National prize for a soulful story
Star Tribune photographer Richard Sennott won a gold medal for best newspaper photography in the 2008 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, which were announced over the weekend. The medal honors “Room for the soul,” a story-and-photo package that Sennott produced in January for the Star Tribune Travel section. Sennott’s photos expressed the intense beauty of the Italian hill country and of the people he met there. The story and trip were tributes to the Sennotts’ daughter, Meghan, who died in a bus crash in Peru in May 2006. Check here for a full list of the awards.


Kerri Westenberg has globe-trotted for National Geographic and other magazines. Now she zips around the region, on the lookout for travel news you can use.
Elizabeth Larsen lived in Salzburg, Austria, and has traveled throughout Europe and the Americas. She can say "diaper," "bottle" and "crib" in four languages.
Troy Melhus has heli-skied on glaciers, dived alongside Monk seals and raced for 24 hours on a mountain bike. All this, and he rarely spends more than $500 on a trip.