Nominated for several prestigious awards, Ian is a freelance travel writer and public speaker. He specialises in Africa but has a portfolio which includes writing on destinations as varied as Chamonix, Bangladesh, and his home town of Sheffield.

He has spent over two years on the African continent in total, and visited 40 of its 54 nations. A member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, he has written for a wide range of UK and international newspapers and magazines, as well as content for this website, which has led to his work being studied in English schools.

Recent bylines include BBC Travel, Fodor’s, Travel Africa, Independent and The i. He also has several Bradt guides to Africa in the works.

Why encircleafrica.org?

Encircle Africa was Ian’s biggest adventure to date. Not only that, it was the first solo and unassisted circumnavigation of Africa by public transport.

In short, Ian visited 31 countries, and travelled a minimum distance of 25,000 miles (40,000 kms) over 13 months using transport only available to local populations. There was no back-up team to get Ian out of sticky situations.

You can discover more about the expedition on the dedicated Encircle Africa page of this website, and get signed copies of Ian’s travelogue via the shop page.

In addition Ian has travelled the length of the Sri Lanka’s longest river, walked the coast of the Isle of Man and the length of Hadrian’s Wall, and travelled through Scandinavia using a guidebook dating from the 1960s.

He has also travelled through North Africa and Italy retracing the steps of his great uncle during World War II, walked more than 650 miles from the southern- to northernmost point of Bangladesh, and explored the impact of climate change across the length of Pakistan.