• Write for Suite101
• Sign In

• Home
• Profile

Mari Nicholson - Keith Pritchard

Almost the first thing people say to me when they learn what I do for a living is “How did you get into it”? To which my answer is, “I was always in it, but I didn’t know it”!

From early school essays on “What I did on my holidays” to the flimsy blue lettergrams airmailed to parents in pre-email days and the postcards to aunts, uncles and cousins, I have been writing about travel.

Unfortunately, travel writing wasn’t a career choice at my school and it was many years before I realized I could earn a living doing what I enjoyed so much. Meantime, I worked in the “real world” while continuing to hone my writing skills. I had reasonable success in the short story field and the feature article field (I specialised in interviewing marine wood-carvers and bodhrán makers), and doing the odd historical piece. And then one day it dawned on me, I was writing travel stuff, and what’s more, selling it.

I’ve won some awards, been short listed for some others, and have contributed to magazines and newspapers in the U.K., Germany, Holland, Singapore, Sweden and USA. and my photographs have been published alongside my articles in most cases, and twice been used as a cover shot. I’ve recently ventured into writing about people re-locating to other countries and as a result I am now asked to appear on TV Property Programmes

I love the research that goes into a good article (I have a post-grad. degree in history) even if I don’t use all the information I collect, as delving into the past brings the present alive as nothing else does. Besides, it often throws up a marvellous quote or anecdote which can illuminate the people or the place being written about.

Although I will happily travel anywhere, my favourite country is Thailand, where I settle down for a few months each year, making forays into other parts of Asia from this central hub. The culture of the nations that make up this part of the world is fascinating and every journey I make increases my involvement with the politics, religions, cuisine, and way of life of these warm and welcoming people.

When I’m not travelling I’m to be found at home on the Isle of Wight in the south of England, where Queen Victoria had her summer house in the 19th century, where Karl Marx came for his health, where Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield, Garibaldi planted two of his famous Liberty Trees, and where the worlds most famous regatta attracts royals and the royally rich every August – Cowes Week.

Whether it’s hill tribes in the high mountains, sea-gypsies in the marine national parks, trekking on elephants or visiting the war graves on the River Kwai, we shall journey together. We can go diving off Phuket, snorkelling in the Phillipines, kayaking at Krabi, you name it and we’ll try to incorporate it. Of course, I can’t do everything and that’s where you come in with your ideas, your thoughts, and what you’d like to see. So log on to the forum and join in the discussion forums. www.easiatravel.suite101.com,/discussions.cfm.