The best thing about travel-writing gigs is meeting other hacks

The thing I enjoy most about travel-writing gigs is meeting other hacks. Hacks are almost invariably fun, funny, gossipy, irreverent, and they like a drink. They are well read and intelligent, but like to conceal it. They know and understand the lineaments of power as well as politicians, only they think it’s funny. On multi-hack travel gigs you can tell whether there is a drain or a nutcase in the squad during the introductions in the Heathrow departures lounge. In this case we could safely sound the ‘all-clear’. The line-up consisted of a man from the Daily Mail, a woman from the Daily Telegraph, a woman from the Sunday Times and myself.

In his 50 years, the Mail man has so far visited 134 countries, mostly as an independent traveller. Sir Richard Burton is one of his heroes, and to hear the Mail man’s tales, he is without doubt as great a traveller as the Satanic-faced Victorian, and he has similar passions, especially for the Islamic countries, though he lacks Burton’s amazing facility for languages. You can say what you like about the Daily Mail, but if that man is a typical representative of its travel section, it must be a far more enlightened newspaper than many give it credit for. Name a country — any country, hot or cold — and he had been there. He was unpretentious, unassuming and without prejudices.

In her way, the woman from the Telegraph was equally spectacular. The Daily Telegraph is (in my limited experience) a remarkable mixture of toffs and Essex girls and boys, and this woman was a working-class Essex girl. She had been absolutely everywhere, but without losing a shred of her class identity or cool. One morning I was lounging about near the diving-school headquarters.