Prior to writing fantasy adventures for children, I wrote them for grown-ups. Because that’s what luxury travel writing is all about really. It's about encouraging your readers to escape from reality for a few weeks. To take a chance on something new. To stay up past their usual bedtimes. To drink too much fizzy 'pop'. And generally to get up to things their parents wouldn't approve of back home.
Yes, I might not have been a dedicated doctor, a patient teacher or a selfless relief worker, but I like to think I was providing a service of sorts. Because if I hadn’t swanned about the sunnier parts of the globe, staying in their swankiest hotels and describing their unique selling points when I got back, who knows where those poor doctors, teachers and relief workers would have ended up?
And I wouldn’t like you to think travel writing didn't have it's downsides. Often I got a bit sunburnt. Sometimes I had to drive on the wrong side of the road. And have you any idea how frustrating it is to be faced with yet another bewildering mixer tap in your hotel shower? As for mosquitoes, those little suckers really had it in for me. I also had to dine alone more often than I’d like, usually on candlelit terraces hoping my book and careless expression would convey the fact that I wasn’t scoffing that creamy pannacotta for pleasure but for the vitally important work of research.
And then there was that pitch-black midnight when a taxi driver drove me to a dead-end with the clear intention of murdering me or worse. I’d been far too polite to make any sort of protest other than muffled squeak, of course, which was a good job as he’d only come to a halt on the switch-back road that cut through this particularly mountainous tropical island.
And it wasn’t any easier back home. Because then I was faced with a blank screen and the onerous chore of the actual writing itself. Not to mention the almost impossible task of avoiding those hackneyed travel phrases. And why should I have to avoid them anyway? Because almost every hotel I’d stayed in had been a ‘best-kept secret’ or a ‘hidden gem’. Furthermore, if ever I’d found myself in a garden, it had always been ‘lush’, and whenever I’d taken in a view, it had always been ‘panoramic’. And if somewhere wasn’t ‘off the beaten path’, what the heck was the point of going there in the first place?
The luxury travel industry only really got going about 35 years ago. Yes, travel organisations sold plenty of five-star properties before that, but they always sold them alongside three and four-star properties, the marketing focus always on the destination rather than the hotel. Often the very best properties would have nothing to do with tour operators in those days, relying on repeat business and word of mouth to fill their luxury suites.
All that changed in 1988 when a UK company dived headfirst into the luxury travel market. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was soon drafted in to help market this daring new concept. We promoted the world’s best hotels with full-page write-ups and decent photography, and I went on to provide this selfless service for a number of different travel companies over 25 years. As I said, it was a tough job but someone had to do it!
Click here to read my ebook on some of my favourite Caribbean hotels.
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