Please Note: Please send your application (cover letter and CV) to [Confidential Information]. If you only submit your application on LinkedIn, it will not be considered. Please the bottom of this listing for full details of what to include in your application letter.
The Role
You're part journalist, part taste maker, part curator. Your job is to go on the ground across Asia, discover experiences and places that are worth knowing about, and turn those discoveries into compelling content and revenue generating listings on Seek Sophie.
You have a clear point of view about what makes a good experience—not just authentic, but also thoughtfully executed. You can spot the difference between sleeping in a bare-bones homestay and staying in a beautifully designed eco-lodge that feels like home, not a hotel. You seek out experiences that feel right: grounded in place and community, but never punitive about comfort or quality. You know that good taste isn't elitist—it's about recognizing when something is well made, well thought through, and worth a traveller's time and money.
You'll work alongside our Business Development team to identify new experiences and partners, but your lens is different: you're asking is this genuinely interesting does it have good taste why does this story matter and who should know about it You'll uncover the angle, the tension, the humanity—and you'll help us decide if what you've found should become a Seek Sophie experience, a magazine feature, an Instagram series, or all three.
Key Responsibilities
Field Research & Curation
- Travel regularly across Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and beyond) to discover stories and experiences: focus bon ethical tourism operators, but also engage conservationists, scientists, craftspeople, community leaders, social enterprises doing meaningful work.
- Curate with a clear eye: seek out experiences that are both authentic to place and thoughtfully executed. Identify operators and guides who have considered quality, comfort, and guest experience carefully—not looking for the cheapest option, but the best option.
- Conduct interviews, observe operations, taste food, stay overnight, and build relationships that move beyond the surface pitch.
- Identify the why and so what behind experiences—what makes them distinctive, worth featuring, grounded in community, and aligned with our values.
- Work with cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks to capture raw material that informs both editorial and marketing work.
Cross-Functional Collaboration with Business Development
- Partner closely with the BD team before, during, and after field trips to align on what to look for: geography, experience type, operator profile, quality markers, sustainability.
- Help BD understand not just what operators offer, but who they are—their values, story, vision—so partnerships are built on genuine fit.
- Flag emerging themes, underserved geographies, or new experience categories for the BD roadmap.
Content Creation & Marketing Storytelling
- Write for our magazine: long-form profiles, destination guides, ethics deep-dives, seasonal guides, operator spotlights.
- Contribute to broader marketing narrative: assist digital marketing team with Instagram captions, newsletter stories, campaign angles, and media pitches.
- Shape how we talk about new destinations and experiences.
Building & Maintaining Relationships
- Develop ongoing relationships with guides, operators, conservationists, and community leaders.
- Become a trusted connector between our platform and the people making travel meaningful.
- Maintain a database of story leads, operator contacts, and thematic areas.
What We're Looking For
Core Experience
- 5-8 years of experience in journalism, travel writing, documentary research, or editorial storytelling
- Proven ability to conduct research, ask good questions, and turn raw material into compelling narrative
- Very good familiarity with Southeast Asia & demonstrated ability to embed quickly in unfamiliar cultures
- Extensive travel experience around Asia and other parts of the world with meaningful experiences such as guide hiring and ethical wildlife observation.
Key Attributes
- Taste maker instinct. You have a clear, defensible point of view about quality and authenticity. You can walk into an experience and immediately sense whether it's well-conceived or half-baked. You're not a snob about luxury, but you're discerning about execution. You'd rather feature a thoughtfully run eco-lodge than a bare-bones homestay, and you can articulate exactly why. You recognize the difference between authentic and austere.
- Editorial instinct. You can smell a good story and you know when something feels false.
- Comfort with ambiguity. You're always learning and resourceful.
- Strong writing. Your prose is clear, precise, and alive. You shift registers easily.
- Ethics-first thinking. You ask hard questions about operator practices and environmental impact.
- Practical resourcefulness. You manage your own travel logistics and work independently.
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience working in travel, tourism, or hospitality
- Basic photography or video skills
- Fluency in an Asian language
- Experience with stories on conservation, sustainability and wildlife
- An existing lead list of stories that would fit Seek Sophie's POV on travel
About Seek Sophie
A curated online marketplace for unique experiences across Southeast Asia. We connect travellers with impact-driven local businesses—guides, conservationists, artisans, scientists, and operators—doing extraordinary work.
Why This Role Exists
Finding great experiences isn't just a business development problem—it's a taste-making and storytelling challenge. The best operators aren't always the best marketers. The most compelling stories don't always fit neatly into a business plan. And the experiences that matter most aren't the cheapest—they're the ones that are well-conceived, thoughtfully executed, and genuinely worth a traveller's time.
We need someone on the ground who can curate with a clear eye: who understands the difference between authentic and austere, who can spot quality and execution, and who can help BD understand what's truly distinctive. Someone who can also help Marketing understand why these stories matter beyond the listing page.
You'll help us move beyond curated marketplace speak into real storytelling about the people and places—and the experiences—that are making travel meaningful. You're not just hunting for stories. You're hunting for taste.
Hiring Questions
- Tell us about a story or person you've encountered where you had to dig beneath the surface to understand what was really going on. What did you uncover Why did it matter
- Recommend a lesser-known experience, operator, or destination in Southeast Asia that Seek Sophie should feature. Why is it worth our audience's attention What's your angle
Apply
Send your cover letter (addressing the hiring questions), CV, and portfolio (writing, photos, video, storytelling work) to [HIDDEN TEXT].
