Richard Loosley

Richard has been a professional world traveller for fifty years, having visited over 70 countries across six continents. This has resulted in a lifetime of memories and decades of experience. He has previously operated his own travel and tour companies and has hosted and spoken at several conferences and public relations events.

Having first set foot in Australia and New Zealand in 1972, his initial experience in the travel industry involved working as a guide on the Fox Glacier in New Zealand's Westland National Park.

After returning to the UK, he met Ashley Butterfield, and that meeting changed his life. They developed a strong working relationship, and they organised and ran overland adventure tours to India using public transport from 1975 to 1979. This experience taught him the importance of resilience and adaptability, as they travelled from the United Kingdom through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to New Delhi. The tours ended abruptly in 1979 due to political unrest in Iran and Afghanistan.

He subsequently made numerous trips to China and Hong Kong, travelling through Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia. On a pioneering journey in the 1980s, his group was among the first Westerners to cross the Torugart Pass in Eastern Kyrgyzstan, reaching Kashgar in Western China. They then travelled along the Silk Road to Beijing.

His career has taken him to the USA and Canada countless times, and he has explored regions and countries as diverse as Syria and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, as well as North and South Africa, and remote islands such as Tahiti in the Pacific and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic.

While sailing on the ocean liner QE2 in 1985, he experienced firsthand how the other half lived, serving as a member of the social and entertainment staff, along with colleagues, as they planned and hosted onboard entertainment for renowned international singers, musicians, and theatre performers during a world cruise.

Quite by chance, in 1991, he served as the personal tour manager for the CEO of Time Warner Corporation in the United States and his family on a ten-month world tour. After returning, he spent three years as a research and commissioning editor compiling a worldwide hotel guide. On one occasion, while in this role, he spent ten days in an open boat visiting every Maldivian island with a hotel, he reckons that's about the best way to get a tan. In the hospitality industry, he was fortunate to work at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, and again at the 2012 London Games twelve years later.

His inspiration to become an author stemmed from a desire to share his early travel experience with a broad audience. Richard is thrilled to share these experiences with you. He trusts that you will enjoy reading about his outlandish adventures masquerading as tourism in the 1970s, a time and travel experience that can never be repeated in today's political, religious, and post-COVID war-torn world with humour and detailed reminiscences.