biography

In an earlier life I taught biology and worked on community health and education projects, often with a PR and media brief. Travel writing remained a sideline that I didn't take seriously until, during a Round the World trip, I landed a contract as a travel columnist for an American newspaper.

I found the atmosphere of the school staffroom stultifying and the regimented routine hard to live with and in Public Health I foolishly crawled up the greasy management pole into endless meetings and pointless paper exercises. My PhD research kept me sane for a number of years but afterwards I found it impossible to re-engage in mindless and often foolish bureaucracy. An online course at the London School of Journalism gave me the impetus to jump ship into freelance travel writing and I've never looked back.

The advent of children had put my late teenage backpacking trip around the world on hold - but as it's never too late and at 50 it was probably even better. I travelled through the South East Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific islands and America where, instead of getting drunk, I wrote a lot and got published.

Seven years on and a couple of hundred published features later I'm a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, have just finished my first travel book - and am still full of enthusiasm for travelling and capturing the essence of people and places.