Richard Trillo was conceived in Canada and born and brought up in England. That bit of antenatal trans-Atlantic travel might explain his lifelong wanderlust. He spent most of his youth dreaming about travelling the world and plotting his big escape. The escape came at 18 when he hitchhiked to Athens and caught the ferry to Israel, where he “worked” on a kibbutz for six months. He wasn’t the most committed volunteer they’d ever had – his main preoccupation being partying – but he managed to persuade the kibbutz to let him stay long enough to miss the start of university.

The following year, still avoiding college, he began a double gap year, hitchhiking across the Sahara to Timbuktu, with a friend and $100 each. That first exposure to Africa –mangoes, monkeys, mud and dust, bouncing around in the back of a truck, waking up by the Niger river at dawn, eating rice and fish by hand from a shared bowl on the shore –was addictive. Despite further travels in Europe, the Middle East, USA and Central America during student vacations, it was to Africa he returned after finishing a BSc in sociology at Kingston Polytechnic.

Richard and his partner Teresa hitchhiked to Mali, bought bicycles in Ouagadougou and cycled through West Africa to Yaoundé, then crossed central Africa by truck and train –actually an old bus welded to a railway car  – and cycled around Kenya. After returning home, Richard took an MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University – learning a lot of fascinating stuff about Samburu age-sets, Swahili poetry and the symbolism of clothing fashions on the East African coast.

In 1984, feeling the need to start earning a living, he replied to a small ad in The Guardian to work on the new Rough Guide series. The budding Rough Guide team agreed that a Rough Guide to Kenya would be a good thing, and Richard went off to research it, hardly believing his luck and trying not to think about how little he was expected to live on for the next six months.

Apart from two years working for STA Travel in the role of “The Africa Desk” and as  manager of one of their London branches – oh, and having a family – Richard has spent most of the last twenty-plus years working with Rough Guides, both as a day job and as a freelance author. He continues to look after his Rough Guides – Kenya, The Gambia (co-authored with Emma Gregg) and West Africa (co-authored with Jim Hudgens) – and likes to take his children on trips to Africa, one at a time, testing their usefulness as future researchers.

In 2006 he left the day job to go freelance full-time. He spends his days in a garden office in the remote suburbs of southwest London, working as a writer and editor, for Rough Guides among other publishers, and fending off reminders from the family that he really should get out more. He is going to start cycling round the park every day, starting next week.

Visit the author's blog for news and updates on the following titles: The Rough Guide to Kenya , The Rough Guide to The Gambia , and The Rough Guide to West Africa