About us

Local Tourist Ottawa founders Amy and Jessey met way back in September '03, when Carleton University randomly matched them up as roommates. They've been friends ever since. Between the two of them they have visited four continents and 16 countries (and counting), but both feel they haven't explored their home base of Ottawa nearly as much as they should. (Photo Credit: Olivia Johnston)

Local Tourist Ottawa is a space to feature the best of Ottawa and encourage others to share what they believe makes this city great.

Here you will find features on your favourite people, places and things – but most of all – you will find a little bit of motivation to get out and enjoy Canada’s capital.

LTO is a compilation of the editors’ vow to participate more in our own community, as well as our readers’ contributions: as we explore our city, we encourage everyone else to do the same.

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Jessey

Jessey is a writer, content strategist, and the founder of Local Tourist Ottawa. After working as a multimedia and print journalist for various Canadian news outlets, she switched to the non-profit world, managing media and community relations for a national Canadian charitable foundation. Today, she works at an amazing public relations firm with a diverse roster of clients and also helps out at a local non-profit group serving victims of sexual violence. She hails from a small town on Ontario’s Lake Simcoe, but after coming to Ottawa for her journalism degree in 2003, she never left – well, not for more than a couple of months at a time. She lives for spontaneous adventures, conversations that go on for years, the smell of autumn, and singing her guts out in the car.

Amy

Amy is a writer/editor who works for an awesome public relations firm and is the co-founder of LTO. After growing up in a rural Ontario town – where the slogan was “Our village is small, but we love them all” –  she moved to Ottawa for school and hasn’t quite shaken her love for the nation’s capital. She worked as a journalist for nearly five years, largely dealing with stories from Western Canada, before making the leap to PR. With an undergraduate degree in journalism and a master’s in international affairs, she adores everything from the buzz of Parliament Hill to shopping the northern stretch of Dalhousie to exploring Chinatown for the best pho. She believes in optimism, favours the colour orange (but detests orange candy) and never sneezes less than three times.

 

Hilary

Hilary is a journalism student, food blogger and a contributing editor for LTO. She found out about the project back in January, after Jessey commented on her blog asking if she was interested in contributing. The rest was history. Hilary is in her fourth-year of studies at Carleton University and loves writing about her adventures in cooking, baking and exploring, on her blog, Hilary Makes. When she was young, she city-hopped from one northern Ontario mining community to another, but is now happy to call Ottawa her home. She loves consuming cupcakes at a rapid pace, cycling along the city’s beautiful bike paths, chatting with members of Ottawa’s thriving food community and eating copious amounts of bread from Art-is-in Bakery. She also appreciates italicized textand well-designed magazines. She has no idea what is going to happen to her once she graduates next spring, but hopes that no matter where her path takes her (Whitehorse? Monaco?) she will eventually find her way back to Ottawa.