When Hilary Bradt and her then husband George set out on their travels in South America in 1973, little could they have realised that the journey they were embarking upon would lead to the creation of what has become one of the most esteemed travel publishing companies in the world.
Hilary and George wrote their first guide over 40 years ago on a river barge floating down a tributary of the Amazon. Bradt Travel Guides was born. Today the company publishes over 200 titles, including full-country travel guides, regional guides, wildlife guides, Slow Travel Guides to special areas of Britain, and works of travel literature.
Bradt has a reputation as a pioneer in tackling unusual destinations, for championing the causes of sustainable travel, and for the high quality of its writing. The books are intended to be as entertaining to read as they are useful reservoirs of tourist information. And they have personality. Each is a one-of-a-kind expression of the author’s interests, expertise and passion for telling it how it really is.
A great many Bradt guides have been ‘firsts’ – they published the first real guide to Africa in 1977, the first to East Germany before re-unification, the first standalone guides to Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia when the Baltic States became independent of the Soviet Union, the first individual guides to countries of the Balkans following the break-up of Yugoslavia, the first guide to the ‘new’ South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela, the first guide to Rwanda following the genocide.
Bosnia, Belarus, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Ukraine, Mozambique, Congo, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Swaziland, Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bahia – these are just a few of Bradt’s ‘firsts’, and many of them remain the only tourist guides available.
To find out more go to www.bradtguides.com
This September they are publishing To Oldly Go: Tales of Adventurous Travel by the Over-60s, a new title in the travel literature series. Featuring contributions from both esteemed travel writers, including Dervla Murphy and Colin Thubron, and members of the public, the book is a celebration of defying expectations – and often your family – and going outside your comfort zone to take a less-travelled path in later life.
We are pleased be able to offer Mature Times readers a chance to win a free copy of this book as we have five copies to give our readers. To have a chance of winning a copy please send in your travel story (between 500-700 words) and we will pick the top five. The winners will be published on the website.
Please send your stories and photographs to editorial@maturetimes.co.uk.
