Christine Osborne

My journeys began in the Pacific islands in the 1960s, when travel was far less homogenised than it is today – a time when you could simply roam, without having to state a return date on your airline ticket. And while I have flown across the globe on more occasions than I can recall, my happiest times were of travelling slowly around the world on the old Messageries Maritimes packet-steamers spending days in exotic ports like Tahiti, Aden and Djibouti, or Mombasa, Dakar and Zanzibar, frequently disembarking to explore terra-firma with a notebook and camera – no laptops in those days.

In the 1990s, I began specialising in world religions focusing largely on people practising their chosen belief and observing the associated rites of passage. Together with my travel images, they have been used in a wide variety of books produced by leading academic publishers. When Bill Gates launched Corbis, a leading photographic agency, my image of a ‘Blue Man’ on a dune in the Sahara was chosen from a million others to promote the Corbis website.

You can work pretty much where you want to – on the road, do you find it hard to work or do you just have fun and work when you come back home?

Immediately or after thought back at the desk.

Do you feel many people are envious of your lifestyle?

People who are ignorant of what it takes -- and the loneliness of the long distance travel writer - are envious. Always saying such things as "do you want someone to carry your luggage" (I find this toe curling). Any travel writer / blogger who is serious, knows what goes with the profession: illness and loneliness rate high.

In which countries have people recognised you, even when you thought nobody would?

Once, in the deep south of Morocco. I was staggered by a youth who called out down the road "You must be Christine, driving a white Renault 4 --- you are three weeks late!"

Which three items would you never travel without?

Roger et Gaillet soap, small sleeping pillow and a book to read.

Are there any specific souvenirs or other things you collect from the places you go to?

Seeds.

Tagged as: Australia

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