Inspiring Travel Writing from John Hatt
John Hatt was born in 1948. After leaving Oxford he worked for one year in a merchant bank, and then for several years for the publisher, Constable. He then took a sabbatical, making three long trips to Africa, Asia, and the United States, following which he wrote the Tropical Traveller, which went into three editions. After returning to Britain, he set up his own publishing company, Eland, which specialises in travel literature; once this was well established, he also became Travel Editor of Harpers & Queen. He has now travelled to more than 90 countries. After 10 years at Harpers, he resigned to concentrate on the internet, and in 1996 founded cheapflights.com, which is now one of the five most popular travel websites in the UK.
Articles by John Hatt
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A Walking Safari in the Selous
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John Hatt
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Tanzania
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South West Tanzania
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Selous
Although there were only three of us on our Tanzanian safari, we were accompanied by a staff of forty, thirty of whom were porters. With this number we were able to manage, but on a few occasions we could have done with more. For we were walking in...
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Dominica
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John Hatt
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United States
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Colorado
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Aspen
Dominica is the most beautiful and unspoilt of all the West Indian islands. When passengers look down from their in-coming plane, they see a landscape that is now very rare in the Caribbean: dramatic green mountains, almost entirely unscarred by...
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Oman
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John Hatt
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Oman
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Muscat Region
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Muscat
In the late 1960s there was student unrest throughout Europe, even at Oxford where the Clarendon Building was occupied by a group of activists. Among them I remember a bearded orator haranguing his audience about Oman, a remote country apparently...
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Syria: A Quest For The Elusive Hamster
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John Hatt
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Syria
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The Northeastern Desert
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Aleppo
During my background reading on Syria, I discovered that all the millions of hamsters that have been kept as pets are descended from one single pregnant animal, which was trapped near Aleppo in 1930. Apparently, only ten more wild hamsters have ever...
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Galapagos Islands
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John Hatt
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Ecuador
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Galapagos Islands
Before travelling to the Galapagos, I knew that its animals were famously tame; I didn't realize, however, that they are often downright inquisitive. During my first jet-lagged swim, a pelican splashed down by my head, and then kept me company...
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Krakow
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John Hatt
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Poland
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Krakow Region
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Krakow
Krakow is the most beautiful city in Poland, and one of the most unspoiled cities in Europe. Towards the end of the last war the Germans intended to destroy it, but the Soviet army arrived just in time, and as a result it remains almost unblemished...
Reviews by John Hatt
The Datai Langkawi | John HattI am fairly certain that no other luxury hotel in Asia has a comparable setting to the Datai, which is surrounded by lowland tropical rainforest - a storybook jungle. This is a welcome change from the gardens of most tropical hotels - usually the...-
Two Malaysian Hotels
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John Hatt
For some years there have been several celebrated holiday hotels in Indonesia and Thailand, but recently two luxurious resorts have been built in Malaysia, about which less has been written. So I went to review them. At each hotel I was mildly...