What do we really know of these places that fill the news nowadays? The texture and detail of everyday life in South Waziristan too easily passes us by, eclipsed by fractured screenshots telling only of war and dislocation.

The reality is that globalisation and modernity have done little to make the world a smaller place. On the contrary, large tracts of our planet are just as foreign as ever – in some ways even more so than once they were, for our post-colonial gaze reveals the world to be hugely more complicated than many of our forbears imagined.

Even our home continent has great areas that lie well beyond our personal radar. When did anywhere in Albania or Moldova beyond the principal cities last feature in the television news? And most of us could not even begin to place the Komi Republic, Nenetsia or the Republic of Adygea on the political map of contemporary Europe.

Mainstream journalism simply bypasses the vast majority of communities. As Colin Thubron nicely put it: “A good travel writer can give you the warp and weft of everyday life, the generalities of people’s existence that …. are hardly touched upon by any other discipline.”

The world, it seems, now needs good travel writing more than ever before.

Nicky Gardner lives in Berlin. Find out more about her work at www.bgtw.org/nicky-gardner.html and www.hiddeneurope.co.uk.