"it's better to travel"
A collection of stories that takes you around the world.
Between 1991 and 2016, I travelled around the world, living in new places, writing, DJing, working, learning the local culture, meeting nice people, sharing stories with strangers, all-night gatherings, ending up in someone’s kitchen at 5am drinking vodka and eating cheese, chasing choo choo trains and waiting for buses at dawn.
“it’s better to travel” is a collection of stories about writing and DJing around the world as a diplomat. From working in an embassy to working behind the decks; from writing and researching a series of record shop guides to writing and researching for a radio interview as the Deputy Ambassador in Mongolia. The book is a series of 15 interconnecting travel essays through the eyes of 14 people from 14 different countries linking a squat party in Hanoi to a graffiti artist in New York to a lock-in Paris.
The book is shaped by writing and DJing around the world and looking for the creative space. And I found some wonderful spots to write around the world with tales to match!
About myself, I have been writing since the early nineties primarily as a music journalist, having started a fanzine ‘Left on the Jazz Side’ in 1991. I worked for Blues and Soul magazine between 1996-2001 including writing the monthly jazz column between 1999-2001. My work has also appeared in Shook magazine and online for BBC Music and Fly Global amongst others. In 2005 I set up The Secret List series of record shop guides and travelogues, one of the first to cast a light on both buying records and record shops. I published the first edition to Los Angeles (2013), Paris (2014) and London (2016).
I hope you enjoy “it’s better to travel” and it is suitable inspiration to seek out the new and the different.
Twenty Twenty-Five
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