“As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.”

“I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.”

“The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each citizen walked upon the high wire of this, the real world. I longed not merely to travel through it, but to live in such a city.”

“Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends.”

“Through a strange kind of geographic arrogance, Europeans like to think that the world was a silent, dark, unknown place until they trooped out and discovered it.”

“Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one's head dangling over the end of a bed was the best way to achieve this. It was while I was in this position, the blood rushing to my temples, that the door swung open.”

“The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.”