Click here to view Marie Barbieri's full freelance profile on Journalism.co.uk.

Why did you choose to become a freelancer?
I was running my own business as a mobile complementary therapist in the UK and began writing in the field of health. Being an insatiable traveller, I entered a national magazine's travel-writing competition, more for the pleasure than anything else. To my great delight, I won first prize and continued to be regularly commissioned by the editor of that magazine. Within months, I had set up a successful freelance travel writing and photography business, which I continue to run today.
 
Do you specialise in any particular field and what areas do you write about?
I am highly adaptable to writing within various editorial genres (from migration reports to celebrity interviews). This diversity is the beauty of being freelance. However, my main fields of expertise lie within wildlife, nature and outdoor travel. Some of my recent assignments have had me planting my boots on all-weather rambles along the crumpled folds of the Flinders Ranges, on the Southern Ocean-laundered Kangaroo Island, expending adrenaline on Hamilton Island and hiking the mountainous jungles of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
 
I often write regional guides and walking features on national and conservation parks, as well as on destinations explored from the two wheels of a bike. A couple of these trips had me pedalling the 20 mile-long coast to Vines Rail Trail in South Australia and the 23 mile-long Gold Coast Oceanway in Queensland.
 
One of my most sensory travel assignments was hiking along the otherworldly Bay of Fires region in northeast Tasmania. Blankets of sheet-white loneliness drape the bays, themselves smattered with burnished-red boulders that explode like cinders from each rocky headland along the 22 miles of quartz-rich, dune-flanked beaches. Forester kangaroos, albatrosses and pied oystercatchers are usually the only other souls sharing the pristine Bay of Fires.
 
I also absorbed the raw natural wilderness of the Australian outback when exploring Lake Eyre in near-full capacity. To see this lake (usually a crystallised salt pan the size of Holland) filling with waters from the Queensland floods, and flocked to by millions of migratory waterbirds, is a memory that will never evaporate! And my camera goes everywhere with me. My images are equally as important as my words.
 
Which publications have you been published in?
I am highly privileged to be repeatedly commissioned by some fantastic editors with whom I maintain excellent working relationships. I have been published in a range of in-flight magazines (Jetstar, Islands, Paradise, Baltic Outlook, Going Places and Yeahbaby) and also write for various UK and Australian titles such as: Australia & New Zealand, Italia, Wanderlust (SA Supplement), Luxury Travel & Style, Holidays for Couples, Arrivals + Departures, Style Tropical North Queensland, Australian Coast & Country, Great Walks, Australian Geographic Passport and Stamford Life (the in-room publication of the Stamford Hotel group). And I am currently negotiating commissions with several new titles.
 
I am also a complementary health columnist for Bicycling Australia, and I have been an occasional contributor to: Australian Natural Health, Fitness First, Nature & Health, Yoga Magazine and Massage Magazine.
 
Which articles, in which publication, are you the most proud of?
My competition-winning article on Mykonos still holds the heartstrings tightest. However, as the years go on, I repeatedly find new experiences that win me over. Published in Australia & New Zealand Magazine, I most enjoyed my trip into the Australian desert to write a regional guide on the Red Centre. The experience bowled me over entirely. This harsh environment bursts into life during spring; wildlife becomes active and highly visible; on an outback road I first sighted the thorny devil (an extraordinary species, even by Australian standards). And Australia's iconic monolith becomes a supersized stage of tumbling waterfalls after the rains hit. It's a most spiritual sight.
 
What are the best and worst aspects of freelancing?
Freelancing allows a writer and photographer to truly own their creative process. To devise your own ideas from scratch, turn them into engaging feature outlines, submit them to an editor, have them snapped up and commissioned, to finally seeing your experiences published in colour across the pages of a glossy magazine is truly rewarding. And it's pretty easy for me, as I'm a painfully organised, passionate and self-motivated person, so I have no qualms with working alone for most of my days.
 
The worst aspect of freelancing is always the restriction to your self-managed budget. Not earning a regular salary really is the only set of reigns that all-too-frequently keep me from galloping off every time an idea strikes. Having to constantly watch the purse strings is tough!
 
Do you have any interesting anecdotes in relation to your experience as a freelancer?
One of the quirkiest scenes I somehow became part of occurred on the road trip up to Lake Eyre. From our tour bus, we happened upon a scruffy lone traveller traipsing along the side of the red-dusty road with two camels. It turned out that this nomad, named Klaus Menzel, had been walking around Australia for an incredible 16 years! Klaus, Willy and Snowy pull a sawn-off wagon, fitted with a solar-powered fridge, simply following the seasons. After a few words, and a pat of his fly-infested camels, down the South Australian desert he continued to plod, into the sunset. Only in the Australian outback!