Travel writer and photographer

Bitten by the travelling bug in my early teens, I had travelled extensively in Europe before turning from academic writing to short story writing to travel writing and I have been doing the latter now for approximately 25 years. I love airports, train stations and ferry ports and new destinations always excite me, especially if they are connected in some way with a favourite author, like the Bangkok of Ron Burdett, the Louisiana of James Lee Burke and Graham Hurleys Portsmouth.

I contribute features and digital images to the UK national press, UK and overseas magazines and the Inflight magazines of the major airlines – humour, destination pieces, anecdotal tales, food and drink and wood-carving, the latter always carrying an interview with a local wood-carver.

As well as the print media, I write for an online magazine, www.Wizzley.com and my blog TravelsWithMyCamera also carries articles on travel: both sites showcase my photographs.

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My travels have taken me to exotic places like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Trips to Australia were an easy add-on from Asia and although I have yet to visit many places in the USA, as a jazz fan Ive visited New Orleans and Chicago quite a few times and know and love them both. The old cultures of Italy and Spain exert a constant pull on me and nowadays I find myself returning again and again to towns and villages of those two countries.

SPECIALITIES

I consider myself a specialist on Thailand and its culture but I also write about UK and European destinations, days-out, week-end breaks and luxury hotels, especially Italy, Spain and Ireland. I have an in depth knowledge of Sicily and Andalucia. I was brought up in Northern Ireland but now live in the Isle of Wight, Englands foremost holiday island, so I am well placed to write both of these places which Ive done for many magazines and newspapers.

BEST TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Sailing down the River Kwai accompanied by baby buffaloes while monkeys scolded from the trees and elephants plodded along the river bank, spending a day with Huskies up near the Arctic Circle, listening to Opera at Torre del Lago at the Verdi festival at 1.30 a.m., sailing over the vineyards of Rioja in a hot-air balloon at dawn and watching the clouds turn pink and, nearer home, searching for fossils at Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight with the kids.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EXAMPLES

MARKETS

I have published articles in most of the UK national press including the Scottish newspapers The Scotsman and The Herald, magazines including BBC History, Wanderlust, Christian Herald, Living Abroad, Britain, Discover Britain, Womans Realm, Best and Bella. 

Inflights I have featured in include Morning Calm (Korea), Sawasdee (Thai Airways), Oryx (Qatar), Open Skies (Emirates) and Mabuhay (Philippines) and hotel magazines like Peak (Singapore) and Forte (UK).  

I have also been a contributor to many coffee-table books, for example, 1001 Escapes to Make Before you Die (Quintessence), Where to Go When (Dorling Kindersley) and A Guide to the Best Holistic Spas (Footprint)..

AWARDS

Travelex Award – Runner-up for a feature on the Isle of Wight.

Lady Violet Astor Award  for best published journalism – Twice winner for best published journalism for (a) an article on a cricket match in Samoa for Sawasdee and (b) an article on gin for Forte Hotel Magazine.

Wight Writers Award – Won three years running for best feature article.

TO CONTACT ME

Contact me by email.

EXAMPLES OF PUBLISHED WORK

Anecdote in Alanya – first published in the Sunday Telegraph

The favourite spa of the stars in Dubai – Trip Magazine

Gypsy Soul of Andalusia – Times Literary Supplement