Hosting With Heart

In this milestone 100th episode of Hosting With Heart, Jen Clark and partner Kirstie Innes-Will reflect on almost four years of what has become a dearly-loved, phenomenally successful podcast and all they've learned along the way, along with Jen's incredibly exciting plans to launch a new, ethical accommodation booking platform, Heartful. For those who've followed the Hosting With Heart journey si...

My guest on today's penultimate episode of season 7 of Hosting With Heart is author, travel writer and environmentalist Nina Karnikowski. Having worked as a travel writer for the past decade, Nina now writes about travel that conserves, educates and uplifts more than it destroys, and aims to demonstrate how travel can help solve societal and environmental problems. The author of three hugely succe...

Having finished a journalism degree and set off on a post-graduation gap year abroad, Simone Williams eventually indulged her Mum's call to come back home to Australia and secure herself a job. And that she did, although not as a reporter, but as a flight attendant for Australia's beloved Qantas - a career she anticipated might last a year at best but that ultimately morphed into a 30 year stint t...

 It was the acceptance that she had chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) that led Sarah Williams to seek out a lifestyle and career that was more compatible with her health and values. After many years working in the fast-paced, corporate-like higher education sector in urban environments, Sarah had to re-evaluate her work-life balance, or lack thereof. A subsequent relapse of CFS drew a firm line in th...

As our recent conversation progressed, I came to the realisation that Bel du Bois, co-owner of Queensland's Grain Shed Retreat, could almost be deemed the perfect heartful host. Having a few years back moved to the Darling Downs region a couple of hours south-west of Brisbane, Bel fortuitously went on to reconnect with an old school friend Neil, a former dog trainer and behavioural therapist. A hi...

Sunny South in so many ways epitomises what heartful hosting is all about. A former teacher, she and husband Brett have forged a deeply enriching life for themselves in the Hawkesbury River region about an hour north of Sydney, one that has been built around a love of art, creativity, community and hospitality. With a background in restoring and renovating historic properties and having determined...

Back in 2018, the town of Tanunda, located in the heart of South Australia's beautiful Barossa Valley, had no idea that two passionate Melburnians, Max Niggl and Neale Gerlach, were about to make it a central part of their life story. With surprisingly similar personal backgrounds, Neale originally from South Australia and Max from Victoria, this enterprising couple met in 2013 in Melbourne, forgi...

Much like many others who have embraced and excelled at the practice of hosting, Madeleine Lawler wore many different hats prior to opening the doors to the completely captivating Tasmanian property now known as The Post Office, Waratah. After early stints in the hair modelling and hairdressing sector, she moved to the UK for a period where she spent time working in Michelin-starred restaurants an...

When at its very best, hosting is an endeavour underpinned and driven by one core thing - empathy. And that's something my guest today, James Hudson, had in droves when it came to establishing his hugely successful Byron Bay eco retreat Blackbird. After many years working in Sydney's fast-paced and often gruelling hospitality sector and with a young family in tow, James reached a point where he de...

What do you get when you pair a talented illustrator and designer with an experienced and resourceful carpenter? The answer is simple - Mill Cabin, an understated yet wildly appealing bush retreat based in Crackenback in the New South Wales' Snowy Mountains. Back in 2019, when owners Niki and Trent first secured the plot of land that would go on to house the cabin, formerly the site of a timber mi...

 If there's one word that sums up husband and wife team Michelle and Murray Prior's hosting ethos, it's respect. Respect for the environment, for history and for knowledge. Having relocated to the Gundaroo area in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands region just over 5 years ago, this industrious couple and their two young daughters quickly set about turning the property's former standalone bar...

Kristy Plumridge and her husband Neil are a complementary match in more ways than one. With Kristy's background in marketing and event management and Neil's background in finance and management consulting, it was with a creative yet strategic ethos that they approached the construction of a 10 year family plan that would ultimately herald a complete life change, moving from city to country. Having...

Whether it's running one of Sydney's most famed pie shops or managing an award-winning, self-built cabin for guests in the stunning Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, Nicole Landgrebe is a woman who intimately knows the value and rewards of good, old-fashioned hard work. Having made the decision to handover the reigns of their thriving Sydney-based small business to another owner, in 2019 N...

Edwina Bartholomew is no stranger to the art of juggling. Along with her successful career as a journalist and newsreader with Channel Seven's Sunrise program, she also has a flourishing side-gig as a short-term accommodation host. In 2016, Edwina and her husband, Neil Varcoe discovered an original 1890s sandstone property on 100 acres in the New South Wales Capertee Valley. They have meticulously...

To me, there's a single word that immediately comes to mind when describing Clare Hillier's approach to hosting - 'artful'. With a professional background working for various media platforms, along with running her own brand storytelling consultancy, Clare and her partner Sean in 2020 purchased a 70's era house in Blairgowrie in Victoria's ever-popular Mornington Peninsula region, with hopes to tr...

In life, there are two kinds of people - the sayers and the doers - and architect and leading climate adaptation specialist Digby Hall falls firmly in the latter camp. Having spent 30 years in the Australian property sector as a sustainability specialist and advocate, Digby works as a consultant specialising in managing climate risk in property assets through design, sustainability, adaptation and...

Like many before them, it was the discovery of and love for a particular oceanside plot of land in Brooms Head, New South Wales, that ultimately led to the realisation of a dream future forever-home for couple Katie Clarke and Matty Neeson. Having early in their relationship stumbled across the land that would ultimately become the wabi-sabi inspired, self-contained house now known as Boketto - me...

When it comes to running short-term accommodation, outdoor spaces are almost always lower on the priority list than a property's interior, but award-winning, Victorian-based landscape designer and seasoned host Kathleen Murphy is determined to change that. After a brief stint in the corporate world, Kathleen trained in horticulture in the Dublin Botanical Gardens in Ireland, completing further stu...

The Wiradjuri word Girragirra means to 'be well, happy and merry' and it was with this spirit in mind that fourth generation regenerative farmers Wendy Muffet and her husband Kim built their luxury eco retreat of the same name, located in the regional New South Wales town of Forbes. With their children having all left home, Wendy and Kim embarked on securing a piece of land for themselves that the...

By the time I'd finished chatting with Tess Astbury and Ben Slore, the incredibly resourceful and consciously-minded couple responsible for establishing Huntingdon Tier Forest Retreat in Dysart, Tasmania, I'd realised this pair were truly a couple of kindred spirits. With an unflinching commitment to sustainability and repurposing of materials, Ben and Tess, via Facebook marketplace, procured a de...

We all know the saying 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going', however in Kerry Williams case, when the going got tough for her travel-loving Mum, who has Mutliple Sclerosis, she got busy starting a business. Kerry discovered the hard way that there was an enormous gap in the market for genuinely accessible accommodation. She'd stayed with her Mum in short-term accommodation that claimed...

Like many before her, it was being a Mum that ultimately led to Tania Walker's foray into hosting. Originally from Perth, she eventually moved to Melbourne where she met and married her husband Matt. When her daughter Tess was a toddler, she met a local mum at the gym who happened to run a leading Victorian holiday rental business, which Tania was fortunate enough to be able to help out with. Fast...

Steph King knows a thing or two about Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula. After all, she's lived there for most of her life and is part of a fourth-generation family known for cultivating consciously-minded businesses focused on giving back to this beautiful coastal region. About 8 years ago Steph and her landscape designer husband Jason landed their dream property in the delightful seaside town of Oc...

Renee Thurston epitomises, lives and breathes the term creative entrepreneur. This is a woman as industrious and hardworking as they come. Having over her life run many businesses of varying scales and sizes, she's now finally landed where, as a child, she said she'd always land and that is in the world of professional photography. Just prior to that, however, she had been operating a short-term p...

It's fitting in more ways than one that my guest on today's episode of Hosting With Heart, Rachel Walters, named her property as a welcome gesture towards those she shares a kinship with, because following our chat I also felt a real kinship with her. Rachel, owner and manager of The Kindred, a warm and stylishly decorated apartment based in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, is a Sydney based former...