Lydia Swinscoe

Lydia is a travel writer and solo travel expert, based mostly in London. Her work has been published in print and online for the likes of Condé Nast Traveler, The Guardian, BBC Travel, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Marie Claire, Oh magazine, The Evening Standard, and woman&home.

A solo trip to Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico aged 19 kickstarted her travel addiction and she's since gone on to explore parts of 60 countries, returning to many often. Solo travel is her speciality, and she's happiest when hunting out great food while wearing flip-flops, preferably somewhere hot. Her award-nominated blog Lydia Travels documents artistic intimate hotels and brilliant restaurants across the globe.

She began her career compiling fashion and beauty pages for teen magazines at the BBC where she interviewed and styled some of the world's biggest pop acts, from Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato to One Direction, before joining celebrity magazine Now, as Fashion and Beauty Director, and later Woman magazine as Lifestyle Director, overseeing all fashion, beauty, food and travel content. But it's travel that has been a constant passion throughout her 14-year career.

At 23, she quit her job and travelled out of a backpack for a year, living on just $26 (£20) a day. Of the 15 countries she visited, 13 were explored by land in a bid to cut her carbon footprint. Highlights from the trip include completing Nepal’s Annapurna Base Camp trek, a teaching by the Dalai Lama in the foothills of the Himalayas, sleeping on the world's largest salt flat, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, and being completely overwhelmed by the magnificent Iguazu Falls on the Argentina-Brazil border.