I doubt you really want to know that much about me, so I won't keep you here long. Here are some pertinent points about me, and I promise I won't go on about me anywhere else on this site... well, not too much, anyway.
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I am a software archaeologist and writer. I spent the first four years of my working life as a print journalist on various computer magazines, and this gave me a grounding in classical journalism that makes me a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to website content (as you can hopefully see from this site). In fact, back in the dot-com boom I had the job title of 'Editor of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth Edition', and that probably sums up my career more than anything else – a mix of writing, humour, technology and travel.
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I am a traveller. In 1998 I came back from a three-year trip through Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Nepal. When I got home I drew a big, black line on the map to show where I went, and it was quite depressing to see how small it looked, so in 2002 and 2003 I set off to explore West Africa, passing through Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana. After some shorter trips to Morocco, Cyprus and Cuba, I spent six months in 2013 and 2014 travelling in Central America, starting in Mexico and heading through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. On every trip I write and take photographs, and you can see the results on my travel writing site.
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I am a long-distance walker. In 2003 I completed a three-month, 1111-mile walk from Land's End to John o'Groats, which was one of the most rewarding walks I've ever done; and in 2008, I walked the entire length of the London Underground, station to station and line by line. I've also done an awful lot of long-distance walking in places like Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal, so I guess I must like it...
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Fun fact: from 2004 to 2008, I was the 'Web's favourite travel writer', according to Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, Wanadoo, My Way, Lycos, AltaVista, LookSmart, WebCrawler, HotBot, WiseNut, AlltheWeb and DogPile. If you typed 'travel writer' into any of these search engines, most of the time I was lurking just below a small handful of writers' associations, 'how to' sites, editorial services and sponsored links... which made me the highest-placed individual travel writer in all of the web's most popular search engines. I stayed in this happy spot for four years, until the algorithms changed and they moved on to the next shiny thing. Ah, those innocent days when an individual could play the SEO game and have a chance of winning!
If you want to read about my career, see my Curriculum Vitae.