Meet the gurus

The Gurus

Hugh Graham-Watson

Good food, in fact haute cuisine, used to be the driving force behind forays away from home; hotels...

James Dunford Wood

James, one of the original co-founders of The Hotel Guru, has spent much of his life travelling: fr...

Sarah Empson

Sarah has been Editor in chief at The Hotel Guru since 2010, and has the pleasure of commissioning,...

Lulu Townsend

Marketing and Communications Director Lulu's love of hotels started when she was young; her first j...

Saskia Walker

Born in Hong Kong and raised across five continents, Saskia has long felt the pull of places new. S...

Kat Parr Mackintosh

Kat has been lucky enough to work across a range of fields - including the performing arts, broadca...

Mary Lussiana

Mary Lussiana has loved hotels for as long as she can remember - and written about them for more th...

Fiona Duncan

Fiona's expertise on hotels began In 1986 when she and her husband Andrew Duncan launched the Char...

Leonie Glass

Leonie has been a travel writer and editor for more than 25 years. After three years at Hutchinson,...

Pip Usher

After living in London, New York and Beirut, Pip has made Bangkok her home - for now. A writer by t...

Heidi Fuller-Love

From food reviewer for Asia Life in Cambodia, to trainee gaucho on a farm in Argentina, food, trave...

Laura Griffith-Jones

Travel editor and writer Laura Griffith-Jones has been hooked on travel since her first major adven...

Megan Lambert

Born in Cape Town before moving to the UK, Megan's passion for travel developed at an early age. Si...

MacKenzie Kassab

After leaving New York and a career in public relations, MacKenzie set off to see the world. She go...

Helen Pickles

A travel writer and feature writer, Helen lives in the north (of England) which makes her properly ...

Caroline Townsend

Twenty years living and travelling in the Far East and a career in design journalism gives Caroline...

Matthew Brace

Matt is a British award-winning travel writer and hotel reviewer, the author of five travel books (...

Nicky Swallow

Nicky Swallow has lived in Florence since 1981 and has been writing about Florence, Tuscany and oth...

Louise Brealey

Louise divides her time between writing (about travel, film, art, music, theatre, fashion, literatu...

Louise Tickle

Louise Tickle is a Gloucestershire-based freelance journalist whose activity and wildlife travel wr...

Robin Gauldie

Robin Gauldie has been a compulsive traveller all his life. As a hairy student, he hitch-hiked all ...

Marc Harris, Tanzania Odyssey

MD of Tanzania Odyssey is also a Director of ATTA, (The African Travel and Tourism Association), an...

Helena Hamlyn

Travel has always played an important part in Helena’s life – from sailing in Suffolk to an ove...

Meredith Santonelli

Meredith is a lifelong traveler with a passion for great small hotels - city, tent, or yurt and eve...

Adam Jacot de Boinod

Adam Jacot de Boinod is a British author, most famous for his works about unusual words. He has wri...

Marcus Waring

After reading English at Worcester University, Marcus travelled through Asia and Australia before c...

Colin Donald

Colin Donald is a business and arts journalist who has travelled and worked widely in the US and th...

Clare Mann

Clare spent her childhood in Nigeria, Switzerland and Germany and ever since has had an incurable w...

Charles Marsden-Smedley

Charles Marsden-Smedley has 30 years experience designing museums and exhibitions from his studio i...

Clemmie Vandeleur

Clemmie spent her teenage years living in Serbia, which provided a springboard to the adventures of...

Vicki Power

London-based journalist Vicki Power has interviewed hundreds of actors and written about television...

Colette Bett

Born in Singapore to parents who have lived in Africa, Europe and Asia, Colette is always looking f...

George Pownall

George Pownall was a film-maker and freelance writer for many years. Shooting his award-winning doc...

Maud Sampson

Maud's passion for travelling has led her to live in various places across the world, including Mel...

Laura Campbell

Laura has been writing about style and interiors for over 20 years. She worked at Vogue in the e...

Antonia Windsor

Antonia is a prolific travel writer for national and international publications, including the Time...

Daisy Finer

"I was lucky to grow up with parents who adored traveling and wanted to share their experiences wit...

Leon Beckenham

After an extended stint in Mexico and various other corners of Latin America, Leon returned to Lond...

Gabriele Civiliene

Gabriele Civiliene worked for eight years in Lithuania for UK publisher Pearson Education in their ...

Libbla Kelly

Libbla has been travelling the globe for a fair few decades and is delighted to be able to share he...

Simone Topolski

Simone Topolski has been travel-writing since 2002, when she started writing city features for inde...

Tristam Templer

Tristram's passion for foreign cultures was sparked by a trip around the world at the age of 19. He...

Milly Graham-Watson

Milly trained at the Grange Cooking School near Frome and has always had a passion for good food an...

Louise Farquhar

Travel writer Louise Farquhar has hiked, biked, skied and horse-ridden her way through some stunnin...

Sonja McGinn

Sonja began her career in the mid 90’s as a secondary school teacher in London teaching Science a...

Lincoln Seligman

Lincoln read law at Oxford, then worked as a shipping lawyer for seven years before becoming a full...

Michael Osborne

With degrees in Economics and Classics, Michael Osborne has been an accountant, bath resurfacer and...

Lucy Simon

Lucy’s passion for travel and hotels began on a six-month backpacking trip to South and Central A...

Alexander Duncan

The older son of Fiona Duncan and her husband Andrew (publisher of the Charming Small Hotel Guides)...

Geraldine Keith

Geraldine Keith has written extensively on both travel and interiors, having worked in the past on ...

Stephen Brown

Stephen Brown lives between Edinburgh and Mallorca. He was born in Hong Kong and spent the first 6 ...

Rachel Mills

Rachel runs the translation division of leading literary agency Peters Fraser and Dunlop, represent...

Peter Lloyd-Jones

The delight, and sense of purpose I experience when visiting museums and interesting cultural sites...

James Patterson

Canadian born, James Patterson is a writer, musician and extensive traveler who has been long liste...

Richard Balls

Richard spent 30 years running his family’s chain of bars and restaurants in London, and has a ve...

Charlotte Luxford

Charlotte has a keen passion for the arts and all things cultural, in particular, hunting out undis...

Michelle Tchea

Michelle is is the founder of Chefs Collective and PopINtel Luxury Group. A bestselling author on l...

Tine Gregory

Born Danish but grew up in Ghana, Pakistan, Singapore, the US and Germany. Managed to continue her ...

Julia Pearson

Jules has her fingers in many pies. For the past 10 years she’s worked in travel industry ...

Florian Watson

Florian’s thirst for travelling started when he was 18 when he ventured around South America for ...

Alasdair Glass

A keen traveller from a young age, Alasdair has explored various parts of continental Europe, North...

Gavin Don

A career in finance, energy and entrepreneurship, along with an eccentric love of slow travel, has ...

Jenny Fowler

Jenny has travelled the world in search of diverse natural environments and cultural experiences, a...

Charles Braithwaite

Charlie is an avid traveller whose itchy feet and nomadic nature has led him to spend time busking ...

James Henderson

Caribbean expert James Henderson is an independent travel journalist writing for the Telegraph and ...

Jane Egginton

Jane Egginton is the author of over 40 travel guide books for publishers such as Michelin, Thomas C...

Minna Sharpe

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John Sampson

A recent history graduate from Trinity College Dublin, John has spent time living in cities such as...

Anna Hextall

...

Madeleine Harper

Mad has a thirst for travel, inspired first by childhood holidays in Mallorca and then her first fo...

Malcolm Orr-Ewing

Malcolm has been involved in travel guidebook publishing for 45 years and was until recently Publis...

Stephanie Reed

Steph is a trained journalist and has worked in PR and social media marketing for over ten years. T...

Honi Loudon

Trained as a Social Anthropologist and Geographer, seeing and understanding the world around us has...

Iain Morrison

Following an illustrious rubgy career, both at International and club level, Iain has spent the las...

Alexander Dessain

From a young age, Alexander has lived to travel, so far his endeavours have led him to throughout m...

Ailsa Anderson

Ailsa acquired a taste for travel from an early age, growing up in New Zealand and frequently trave...

Hannah Nicholson

Hannah has loved to travel since a young age. Since leaving university she has worked and lived in ...

Gabriel Power

London-based journalist Gabriel Power has long had a deep fascination for all things travel, taking...

Rachel Roberts

Childhood holidays spent in the UK’s Costa del Bucket and Spade left Rachel with a deep longing t...

Penelope Anstice

Penelope is an artist and painting tutor with a rich history of solo travel, particularly to India,...

Stretch Graham

Stretch Graham is a semi retired consultant who has lived in Japan, Australia, Switzerland and Hong...

John Ovans

John is a writer and editor based in Hong Kong – formerly Shanghai and Beirut, where he worked fo...

Andrew Graham-Watson

Andrew’s main business activity is advising discerning central Asian families on strategies to en...

Rachel Everett

Rachel travelled and worked around the globe for two decades, as a journalist and hotel reviewer. A...

Tom Fleming

An aspiring travel writer/ hotel reviewer with a first-class degree in English Literature and Journ...

Ellie Boulstridge

Born to French & British parents in the Middle East, Ellie was brought up in Oman, Turkey, Siberia,...

Ben West

Ben West is a freelance writer specialising in travel, though has written on numerous other subject...

Tosca Barnes

A filmmaker and journalist, Tosca makes documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4 and a range of other b...

Ellie Seymour

Ellie Seymour is a Brighton-based travel journalist published in The Guardian, The Independent, The...

Nadia Walford

Nadia is a PR specialist and founder of Nadia Walford PR, with over 10 years’ experience serving ...

Orla Thomas

Orla Thomas is a freelance journalist specialising in travel. She contributes regularly to The Time...

Judith Baker

Judith Baker is a travel writer contributing to a number of national newspapers and magazines. She ...

India-Jayne Trainor

India-Jayne is a freelance travel and food writer based in London, although she can most often be f...

Isabelle Kliger

Isabelle Kliger is a Barcelona-based freelance writer specialising in luxury travel, food and cultu...

John Empson

Having grown up in Scotland and studied at Newcastle, John now lives and works in London. His previ...

Poppy Empson

Poppy was born in London and brought up in Scotland, and has had a thirst for travel and other cult...

Gilly Pickup

Gilly, a London living Scot, one-time senior political researcher and parliamentary aide at Westmin...

Amy Rose Everett

Amy Rose spent her twenties in London, travelling often to write for various titles including Red m...

Hugh Dunford Wood

Hugh is an artist and designer who travels the world in search of creative inspiration....

Emily Hochberg

Emily Hochberg is a veteran travel and lifestyle writer and editor with over 15 years of experience...

Samantha Priestley

Samantha lives in Yorkshire with her artist partner and travels around the world, looking for uniqu...

Tina Lofthouse

Tina loves to travel and loves to eat good food, she is happiest when she can combine the two – h...

Fi Troughton

With a mix of family life in Scotland and expat life in Asia and Middle East since 1987 I have trav...

Mick Empson

Mick has travelled extensively both in a personal and business capacity. He worked at British Airwa...

Sophie Barling

Sophie Barling caught the travelling bug aged 18 in Ecuador, where she spent five months teaching a...

Emily Townsend

Emily was brought up in the Far East and educated in Scotland and the United States. She has recent...

Anna Townsend

Anna was born in Hong Kong, her childhood was spent in a variety of countries throughout South East...

Iain Perkins

Iain has lived in 9 different countries, including North Africa, Malta, England, Germany, Belgium, ...

Darren Taffinder

Darren Taffinder is a British writer. He writes regularly on parenting and travel for publications ...

Richard Webber

Living on the edge of Exmoor, Richard is a journalist who writes for many national papers and magaz...

James Jayasundera

James Jayasundera is Founder and Managing Director of Ampersand Travel in London. Of Sri Lankan and...