Abby Higgins

Abby Higgins is a travel writer and journalist who splits her time between Kenya and her hometown in Washington State. She speaks French and Swahili and received her BA in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College. In addition to writing, she has spent the past three years working in development and women’s rights in East Africa. You can read more of her writing at abbyhiggins.com.
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How to solve a slum: Poor residents push back on government housing plans

by Abby Higgins
In the third installment of Slum Rising, Seattle journalist Abby Higgins explores the promising and controversial housing solutions in Kenya’s largest slum. 
Apr 8, 2013

Slum Rising: Pushed to the brink, slums become hotbeds of innovation

by Abby Higgins
In the second installment of Slum Rising, Seattle journalist Abby Higgins explores 3rd world solutions for 1st world problems. 
Mar 25, 2013

Whidbey import store at least one positive result of the Iraq War

by Abby Higgins
Ten years ago Fred Lundahl quit his job in the foreign service in protest of the Iraq invasion and started a new career running an awesome import shop on Whidbey Island.  
Mar 20, 2013

Slum Rising: Life in Kenya slum sheds light on growing global reality

by Abby Higgins
Slum Rising is our new three-part series exploring the economically complex and culturally rich life in the world’s urban slums.
Mar 11, 2013

Sister city travel guide: Christchurch, New Zealand

by Abby Higgins
Winter blues got you down? Seattle’s southern hemisphere sister city makes for a perfect February vacation destination.
Feb 21, 2013

Fond memories of Somalia manifest at South Seattle restaurant

by Abby Higgins
Al Uruba restaurant on Renton Avenue serves up traditional food in the kind of peaceful setting that may finally be returning to Somalia after decades of war. 
Feb 18, 2013

Slum Rising explores innovations in tomorrow’s megacities

by Abby Higgins
One sixth of the world’s population lives in slums, but there’s a lot more going on there than poverty. You can support Slum Rising, a new series by The Seattle Globalist uncovering what’s really going on in the world’s slums, today on Kickstarter. 
Feb 13, 2013

New MOHAI shows off Seattle’s long history of global ties

by Abby Higgins
When I woke up New Years Day, I immediately regretted my plans to spend the day in a museum. It was one of those uncharacteristically sunny winter days in Seattle. The kind where Seattleites crawl out of hibernation and the population of the city suddenly seems to double. The sun glittered across Lake Union as […]
Jan 3, 2013

Top 5 bizarre plans for tonight’s Mayan apocalypse

by Abby Higgins
The end is near! And for Seattleites that means going out with a bang. It’s almost December 21st, the day the Ancient Mayans predicted (sort of) that the world would end. Or maybe John Cusack just starred in a movie about it and we’ve officially lost touch with reality. Either way, Elysian Brewery is serving […]
Dec 20, 2012

Kenya offers cautionary tale on abortion

by Abby Higgins
Although the November elections yielded women-friendly returns, the War on Women continues, both in the US and around the world. In the last week alone the Michigan Congress pass a bill limiting abortions and Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his goal to eventually make “abortion, at any stage, a thing of the past.” In the […]
Dec 17, 2012

In Kenya, as in US, adjusted expectations for Obama

by Abby Higgins
At the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2010, Obama joked about his abysmal approval ratings: “My approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth.” At the time, it was a funny quip about the far right’s insistence that Obama was actually born in Kenya. But now election day is looming, and […]
Nov 5, 2012

Kenya’s got the beans, but the Nairobi coffee culture leaves me missing Seattle

by Abby Higgins
It wasn’t until I moved away from Seattle for the first time that I realized not everyone in the world becomes a coffee junkie by age 15. My memories of growing up in the Pacific Northwest are steeped in coffee. How my Dad took it straight and black as tar and my mom brewed coffee […]
Feb 9, 2012

Ten countries that were ahead of Washington on same-sex marriage

by Abby Higgins
After a vote in the Washington state Senate last night, we’re just a few small steps away from becoming the seventh state in America to approve same-sex marriage. As a long-time bastion of gay culture and gay rights activism, many believe it’s about time. We Seattleites pride ourselves on being on the cutting edge of […]
Feb 2, 2012