Simon Calder owes his
love of travel to his parents - and in particular
their decision to move to Crawley, a new
town in Sussex. He was born beside the A23
on Christmas Day, 1955. By the time he was
six, he realised that there was very probably
more to life than this. Fortunately, that
summer he joined the Woodcraft Folk (www.woodcraft.org.uk).
They promptly organised a camping trip to
the Lake District, and Simon was hooked.
Later
that same year ... the USSR decided to
send some nuclear warheads to Cuba, President
Kennedy
threatened retaliation and Simon's parents realised
that Gatwick airport, two miles away, was in
the line of Soviet fire. So they took the
family to Gatwick,
and boarded a plane to Guernsey in the Channel
Islands. Simon has been grateful to Fidel
Castro ever since.
The next significant
age was 13, when he (Simon, not Fidel)
travelled
abroad for the first time, on
a school day trip to Dieppe in northern France;
unfortunately, learning Russian, not French,
was compulsory at his
school, so communication was tricky. He also learned
the fine art of free travel by starting to hitch-hike.
More than three decades later, he is still thumbing
his way around the world, augmented by cycling.
Simon's
first job was a cleaner for British Airways
at
Gatwick airport. He later worked as a security
guard frisking passengers. It was during
the long gaps
between flights (this was a while ago) that he began to write budget travel
guidebooks, starting with the Hitch-hiker's Manual Britain. When not frisking
or writing, Simon was reading Mathematics at Warwick University.
He became travel editor for The Independent in 1994, and shortly afterwards began
presenting for BBC-2's Travel Show, until the programme ended in 1999. He now
contributes to the Holiday programme on BBC-1. He regularly comments on travel
issues for national and local BBC radio and TV stations, and presents one-off
travel programmes for BBC Radio 4.
In 1997 Simon married Charlotte in Las Vegas. Their first daughter, Daisy, was
born in 2000; the second, Poppy, in 2003.
Favourite country: Scotland
Favourite city: Mumbai (Bombay)
Favourite natural feature: Copper
Canyon, Mexico
Favourite bus ride: number 11, from
Liverpool Street Station to World's End in London
Favourite travel song: Route 66
Favourite train journey: Petit Train
Jaune in the French Pyrenees
Top travel tip: smile |
