About me

I'm a writer, blogger, and humorist based out of Red Bank, New Jersey. My main interest is how to live well in the 21st century, but that sends me in all directions -- I write about travel, politics, culture, and occasionally, I make jokes. I run a blog about the intersection of travel, culture, and politics called Fellow Travelers.

Since 2014, I've been working full-time as a professional freelance writer. I'm a writer and Managing Editor at the Matador Network, and I've been published on Business Insider, The Daily Meal, Fox News, Thought Catalog, The Migrationist, Catalyst.cm, and Immigration Impact.

I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to undergrad at Penn State University, where I got my BA in Journalism. Upon graduation, I started traveling the world and blogging about it. For a year, I worked in content creation at an internet marketing firm. I later got a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where I wrote my dissertation on the U.S. conservative media's treatment of the children of undocumented immigrants and how that treatment affected policy. It was very professional and intelligent sounding, and I used words like "discourse" and phrases like "power dynamics."  After that, I worked as the website and blog manager for the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council in Washington, DC, during the 2013 immigration reform push. I've also lived in Beijing and Buenos Aires.

If you Googled me looking for the MMA guy, that's not who I am. That guy is probably me from an alternate universe where I don't suck at sports.

Services I offer

Please feel free to reach out to me in regards to the following services:

  • Writing
    • I specialize in political, travel, and humor writing.
      • My political background is in immigration and human rights, but I have written extensively about climate change and the media, and have written about basically everything else at one point or another.
      • My travel writing focuses on green and ethical travel, but I've dabbled in virtually everything, including writing branded content for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs).
      • My humor background leans a bit too heavily on puns. If someone asks me if I'd like a martini, for example, I like to tell them to "make it a marhuge." Let's be honest: you're not going to hire me as a comedy writer.
  • Content creation
    • Need someone to write newsletter? To ghostwrite blogs for your company's or nonprofit's page? To create nice-looking Wordpress posts? I can do that, and I can do it quick.
  • Editing
    • I'm happy to provide basic copyediting services, or to do more substantive developmental editorial work.
  • Social media work
    • I can help you build a social media strategy as a consultant, or I can simply run your social media pages for you.
  • Telling you you're a good person, and that you're doing the best you can.
    • Stick with it, champ.

I can provide references on request. You can reach out to me at matt.d.hershberger@gmail.com, or you can whisper my name into an ocean breeze*.

*I may be slow to respond if you opt for this method.