Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

There are people who travel because they want to push themselves to physical limits, people who walk across deserts or cycle across the Antarctic - like Ranulph Fiennes, who just does it because it's there. And then there are people like me, who are just genuinely curious about the world.

My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.

I enjoy writing, I enjoy my house, my family and, more than anything I enjoy the feeling of seeing each day used to the full to actually produce something. The end.

I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers.

I am restless. I don't mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village.