Raised in Chicago and educated in New York, Sean Connolly (seanconnolly.me) was poring over maps since before he could read and first got a taste of independent travel in 2004. Ever since he has been finding ways to live, study, work, or simply backpack internationally – staying on the move wherever possible. He first travelled to Africa as a student in 2008 and has been returning to the continent regularly to research, teach English or simply soak up the ambiance in Africa’s countless little-visited corners. Connolly has written Bradt’s Gabon, Senegal and Mauritania guidebooks, and updated or contributed to Bradt’s guides to Somaliland, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Uruguay, Sierra Leone, São Tomé & Príncipe and Rwanda. When he's not updating guides, leading tours or discussing the many merits of camel meat, you’ll find him hitching lifts in grain trucks, sampling questionable local delicacies or seeking out a country’s funkiest records.