My love of travelling first distilled within me before I had never even left my native Scotland. My Dad used to take me down to Princes Street Gardens where I would gaze at the trains rumbling in and out of Edinburgh Waverley. During school holidays I was spirited off to the Scottish islands and weaned on stories of my Dad"s adventures in the yacht he built himself: Sisu. It was not until 1986 that I made it abroad and until 1992 that I flew for the first time, but since then I have made up for it with 500+ trips to over 80 countries. My travel-writing career kicked off in 1997 when, with the help of a local enterprise grant, I started my business. In 1999 I moved to London where for four years I built up my contacts and markets in a city that quickly became one giant departure lounge for me with 20+ trips a year to destinations all over the world. In 2003 I moved back north and set-up a new base on the outskirts of Edinburgh, handy for both international forays and domestic trips around Scotland, a country that still remains my favourite on the planet. In over a decade of travels I have savoured many of those "once in a lifetime" trips - from snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and walking on safari with big game in South Africa, through to riding the legendary