The grandson of a Scottish crofter from the Isle of Skye, with a father from the Channel Island of Guernsey, Andrew Eames was born with his hand luggage packed.

After completing a BA in English at the University of Cambridge, he disappeared off to the Far East in 1980, travelling until his money ran out. In Singapore, he started working for the Straits Times, before returning to the UK and moving into business-to-business magazines, rising eventually to edit the likes of Frontier and Business Traveller. After a stint on the Home and Foreign news desks of The Times, he moved into guidebook publishing, as managing editor of Insight Guides. He eventually went freelance some 30 years ago, and is still making ends meet from books, newspapers and the internet, despite the whole wife-children-mortgage disaster. Frankly, the guy deserves a medal.