About Me

I’m a leading UK travel journalist, with much of my career spent working for the London Evening Standard where I became Travel Editor until 2015.  Since then I have been a freelance travel journalist and copywriter. I also happen to live in Essex, recently returning to the area where I was born after living over half my life in London.

So, Essex much maligned county, the underdog of the UK and the butt of many a joke. Much of the criticism is unfair, a little is deserved, but aside from the obvious boobs n Botox clichés most people know little of what the county offers.  I’m neither haughty culture vulture nor TOWIE–watcher (although I like a bit of both), so this website is aimed at those of us who sit somewhere in the middle. I’ll tell you about rolling vineyards and beautiful places to visit, hotel and restaurant reviews, products (including food, wine and beauty), salons and spas, including one of the UK’s best with therapists from Chiva Som in Thailand. Essex offers miles of coastline, a rich and quirky history, luxurious hotels, restaurants and more unusual places to visit and stay such as a magical private island in the Blackwater Estuary even some locals don’t know about.

A final word, if you happen to know of a place, be it a pub, shop, event or just a lovely spot then please pass it on. This is for the use of both us Essex-based folk and to entice others to cross the border to discover a little more…

Think you know Essex? Think again.