Amanda Jones is a writer and photographer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work appears in Travel & Leisure, Town & Country, Condé Nast Traveller, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Times, the Sunday Observer, the San Francisco Chronicle, Islands, Organic Style, Food & Wine and Vogue Australia, among others. Her short stories have been published in several travel anthologies, including Salon.com's Wanderlust, and Lonely Planet's The Kindness of Strangers and By The Seat of My Pants. Amanda has done story development for National Geographic television, and her photography series Timeless, black and white photographs of African tribal peoples, was exhibited at the United Nations film festival. Amanda teaches travel writing, and is frequently invited to speak at literary conferences, workshops and festivals.

In 2004, Amanda founded Potentia Media, a company committed to delivering the facts about crucial social issues in hip, accessible ways. She is currently working on Potentia, a coffee-table book about how educating girls and investing in women improves the quality of life for people everywhere. www.potentiamedia.com

Amanda has covered stories in Angola, Australia, Bali, Botswana, Borneo, Brazil, Chile, Cook Islands, Dominican Republic, Easter Island, England, Ethiopia, Fiji, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Spain, Tahiti, Thailand, Tanzania, Tonga, Turkey, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zanzibar.

Amanda was born and educated in Auckland, New Zealand.