What's your earliest memory of travel?
Vomiting in the back seat of the car on the annual family pilgrimage to the Isle of Skye, where my mother comes from. For many years this was our main family holiday, and the car journey from Brighton, where we lived at the time, was a real ordeal in premotorway UK, especially when you're a car-sick kid. Sometimes my grandmother would haul out her purse and my brother and I would take the sleeper train, so excited we could barely sleep.

How did you get involved with travel professionally?
I set out for South-east Asia, fresh from university, in 1980, and ended up teaching English in Singapore when my funds ran out. At that stage I didn't have any particular ambition to write, but then I met someone who worked for the local newspaper, the Straits Times. I didn't do travel stories at that point, but when I eventually returned to the UK I realised that I had something to sell - I knew a part of the world that people were starting to get excited about.

When did you join the Guild and what's the best thing about it?
At least ten years ago. I find the Yearbook invaluable, although the proliferation of younger members depresses me. Policemen are looking younger too.

What's your best travel experience/funniest?
Everyone always asks this, and I never have an answer. Too many trips and a memory like a sieve. I do prefer wild stuff, however – canoeing in Sweden recently was great – and I've never had the genes or the adjectives to write about fancy hotels.

What's your worst / most bizarre?
There was a time in Fuerteventura when I had my briefcase stolen from a hire car, complete with passport and airline tickets, hours before I was due to fly home. En route to the police station to report the theft, I passed an old man by the roadside who gave me a distinctly odd look. I pulled over, and there was my briefcase behind a bush with everything still inside. Now was that old man the thief – or God's representative in the Canary Islands?

What do you never leave home without?
My trousers on.

What's the best thing about being professionally involved in travel?
I've got a low boredom threshold which would self-destruct any other career.

What is the place you haven't been to yet which you would most like to visit?
A nice secure place with guaranteed commissions and editors who lavish praise on insecure contributors. Mongolia would be good, too.

Who do you most admire?
Nigel blankity Tisdall.

Future plans and ambitions?
To continue to make a living for as long as I want to. In the short term I've got a couple of books to do; one's a year's worth of unusual weekends for Bradt, and the other a book about travelling down the Danube, for Transworld.

Andrew Eames This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it www.andreweames.com

November 2006

Since this was published, Andrew has written both books; one is in print, the other is due for publication shortly.