Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you’re home. It’s about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the...

Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

There are two ways to find a lost city. The first is to rely on luck alone, the second is to control all the information.

These days no one challenges us,’ he said. ‘And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It’s inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged....

Calcutta’s the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.

My father never told us how the stories worked. He didn’t reveal the layers, the nuggets of information, the fragments of truth and fantasy. He didn’t need to — because, given the right conditions, the...

An intelligent enemy,’ he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, ‘rather than a foolish friend.’ Or, ‘He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.’ Or, the favourite...

We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic.

I struggled to think pure thoughts, as Hector sucked out my psyche with his eyes.

There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.

None of them seemed to mind sliding around in the faeces and choking in the smoke. They were determined not to miss the opportunity of watching a foreigner make a fool of himself.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

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...

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.

During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working...

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India’s golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I’m not the one being arrested.

Nothing is what it seems. Favoured Pashtu proverb of Jan Fishan Khan.

The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you...

As far as Samson was concerned I was just another foreigner in pursuit of a lunatic quest.

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

On a harsh expedition, there’s no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.

The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade.

The first few hours in the cell were quite stimulating. I’d never been in a prison cell before and was quite enjoying the experience.

Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

The ants are bad” The Bear”the ants?”Tahir”Do not be fooled. They look very small, so harm you don’t think of then at all. Then years. Then one day you wake up, and your home has...

With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.

On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.

My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.

Venture to a remote corner of a faraway land and, from the moment you get there, every person and every thing becomes an obstacle, designed to entrap you, to stop you proceeding on your way.

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.

Only a man who has his health, a full stomach and wears clean clothes would ever entertain the notion of tracking down the greatest lost city on Earth.

I am all for curses and superstition, but there’s a point at which they start getting in the way. That point had arrived.

To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an...

The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on...

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.

For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.

Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.

There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.

It was an awkward moment. We were burning down our host’s house, a situation which any guest seeks to avoid.

In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.