Sojourn is an independent publication about hospitality, but probably not in the way you might expect.
I started it after noticing how often we talk about hotels yet how rarely we talk about the people they are actually built for.
We discuss the rooms, restaurants, architecture, amenities, and destinations. All of those things matter. But what interests me most is what sits beneath them: how a place makes us feel, what it allows us to experience, and why some hotels stay with us long after we leave.
The word Sojourn comes from Old French and means ‘a temporary stay.’ I’ve always loved that idea. We may only enter a place for a few days, but something about it can completely shift our perspective, change our pace while there, or perhaps show us a different way of living.
That is what I explore here.
The Traveler First lens
Sojourn looks at hospitality by starting with the person, not the property.
Who is this traveler?
What are they ‘arriving’ with?
What are they looking for beyond a room and/or a destination?
What might this particular place make possible for them?
I call this the Traveler First lens: starting with who, not where.
It is a way of looking beyond rooms, amenities, and traditional guest profiles to understand the person a hotel is really for, and the human need it serves.
Because we choose places, and places influence us in return.
What you’ll find here
Interpretations
Essays about the ideas and changes shaping hospitality.
This is where I explore traveler behavior, identity, atmosphere, service, luxury, design, culture, and the assumptions the industry may need to reconsider.
Hotels, Interpreted
A closer look at individual hotels and what they reveal.
These are not reviews or traditional hotel profiles. I use each hotel as a way to explore a larger idea: what it understands about people, how it creates a sense of place, and what others in hospitality might learn from it.
In Conversation
Interviews with founders, operators, designers, and people shaping hospitality.
The conversations go beyond career stories to explore the ideas behind the work, the lessons learned along the way, and the questions the industry should be thinking about more deeply.
If you are building, operating, designing, investing in, or simply thinking differently about hospitality, I hope Sojourn helps you see both travelers and hotels a little more clearly.
Welcome to Sojourn.