✨ Welcome to our series, TravMedia's Travel Writer of the Week! ✨

Each week, we'll be shining a spotlight on one of the incredibly talented, passionate, and inspiring Journalists or Editors from our amazing community.

This week, we'd like to shine the spotlight on freelance travel writer - Ian Packham. 

We hope you enjoy - happy reading !!

Where are you based?

Sheffield

What outlets do you write for? Who is your audience? What are your travel specialties?

I have two main outlets for my writing. I write for quite a wide range of consumer-facing media, writing first-person destination articles for the likes of The i, Independent and Travel Africa magazine. I have also started writing guidebooks for Bradt, having worked on the latest edition of their Ghana guide (at the printers right now) and having just submitted my updates to their Angola guide. As you might be able to tell from what I've already said, I have a passion for Africa and this is where I focus my writing, although I've also recently written articles on Cyprus, Switzerland and Romania.

Are you in-house or freelance (or both)?

A little unusually, I am and have been freelance from day one of my travel writing career, which meant I got to find my own route into the industry, but also meant I had absolutely no idea was I was doing or how the industry worked when I started out.

What are your professional pet peeves?

Being invited to an event that would be relevant to my work with only two days notice. Living in Sheffield and reliant on the trains, this makes it almost impossible for me to attend. If you gave me 2-3 weeks notice (including exact location and start/end times) I'd do my absolute best to be there.

In your past professional life you were …

I spent 10 years as a medical researcher, working in university and charity labs. I very much enjoyed it at the time and still have a passing interest in the science. However, I got to the point when I needed a change and having been complimented on my writing by various people in the industry I thought it was worth giving travel writing a chance.

Where would you like to return to?

I'm always on the look out for the opportunity to return to Sierra Leone in West Africa. I've already travelled there three times, once for a five-month stint helping out at a community guesthouse. It's a destination that always manages to amaze me, given the mix of attractions (history, beaches, culture and wildlife) and the fact it's so different on the ground to what you might expect when someone says the words 'Sierra Leone' to you.

What's on your bucket list?

I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment. The authenticity of South Sudan - the world's newest nation - intrigues me, so I'd love to make it out there some time soon.

Where do you travel for fun?

I had my first holiday in about five years this summer, spending a week in Porto, Portugal with family. I'd go back in a flash it's such a charmingly beautiful city with excellent food and some links to Africa as the birthplace of Henry the Navigator, a prince who sent Dias and da Gama off on their voyages of discovery around the coast of Africa.

Your funniest (or most harrowing) travel story is …

Not funny per se...My favourite story of late was from my time in Angola researching the updates for the Bradt guide. It was the afternoon of my very last day and I was sitting in a cafe killing time when three women on their lunch break INSISTED I join them. I soon learnt through passing conversation that one was the new director of the country's Natural History Museum next door, on her last day of work before heading to a dinosaur dig in Wyoming. What followed was a private 3 hour tour of the museum - otherwise closed for maintenance for the next couple of years.

On the harrowing front, I was once teargassed walking to the Ethnographic Museum in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on a Friday afternoon. Needless to say, it stung rather a lot, and the museum turned out to be closed anyway!

What advice would you give your younger professional self?

Give yourself time. When you start out and you're lucky to even get a handful of commissions a year it can feel like an impossibility to be a freelance travel writer. With time, you start to get your name known and get more confident at pitching, which makes life a little bit easier. The imposter syndrome doesn't go away, and it took a long time to feel confident telling people I was a travel writer. You will be making progress, so keep going!

What nugget would you like to add that we haven't touched on?

As someone who hated networking when I first started out, and totally avoided it for two years, I really can't stress enough how important showing your face at events is, especially if like me you can be away for several months at a time for work.

How best should people contact you?

I always prefer email: ian@encircleafrica.org