Jill Robinson

Writer, Photographer, Adventurer

books

A New Book Before the New Year

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Traveler's Atlas of the World

At the end of each year, I’m usually out of breath from a full schedule of travel, work, and family. While 2025 included plenty of stressful national news, it also had a Goldilocks-inspired “just right” amount of work and travel, allowing me to enjoy being at home, as well. 

I’m happy to announce that I have a new book out!

Recently published by National Geographic, The Traveler’s Atlas of the World covers every country in the world, includes 250 illustrated maps to inspire your travels, and offers expert advice for must-see sights and experiences. I was lucky enough to be among the 47 writers who contributed to this behemoth coffee-table book, and the 18 countries I covered range from Finland to Honduras. Get one for yourself, and gift another to a traveling friend.

Before 2025 ends, here is a list of my most recent articles, in case you missed them when they first came out:

For National Geographic: I talked with Antoni Porowski of Queer Eye fame about his belief that food can tell a person about who they are, and his new travel series, No Taste Like Home. It’s worth catching on Disney+ and Hulu if you’re looking for some culinary travel inspiration.

For Condé Nast Traveler: I reviewed some excellent places to stay near Redwood National and State Parks. The Coast Redwood landscape in California is among my favorite landscapes in the world. If you haven’t experienced this region, put it on your list for 2026.

For Sierra: I covered the strand-feeding behavior of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins in South Carolina’s Lowcountry region, and what people are doing to keep the population safe from human disturbance.

For the Saturday Evening Post: I talked with acclaimed South Carolina quiltmaker Cookie Washington about her artistic journey, her preference for repurposed material, and what inspired her to help keep the craft of Gullah Geechee rag quilting alive.

For the Nob Hill Gazette: I revisited my family’s Alaska summer trip to Tutka Bay Lodge. The lodge, about a 30-minute boat ride from the fishing town of Homer, is a luxurious home base deep within the wild with incredible gourmet dinners and an ideal launching point for adventures.

Here’s to a new year with positive inspiration, the comfort of family and friends, and the opportunity for adventures both near and far. 

San Francisco Scavenger Answers!

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Thanks to those of you who have purchased my recent book, San Francisco Scavenger, and used it to learn a little history and solve the clues through 19 different neighborhoods across the 49 square miles of San Francisco. You may have noticed that there are no answers in the book, and that’s because my publisher, Reedy Press, preferred to allow each city’s author to share the answers as they chose.

Since the book has been out in the world for nearly a year, it’s time to share those answers. Feel free to write them in your book, print the list out and keep it within the pages, or even link to this post so you can continue to check your answers.

Please do review the book, because positive reviews help reach more potential customers. I’d appreciate your help!

And now, the answers for San Francisco Scavenger:

Castro

  1. Castro Theatre
  2. Rainbow Honor Walk
  3. Cliff’s Variety
  4. Pink Triangle Memorial
  5. Harvey Milk’s old camera shop
  6. GLBT Historical Society Museum
  7. ‘Gear Up’ mural outside Moby Dick
  8. ‘Celebration of Love’ mural
  9. Hot Cookie
  10. Rainbow Crosswalk
  11. Twin Peaks Tavern
  12. Seward Street Slides
  13. Randall Museum
  14. Alfred E. Clarke Museum
  15. McCormick House

Chinatown

  1. Old St. Mary’s Cathedral
  2. Dragon Gate
  3. Golden Gate Bakery
  4. Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory
  5. Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial
  6. R&G Lounge
  7. ‘Be Like Water’ Bruce Lee mural
  8. Tien Hou Temple
  9. Kong Chow Temple
  10. Clay Street Center/Chinese Historical Society of America
  11. Sam Wo Restaurant
  12. Sun Yat Sen statue
  13. Mister Jiu’s
  14. Chinatown/Him Mark Lai Branch Library
  15. First Public School Site
  16. Old Telephone Exchange
  17. Eastern Bakery
  18. ‘Fufufufufu’ mural
  19. Hang Ah Dim Sum Tea House

Civic Center

  1. San Francisco City Hall
  2. War Memorial Opera House
  3. Asian Art Museum
  4. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
  5. Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
  6. California State Building
  7. Don Lee Building
  8. Masonic Temple
  9. Orpheum Theatre
  10. San Francisco Public Library (Main)
  11. Great American Music Hall
  12. SFJAZZ Center
  13. St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
  14. Sarcophagus of Thomas Starr King
  15. ‘Large Four Piece Reclining Figure’ by Henry Moore

Downtown

  1. Pflueger Building
  2. Ruth Asawa’s San Francisco Fountain
  3. Phelan Building
  4. Dewey Monument
  5. Toni Rembe Theater (Geary Theater)
  6. Curran Theatre
  7. Golden Gate Theatre
  8. Westin St. Francis
  9. Tunnel Top
  10. Alcazar Theatre
  11. Engine Company No. 2
  12. Flood Building
  13. Halladie Plaza
  14. Morris Building
  15. Pacific Building
  16. Savings Union Bank
  17. Beacon Grand Hotel
  18. Britex
  19. The Warfield
  20. Glide Memorial Church
  21. Notre Dame des Victoires Church
  22. Samuels Clock
  23. Maltese Falcon Alleyway

Embarcadero/Fisherman’s Wharf

  1. Exploratorium
  2. Vaillancourt Fountain
  3. Ferry Building
  4. ‘Mohandas K. Gandhi’
  5. Levi’s Plaza
  6. Fuller Company Glass Warehouse
  7. Old Ship Saloon
  8. Jean Dubuffet ‘La Chiffonniere’
  9. Beltline Railroad Roundhouse
  10. Pier 7
  11. Sea Lion docks
  12. Musée Mechanique
  13. ‘Open Heart’
  14. Fisherman’s Wharf
  15. Aquarium of the Bay
  16. Hyde Street Pier
  17. Scoma’s Restaurant
  18. ‘Skygate’
  19. Otis Elevator Company

Financial District

  1. ‘Transcendence’ AKA “Banker’s Heart’
  2. Heineman Building
  3. Bank of California Building
  4. Transamerica Pyramid
  5. Hobart Building
  6. Pony Express plaques
  7. Murial Castonis ‘Corporate Goddesses’
  8. Lotta’s Fountain
  9. California Admission Day Monument
  10. Hotaling Place
  11. Alvinza Hayward (Kohl) Building
  12. Bank of Italy Building/Clay-Montgomery Building
  13. Buick Building/Tadich Grill
  14. Crown Zellerbach Building
  15. Federal Reserve Bank
  16. Flatiron Building
  17. Fugazi Bank Building
  18. Matson Building and Annex
  19. Mechanics’ Institute
  20. Mechanics Monument
  21. Empire Park
  22. Hotaling Building
  23. Hippodrome Building
  24. Bob Woodward ‘Dandelion Fountain’
  25. First U.S. Branch Mint
  26. Pacific Coast Stock Exchange
  27. Palace Hotel

Golden Gate Park

  1. California Academy of Sciences
  2. Japanese Tea Garden
  3. de Young Museum
  4. Conservatory of Flowers
  5. Koret Children’s Playground
  6. Portals of the Past
  7. Faery Door
  8. Druid Circle stones
  9. Dutch Windmill
  10. Spreckels Temple of Music
  11. Gustave Dore ‘The Vintage Vase’
  12. Beach Chalet
  13. Andy Goldsworthy ‘Drawn Stone’
  14. Peter Coffin ‘Untitled’
  15. Garfield Memorial
  16. National AIDS Memorial Grove
  17. Herschell-Spillman Carousel
  18. Rideout Fountain
  19. Chinese Pavilion at Blue Heron Lake
  20. Blue Heron Boathouse
  21. Arthur Putnam ‘Sphinx’
  22. ‘Pool of Enchantment’
  23. ‘La Rose des Vents’
  24. ‘Apple Cider Press’
  25. Bronze Lion
  26. Bronze Sundial
  27. Miguel de Cervantes Memorial
  28. ‘The Doughboy’
  29. ‘Leonidas’ AKA Roman Gladiator
  30. McLaren Lodge
  31. ‘Pioneer Mother’

Haight-Ashbury

  1. Piedmont Boutique legs
  2. Buena Vista Park tombstones
  3. Free Gold Watch
  4. Duboce Parkway mural
  5. Clunie House
  6. Phelps House
  7. Spencer House
  8. Haight Ashbury Free Clinic
  9. Grateful Dead House
  10. Toronado Pub
  11. Amoeba Music

Japantown/Western Addition

  1. Peace Pagoda
  2. Ruth Asawa, Origami Fountains
  3. Kinokuniya SF
  4. Webster Street Bridge/Japantown Fan
  5. Soko Hardware
  6. California Japantown Monument
  7. Kinmon Gakuen
  8. Japanese YWCA/Issei Women’s Building
  9. Old St. Patrick’s Church
  10. Painted Ladies
  11. The Fillmore

The Marina

  1. Wave Organ
  2. Palace of Fine Arts
  3. Carnegie Library, Golden Gate Valley Branch
  4. North End Police Station
  5. Pumping Station No. 2
  6. Fort Mason Center
  7. Marina District Lighthouse

Mission

  1. Mitchell’s Ice Cream
  2. Winfield Street Slides
  3. 826 Valencia
  4. Mission Dolores
  5. Balmy Alley murals
  6. Golden Fire Hydrant
  7. Clarion Alley murals
  8. Carnegie Library, Mission Branch
  9. El Capitan Theatre and Hotel
  10. Dog Eared Books
  11. Girls Club
  12. National Guard Armory and Arsenal
  13. New Mission Theater
  14. Trinity Presbyterian Church
  15. Victoria Theatre
  16. Women’s Building/MaestraPeace mural
  17. Tartine Bakery
  18. La Taqueria
  19. Cypress Street murals
  20. Carlos Santana mural
  21. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
  22. El Rio
  23. Zeitgeist

Nob Hill

  1. Bohemian Club
  2. Nob Hill Café
  3. Grace Cathedral Labyrinth
  4. Grace Cathedral
  5. Fountain of the Turtles
  6. Henri Leon Graber ‘Dancing Sprites’
  7. Swan Oyster Depot
  8. Cable Car Museum
  9. Fairmont Hotel
  10. The Ritz-Carlton
  11. Intercontinental Mark Hopkins
  12. Amelie
  13. Stanford Court
  14. fnnch bear mural
  15. Tony Bennett ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’
  16. Chambord Apartments
  17. Jones Street Water Tank
  18. Flood Mansion
  19. Glazer-Keating House

North Beach/Telegraph Hill

  1. City Lights Bookstore
  2. Kerouac Alley Zapatista mural
  3. Veruvio
  4. Colombo Building
  5. ‘Language of the Birds’
  6. Comstock Saloon
  7. Tosca Café
  8. Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Café
  9. Saints Peter and Paul Church
  10. Benjamin Franklin statue
  11. Joe DiMaggio Playground
  12. Columbus Tower/Sentinel Building
  13. Liguria Bakery
  14. Caffe Trieste
  15. Molinari Delicatessen
  16. Bimbo’s 365 Club
  17. Coit Tower
  18. Pasquale’s Tower
  19. Filbert Street Steps

Pacific Heights

  1. Tobin House
  2. Haas-Lilienthal House
  3. ‘Migrant Heart’
  4. Spreckels Mansion
  5. Atherton House
  6. Belden House
  7. Bliss Residence
  8. Bourn Mansion
  9. Bransten House
  10. Carnegie Library, Presidio Branch
  11. Casebolt House
  12. Chambern Mansion
  13. Dallam-Merritt House
  14. Ellinwood Residence
  15. Engine Company No. 23
  16. Gibbs House
  17. Grabhorn Press Building
  18. Macedonia Baptist Church
  19. Payne Residence
  20. Schubert Hall
  21. Stanyan Residence
  22. Swedenborgian Church
  23. Temple Sherith Israel
  24. Walker House
  25. Whittier Mansion
  26. Wilford House
  27. Mrs. Doubtfire House

Presidio

  1. Golden Gate Bridge
  2. Andy Goldsworthy ‘Wood Line’
  3. Battery Chamberlin
  4. Hopper’s Hands
  5. Andy Goldsworthy ‘Spire’
  6. Yoda Fountain
  7. Lombard Gate
  8. Fort Point
  9. Warming Hut
  10. Presidio Tunnel Tops
  11. Lodge at the Presidio

Richmond/Lincoln Park

  1. Camera Obscura
  2. Sutro Baths ruins
  3. Fort Miley batteries
  4. ‘The Thinker’
  5. Legion of Honor
  6. Lands End Lookout
  7. USS San Francisco Memorial
  8. ‘Pax Jerusalem’
  9. ‘The Holocaust’
  10. Jefferson Airplane House
  11. Campfire Girls Building
  12. Carnegie Library, Richmond Branch
  13. Lincoln Park Steps
  14. Green Apple Books
  15. Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant

Russian Hill

  1. Alhambra Theatre
  2. Engine Company No. 31
  3. Feusier Octagon House
  4. Haslett Warehouse
  5. Pioneer Woolen Mills & D. Ghirardelli Company
  6. Macondray Lane
  7. San Francisco Art Institute
  8. Ina Coolbrith Park
  9. Waldo Alley signpole
  10. Lombard Street curves
  11. Maritime Museum
  12. Cable Car Turnaround @ Hyde
  13. Buena Vista Café
  14. Ruth Asawa ‘Andrea’s Fountain’
  15. Ghirardelli Square

SoMa/South Beach

  1. Leroy King Carousel
  2. South Beach Shoreline
  3. ‘Gods and Goddesses of Baseball’
  4. ‘Sea Change’
  5. ‘Cupid’s Span’
  6. ‘Willie Mays’ at Oracle Park
  7. ‘Caruso’s Dream’
  8. St. Patrick’s Catholic Church
  9. Audiffred Building
  10. Hearst Building
  11. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
  12. Museum of the African Diaspora
  13. Oracle Park
  14. MLK Memorial
  15. Mission Plaza Fountains
  16. Ruth Asawa ‘Aurora’
  17. Engine Company No. 9 & Fireboat Company No. 1
  18. Old U.S. Mint
  19. Rincon Annex Port Office
  20. United States Post Office and Courthouse
  21. Contemporary Jewish Museum
  22. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
  23. Hotel Utah Saloon
  24. Tide poles
  25. San Francisco Railway Museum
  26. Red’s Java House
  27. Bloody Thursday memorial

Sunset

  1. 16th Avenue tiled steps
  2. Hidden Garden stairs
  3. San Francisco Zoo
  4. Java Beach
  5. Outerlands
  6. Doggie Diner sign
  7. Earthquake refugee shack
  8. Moss Flats Building

Catching Up

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As I take a brief break from my travels this year, I realize I haven’t sent an update on my work. One of my greatest challenges in this industry (or, really, at all) is self-promotion. I’m never completely comfortable talking about myself, and I usually get it over with as soon as possible.

Here are a few examples of my work this year:

Meet our 2024 Travelers of the Year for National Geographic. It’s always wonderful to work with the travel editorial team, and we selected an incredible list of nine game-changing travelers to influence those interested in making a difference.

After an Injury, I Embraced Soft Adventures for Shondaland. During a trip to Vancouver Island after ACL surgery, I had to take a slower path. It turns out that I’m better at varying my speed than I thought I would be.

Aloha Spirit for The Saturday Evening Post. The new era of tourism in Hawaiʻi encourages visitors to leave the archipelago better than they found it. And, it’s about time.

How I Got Over My Hatred of Las Vegas for Fodor’s Travel. It took traveling with my own wolfpack to let go of my dislike for the city, and enjoy it for what it is.

First-Time Backpacking Basics for Sierra. If you’re ready to move on from car-camping, learn from my mistakes and do it right.

In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain for Robb Report Australia & New Zealand. A new base-camp for adventure in New Zealand lets visitors feel that they have an entire national park to themselves.

Cruise Portugal’s River of Gold Aboard the Avalon Alegria for Nob Hill Gazette. It’s no wonder it seems that everyone is going to Portugal right now.

Beyond the Beauty for Oceania Cruises Your World. The mana of the Islands of Tahiti touches nearly everything, and I felt so lucky to be able to write this story.

Stay tuned for more article and book news soon! In the meantime, if you haven’t yet purchased my book, San Francisco Scavenger, this is a great time to do so. My publisher didn’t include the answers to the clues in the Scavenger series of books, preferring to let each author decide how they shared them. On Thursday, August 15, I’ll post them all. You can still test your wits without referring to the answer key, but now you can check to see if you’re right. If you already have the book and haven’t yet left a review on Amazon, please do me a huge favor and click the link to do so. Thank you!

A Year of Books

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In the past couple years, I’ve worked on three book projects, all of which were published in 2023.

I co-authored Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted: A Culinary Adventure with 60 Recipes from Around the World. Gordon and his team wrote the recipes and I wrote all the rest. The book was published by National Geographic in April.

I contributed to Great Outdoors U.S.A.: 1,000 Adventures Across All 50 States. Along with 9 other outdoor writers, I covered some of the best outdoor experiences across the country (my states were North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee). The book was published by National Geographic in August.

I wrote San Francisco Scavenger: The Ultimate Search for San Francisco’s Hidden Treasures. Follow along through 19 different neighborhoods to solve more than 300 rhyming clues highlighting the city’s classic and quirky sites. The book was published by Reedy Press in September.

Join me at any of my upcoming book events in October and November.

Wednesday, October 18
San Francisco Past and Present with Alec Scott
6 p.m.
Mechanics’ Institute, 77 Post St., San Francisco

Thursday, October 26
Book Talk and Signing
7 p.m.
Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Sunday, November 19
Book Talk and Signing
2 p.m.
Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco

More events to come…

Renewed Focus

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One thing I started just before the pandemic, in early 2020, was to reframe the kinds of stories I wrote about. It was always flattering when someone said that I was a prolific writer, but focusing on the sheer number made me feel like something was missing. Instead of pitching stories to get work, I decided to pitch pieces that I genuinely cared about.

Here are a few recent examples:

In Polynesia, tattoos are more than skin deep for National Geographic. As we consider the difference between honoring and appropriating a culture, how should travelers who aren’t part of that culture get a tattoo respectfully?

Three Perfect Days: The Islands of Tahiti for Hemispheres. Trying to write a 3-day guide to Tahiti travel was challenging, but I’d do it again in a second.

A Grammy-nominated New Orleans Trumpet Player Talks Mardi Gras, and What Music Means to the Crescent City for Travel + Leisure. Right before Mardi Gras, I talked with Branden Lewis about one of my favorite cities in the world.

Redwood National and State Parks Guide: The Best Tree-Lined Hikes, Camping, and Cycling Routes for Conde Nast Traveler. Together, these four parks protect nearly half of the world’s old-growth coast redwoods.

British Columbia’s Best-Kept Secret for AAA Explorer. Slowing down to appreciate nature and Nuxalk culture in the Bella Coola Valley—a remote region in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest.

In book news, I co-authored Gordon Ramsay’s Uncharted: A Culinary Adventure with 60 Recipes from Around the World. Gordon and his team wrote the recipes and I wrote all the rest. The book was published in April.

Stay tuned for more article and book news soon!