You've found the right place - welcome to my peripatetic world.

This is basically a glorified resume but I have fun with my blog and hope it will inspire a few trips or dreams.

For over 20 years I’ve been lucky enough to circle the globe for a living, writing and taking photos while communicating with a fabulous variety of people - from maharajas to monks or mountain shepherds. For me, that is what travel is about.

Commissions to write a string of hefty guide-books initially lured me beneath the surface of several major cultures. I’ve been back again and again to Mexico, India, Morocco and Spain and so witnessed their developments - for better and for worse. Then there are the countries I’ve actually lived in and so feel a strong affinity for – France, Italy, Australia and, intermittently, Spain.

Slowly slowly the threads pull together and the jigsaw of civilisations becomes clearer. Travel is addictive, and I’m as fascinated by the process and remote horizons as ever – though less so by airports. And increasingly I find myself in places I visited decades ago. This brings a different kind of experience, one of dabbling with memory. Not quite Proust’s madeleine, more Dunlop’s imagination.

Besides that my north London home gives a fantastic window on one of the world’s great multi-cultural societies. I can count 12 nationalities cooking up delectable stuff just around the corner. A few tube stops away there are a dozen more.  This nurtures my parallel passion: food, its history, craft and practitioners. After intense hours shadowing Moroccan cooks round their kitchens, being dazzled by the technique of a Zapotec matriarch in Oaxaca or, like a stuffed goose, being fed tapas by a chef in Seville, I decided gastro-communication was the way forward.

So hit the trail with me! Click on my blog to find out which part of the planet I'm investigating or read my musings while keeping my carbon footprint under control at my desk. Your comments, criticisms, praise are all welcome.

Enjoy the journey - there and here - and come back again soon.