Abigail King

Doctor turned travel writer Abigail King is an award-winning journalist and photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic Traveller, Lonely Planet and the BBC, amongst many others. She’s also written countless city and regional guides, and dominates in the blogosphere with her award-winning Inside the Travel Lab. Having lived in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, France and Spain, she now calls the UK home again.

Top travel memory: “I don’t know how I should phrase the opposite of, “this ain’t my first rodeo,” but it is my first time. We are in Williams Lake, and the Stampede is in town. The snuffle and scuffling sound of horses fills the air, floating with the fizz and sizzle of a Canadian pancake breakfast and the expectant taste of syrup. Denim jeans and plaid shirts swarm around as we pick up our programmes. From the top of the bleachers, the view is of hats. Dust, sweat and incredible courage fire out into the stands as horses buck, lassos swirl, bulls charge and grown men fly through the air like projectile rag dolls. I have, quite literally, quite staggeringly, never seen anything like it before.”