Our story
It all began nearly 15 years ago, in the dusty deserts of northern Sudan, where two people – an Italian woman and a British man – were living at the time.
The only guidebook that there was to the country at the time was terrible. Truly terrible. It gave a superficial understanding of what made the place tick, and in many areas was just blatantly wrong.
“We can do better!” said the Italian woman to the British man.
And, with a nonchalant nod of the British man’s head, the rest became history.
OUR GUIDEBOOKS
We did do better – and our guidebook to the country rapidly developed a loyal following from people who appreciate the care, attention and love that we had invested in it.
At that time everything was going online. Publishers were trying to lower their budgets. They were paying their authors less and sending them for less time abroad. Some stopped sending them overseas altogether, relying instead on online sources.
We have always travelled the world trying to understand local cultures and respect local places that we visit.
We have lived together in more than countries, and are increasingly frustrated by the lack of decent information in travel guides… almost as though some of these authors haven’t actually been to the places that they are writing about. Most of these travel guides, we found, have only just scratched the surface.
Prior to the internet publishers had little competition and could get away with such basic info, which was better than nothing.
But, with the internet and the great wealth of information found there, most publishers thought they could get away with relying mainly on online sources, damaging the travel guide industry and making people question why they should spend money on a travel guide.
Times have changed and people don’t just travel for to visit a place. Increasingly people choose to relocate there.
We decided to create a series of guidebooks for those that want a deeper understanding of a country.
We wanted to create a set of guidebooks that could be used not just by people who are moving to a country for a short time, but for those who are coming to a place to live and for those travellers who are looking for more off-the-beaten track spots.