Kate Peterson Art

I’m an author, illustrator, and travel writer based in Lisbon, Portugal.

I’ve written and illustrated two books.
One of my books has been translated into Spanish and Czech, and since I’m a giant travel and languages nerd, that just might be my favorite thing that’s happened in my whole career.
You can also find me on some podcast episodes: You’re Doing Just Fine with Caitlin Hofmeister, Beyond Better with Stacy Ennis, the Unmistakable Creative with Srinivas Rao, and three episodes of the Thoughtful Travel Podcast with Amanda Kendle—episodes 256, 258, and 259.

I’m originally from Montana, which A) is absolutely beautiful, B) means I grew up skiing and getting to visit Yellowstone National Park, and C) has absolutely nothing to do with Hannah Montana.
As a kid, I covered the walls of my bedroom with postcards instead of posters of boy bands. No one is surprised. 🙂
Due to a very unique set of circumstances, I was once on 3 continents in the span of 24 hours (I started in Morocco, flew back to my study abroad base in Marseille to repack and spend the night with my host family, and then flew to Istanbul to meet up with my parents and crossed over to the Asian side of the city. Huzzah!).

When I was a kid, everyone told me I would be a writer. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in English and a Master’s in Literature, and then completely pivoted and started illustrating instead. But after many years of building an illustration business, when we moved to Portugal, I started feeling a serious itch to write again—and after a few incredibly happy years spent dabbling with writing, I’m ready to embrace a creative practice that fully involves both. I don’t know what the illustration side will look like yet, but…
…I’m absolutely loving the writing side, which has taken the form of a travel Substack. It’s still in its early days, but writing about our travel adventures, trip planning, and practical tips for other travelers has completely lit me up! I love it, and I’m so excited to see where it will take us from here. You can find my Substack (and subscribe for free!) below.

When it comes to what I’m working on, I’m never not planning trips. This is a huge year of travel for us, so I’m currently planning a trip to Japan, a train trip from Bangkok to Singapore to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, a Christmas trip to London, and a trip to Egypt in the spring. What a time to be alive!
Finally, I’m also working on learning Japanese. I’m fully obsessed with Japan—the food, the culture, the art and design and aesthetics, all of it!—and with our second trip to Japan coming up, I’m hoping to use it to really get us off the beaten path. To do so, I’m using a combination of Anki, Bunpro, Duolingo, listening podcasts, and news articles online for reading practice. After we get back, I’ll be writing all about my language learning adventures and how it impacted the trip on Substack. Stay tuned!