Neville Walker is fascinated by the near abroad, the unexpectedly rewarding and the formerly glamorous, which is why his first published travel article was about Liverpool. He is drawn to the Bauhaus modernity of Stuttgart and prefers Beaulieu to St Tropez. And Opatija to either.

A freelance writer, he specialises mainly in European travel, often focusing on strongly artistic, historical or architectural themes. He has contributed to the Rough Guides to Austria, France, London and Provence & the Côte d'Azur, and frequently writes travel features for the Financial Times and Cara - the inflight magazine of Aer Lingus. He has also written for the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and Gay Times, and reviews for the London restaurant guide Square Meal. In 2006, he completed work on the Rough Guides Directions Gran Canaria title – writing and researching the book and taking many of the photographs himself.

Born in the west of England, he studied geography at Cambridge and trained as a magazine journalist before being subsumed in the world of public relations, from which he finally emerged in 2000. He lives in London and Austria.