africa, South America and Asia.

Richard’s other specialties are business writing, copywriting and video services including writing, narrating, shooting and editing. His current client includes Kelsey-Seybold Clinic (Houston), where he produces marketing videos. Past assignments have included researching and ghostwriting corporate history books on two prominent Philadelphia-area companies – Commerce Bancorp, Inc. and Day & Zimmermann, Inc. Others clients have included Methodist Hospital (Houston), GlaxoSmithKline, Mercy Health System (Philadelphia), Pep Boys Auto as well as advertising and public relations agencies. He has been published in The Philadelphia Business Journal.

Before that, Richard worked for 15 years as a television reporter and anchor in Upstate New York, and Austin and Houston, Texas. He started his journalism career as a reporter at a suburban Boston daily newspaper for three years after earning a Masters in Journalism from Boston University.