American born, London-based Mary Moore Mason was the founding editor of Essentially America in 1994 and continues as editor and editorial director bringing to the publication a steady stream of her own travel features and those she commissions from other writers. At an awards ceremony in London on July 4, 2019 she was given the prestigious Contribution to the Travel Industry award by the Visit USA Association. Over the years she has been given the US Travel Association’s award for the best consumer travel article on the USA, in competition with 150 other journalists from throughout the world, the TravMedia’s Travel Journalist of the Year award, the UK’s Visit USA Association first annual award for her ‘outstanding media contribution’ and a special awards for media excellence from the State of California. She is a former chairman – and the first American one – of the British Guild of Travel Writers and in 2018 achieved her aim of visiting the last two of all 50 US States. In the autumn of 2018 she presided over the 100th issue of Essentially America, the only UK travel magazine to exclusively cover travel to and within North America, and in 2019 she celebrated the 25th anniversary of both the magazine and her editorship of it.
