When and why did you join the Guild?

In late 2009. I spent two years regularly looking at the website longing to be a member but believing I wasn’t suitably ‘qualified’. When I started looking through my portfolio of work I realised I could be in with a shout.

How has the Guild been most helpful?

Before I joined I thought that everyone could be fiercely protective of their own interests in a cut-throat world of journalism. I’m thrilled to find it very different; the camaraderie I’ve come across so far is superb.

What's your earliest memory of travel?

I was fortunate that both my parents held a private pilot’s licence. Memories as a child were that we would often take day trips and long weekends flying around the UK and across to northern France and the Channel Islands. At the time I felt cheated, never having a week or a fortnight’s holiday as my friends seemed to have, but I soon began to realize what a magnificent experience it was. I learnt so much about the landscape and geography of Britain and France from the air, the shapes of towns and villages and how many private swimming pools there were between Oxfordshire and the south coast.

Otherwise my earliest memory is armchair travelling –I would spend hours studying maps and atlases. I still do.

What's your most bizarre memory of travel?

Bumping into two cross-dressing artists on a campsite not once but twice in as many years - in Zurich and Paris. They go by the name of Eva and Adele and they tour Europe in a pink motorhome while putting on living art exhibitions. As they were dressed up in glittering costumes, full make-up and shaved heads, waiting for the campsite bus into town, I had some explaining to do for my 8 year old son, whose eyes were bigger than his head; it’s not what you tend to see on a family campsite.

Which is the place you haven't been to yet but would most like to visit?

There’s rather too many to list. I once spent 24 hours in Nova Scotia but the plan had been to spend much longer there so I’d love to visit properly. I’ve still got the original itinerary for a motorhome tour that I’d planned so I’m all ready to go!

Where would you never want to go again?

There isn’t anywhere that I would never wish to return to. Bad experiences make a place all the more intriguing to return for another opinion. Everywhere deserves a second chance.

If you could take a day trip back in time to any point in history, when and where would you visit?

I would have loved to be at one of Mozart’s parties in Vienna or Prague.

What's the worst travel advice you've ever been given?

‘Don’t go out unless you have to’ on the radio and TV. It drives me nuts because it’s used so liberally.

Favourite museum or gallery?

The Royal Shakespeare Theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon (in particular the Swan) as living museums of Shakespeare’s plays. For the thirty years I’ve been visiting they still give me goose bumps every time.

Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, so what's the biggest travel blunder you've ever made?

Thinking that nothing could possibly go wrong because I’d worked out every last detail for a trip – everything except being interrogated for three hours by immigration in Canada because I was travelling with two children under five without my husband/their father.

Which travel destination has taken you most by surprise and why?

Entering Russia for the first time along the Saimaa Canal from Finland. So many arrivals to a new country involve an introduction via an airport lobby or a ferry terminal. This entrance was very isolating and surreal. Fantastic.

If you had one tip to share with other travel writers what would it be?

The old Guiding motto, ‘Be Prepared’.

A favourite travel book to pass the journey?

Any atlas.