| Registered on
and updated on
December 28, 2006: |
|
|
|
|
| At Mount Athos, Greece
|
Hermitage in Mallorca
Tony's interest in travel writing began when he was working as a volunteer English teacher in south-west China from 1989-91, after an earlier spell teaching English in rural Sudan. On his return to the UK he wrote a number of feature articles on Chinese travel and lifestyle for newspapers and magazines and before long he was working as a full-time travel writer with an emphasis on active holidays and the great outdoors.
He writes regularly for UK newspapers and magazines including The Times, The Independent, Daily Express, Wanderlust and Living Spain. Favourite assignments have included cycling in Cuba, cooking in Normandy, sleeping in yurts in Kyrgyzstan and playing on Europe's highest golf courses in the French Alps.
Recent trips include family holidays in Croatia and Montenegro, an emotional return to Sudan and a visit to the male-only monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece. Tony is increasingly writing about adventurous family travel with the support of his 11-year-old son, who has accompanied him on trips to Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Finland, as well as a learn-to-ski week for both father and son in Bulgaria.
Since 1996 Tony has been a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers. In 2000 he won the BGTW award for the best feature article on London, about a walk along the south bank of the Thames from the London Eye to the Millennium Dome. In 2004 he was named travel writer of the year by the Spanish Tourist Office in London for a feature on the Jerez horse fair in Living Spain magazine.
|
| Areas of specialist knowledge |
Tony travels the world as a travel journalist, but as a guidebook writer his main areas of expertise are Croatia and Spain, in particular the island of Mallorca. He first visited Mallorca in the autumn of 1995, on an assignment to write about a walking holiday, and fell in love with the island at first sight. Three months later he got the opportunity to return to write his first guidebook, and he has been unable to keep away from Mallorca ever since. He has now written or contributed to five guidebooks to the island and written about Mallorca for publications ranging from The Times to Wanderlust and the Daily Express to Living Spain magazine.
On 20 trips to Mallorca, Tony has slept in hilltop monasteries and five-star hotels, dined on fresh seafood and roast suckling pig, sampled the local wines, visited museums and country markets, and even taken his family for a traditional Mediterranean beach holiday. In August 1998 he got the chance to take part in a mass overnight pilgrimage on foot from Palma to Lluc monastery, joining some 3,000 Mallorcans to walk 48km by moonlight and writing it up for an article in The Times, which won an award from the Mallorca Tourist Board.
His main interest is in seeking out the hidden Mallorca, away from the mass-market resorts, though he refuses to be snooty about package tourism and has also written a Hotspots guide for families on bucket-and-spade holidays. He knows the best beaches, the best outings for kids, the best restaurants for a romantic dinner and the best places to get away from it all. He has even managed to learn a few words of Mallorquin, the local dialect of Catalan. His recent trips to Mallorca have focussed on Palma, a vibrant capital and a growing city break destination following the opening of boutique hotels, modern art museums and a large number of cutting-edge galleries.
Tony's interest in Spain has also taken him in the last few years to Menorca, Ibiza, Andalucia, Asturias, Aragon, the Basque Country, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja and Gran Canaria as well as several times to Catalonia, whose capital, Barcelona, he rates as one of his favourite cities.
In 2004, Tony transferred his attention to the Balkans. Between 2004 and 2006, he made ten visits to Croatia, researching and writing three guidebooks for the AA and a city guide to Zagreb for Thomas Cook. He also spent a week cycling in Serbia, took his family to Montenegro, explored the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and travelled into Bosnia-Herzegovina to see the newly rebuilt bridge at Mostar.
|
Tony's first two guidebooks, Essential Mallorca and Essential Menorca, both published by the AA, have become essential reading for visitors to these popular Mediterranean destinations. Both feature regularly on lists of the best-selling pocket guides in the UK, and have recently been revised for updated third editions. Tony also contributed several chapters to the latest edition of the Insight Guide: Mallorca & Ibiza, including a thoughtful and hard-hitting analysis of the impact of mass tourism on the islands. He is also the main author of the AA Key Guide to Mallorca (2005), the most comprehensive guidebook to be published on the island.
Among his other guidebooks are Essential Costa Brava (AA), Essential Croatia (AA), Spiral Croatia (AA), Signpost Guide: Catalonia and the Spanish Pyrenees (Thomas Cook), Spiral Guide: Gran Canaria (AA), Spiral Guide: Portugal (AA) and Fifty Walks in Suffolk (AA). He has also acted as a consultant on AA Spiral Guides to Barcelona and Mallorca. His AA Key Guide to Croatia and Thomas Cook CitySpots guide to Zagreb will be published in early 2007.
Tony's articles have won awards from the British Guild of Travel Writers, Mallorca Tourist Board and Spanish Tourist Office in London.
|
Tony's major client is the Automobile Association (AA), one of the biggest guidebook publishers in the world. As a journalist he writes regularly for The Times and has also contributed to The Independent, Independent on Sunday, Observer, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Mail, Spain magazine, Living Spain, Living France, Greece magazine, Med Life, Wanderlust and Woman & Home.
|
Essential Mallorca (AA, 1998, revised 2005)
Essential Menorca (AA, 1998, revised 2005)
Essential Costa Brava (AA, 1999, revised 2005)
Signpost Guide to Catalonia and the Spanish Pyrenees (Thomas Cook, 2000, revised 2005)
Spiral Guide: Gran Canaria (AA, 2002)
Spiral Guide: Portugal (AA, 2003)
50 Walks in Suffolk (AA, 2003)
Spiral Guide: Mallorca (updater, AA, 2004)
Key Guide: Spain (contributor, AA, 2004)
Key Guide: Barcelona (contributor, AA, 2004)
Key Guide: Mallorca (AA, 2005)
Essential Croatia (AA, 2006)
Spiral Guide: Croatia (AA, 2006)
Citypack Istanbul (updated second edition, AA, 2006)
Key Guide: Croatia (AA, 2007)
CitySpots Zagreb (Thomas Cook, 2007)
|
| Other relevant published works |
| That Summer (contributor, Virgin Books, 2004)
|
Update your profile
|