Simon Richmond (simonrichmond.com) is a UK-based author and photographer with nearly 40 years of experience of developing, researching and writing more than 150 travel guidebooks and other non-fiction titles for major publishers including Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, DK Eyewitness, Time Out, Insight Guides and Thames & Hudson. Specialist areas include Japan (his Rough Guide to Japan won the guidebook of the year in the Travelex awards of 2000), southeast Asia, South Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, Australia, the UK and USA. An apostle for the Slow Travel ethos, his most memorable travel experiences have included overland trips from the UK to Hong Kong via the Baltic States and the ’Stans; from Istanbul to Kathmandu via Iran, Pakistan and India; across Russia, several times, by the Trans-Siberian Railway; and from Perth to Sydney on the Indian Pacific train. He’s also hiked across the Malaysian rainforest, England’s Lake District and the Japanese Alps.