Interviews

As a travel writer Tristan Rutherford has dipped in and out of more than 60 countries and written about them for 20 of the world’s biggest publications. Having conquered The Independent, the Sunday Times and Condé Nast Traveller, he turned his attention to a brand new guide book all about Provence and Côte d’Azur, written in partnership with his wife Kathryn Tomasetti. The guide just hit the shops so Tristan decided to take some time out from writing for a cup of tea and a chat. Here’s what happened.

You’re at a party. The speakers come out and it just so happens that you’re the only guest with a compatible iPod. It’s plugged in and set to shuffle. What song are you the most fearful of?

Michel Thomas’s Guide to Italian on mp3. It happens all the time! I’ll be sitting down with a glass of wine, hit shuffle, and all I get is – in his harsh Germanic accent: “Say it again, una tavola per due, say it again.”

You very kindly pass on your knowledge of travel writing in lectures held at Central St Martin’s and Kingston University in London. Is there one particular pearl of wisdom that you always pass on – without fail?

Basically, you gotta travel first. I’ve taught scores of budding young travel journos, many of them eager to be called by an editor and told: “I need you in Havana tomorrow, pick up your ticket from the BA counter at T5.” Well, that sometimes happens, but never to beginners. Instead, you have to tell the editor where you are, work out what uniquely brilliant story you’ve stumbled across, then send it to another ten newspapers if he or she doesn’t commission it.

Who was your first teenage crush?

Louise Lombard, the actress who stared alongside Clive Owen in ITV’s Chancer. She was also in The House of Elliott on Sunday nights – an exiting school night if ever there was. I still ‘Google Image’ her younger self.

How would you sum up your latest guide book, Footprint France: Provence and Côte d’Azur, in ten words or less?

Art, beaches, markets, piazzas, vineyards, 125cc-scooters, pastis, walks, lavender, sunshine.

And now in as many words as you like.

It’s a lovely, lovely book. Footprint are great publishers. They give you enough time, enough funds and enough positive feedback to produce visually stunning guidebooks about a place that you know intimately. We love Hemingway, Cocteau, Picasso, art, food, wine and sunshine, so it was a joy to loop it all together in a single book.

Basically we’ve listed all our favourite hotels (include many under €50 a night plus some campsites), our favourite picnic spots (think bags of olives, a baguette and a bottle of rosé for under a fiver), the best beaches (all free) and the best walks across the South of France. We’ve also written about how to get there for under £100 with a return from London on the train, although EasyJet often works out cheaper.

With the permission of your lovely wife and guidebook co-author Kathryn, let’s play Snog, Marry Avoid - with a reason for each choice. Sandra Bullock, Victoria Beckham and Hillary Clinton. Go!

I actually like Hillary – I’d marry her for the conversation and to influence a peaceful political push in the Middle East. Don’t think I’d get in the way of Wild Bill though. Snog? Posh, definitely. My friend used to have a life-size Spice Girl cardboard cut out of her – I think she may have been snogged before. That leaves Sandra avoided. No real reason – it’s just Hilary and Posh are more fun!

What's the most common question you get asked as a travel writer?

“If I send an editor an idea, won’t they just steal it?” A fair point but no, never.

If you send, for example, The Guardian a pitch from Peru they’ll commission you to write it as you’re there, you can do the story, you’re present. It would cost them thousands to send another travel writer out there. Besides, with today’s electronic trails, you would simply sue if your same idea cropped up in print. And you really don’t want to sue a journalist!

What’s next on the travel writing To Do list for Tristan Rutherford?

We’ve just formed a TV production company to make a six-part series about us following Rome’s ancient borders from Istanbul to Syria. We did it for a tenner, simply by making a website saying we are a TV production company. Inspired really! Now all we have to do is hire a cameraman and editor, and get the project commissioned. You gotta think big!

Name five works of fiction that you’d deem worthy of space in a bulging backpack?

I actually compile lists of books I’ve heard about in my Moleskin then go on Amazon and buy them, often for a penny in the New & Used section of the website. It’s my treat to me! You can’t go wrong with these:

• Ernest Hemingway, Farewell to Arms – gripping, romantic, lots of drinking in Milan and escape in Italy
• Ernest Hemingway, Old Man and the Sea – first ‘proper’ book I ever read. Makes you humble.
• Wilbur Smith, Hungry as the Sea – a ripsnorter of a novel, from South Africa to the Caribbean and, er, Richmond.

For summer reading I’d also go with Eat, Pray, Love (brill) or anything by Paul Theroux, Ian Rankin or Val McDermind: the latter two will leave you cold.

Reality is temporarily suspended. Until it’s restored, you’re in charge and you’re omnipotent. What do you do first?

World peace definitely. And I’d award the Man in Seat 61 – Europe’s train guru – an OBE.

You can win a copy of Footprint France: Provence and Côte d’Azur in this month’s Hot Hostel Competition. Just answer one simply question and a copy could be on its way to you within days! Good luck.