Interviews

Rob Savage meets Tom Hall from Lonely Planet

1. Let's start with a little bit about you – have you ever had a hideous temping job to pay your way forward and if so, what did it entail?

The work I had was working in one of the Furkin chain of pubs - in fact I used to have to wear a T-shirt that said I'm a Furkin Bar Steward. And to be honest while that aspect of it wasn't that much fun - the rest of it was great. Firstly I was working in London and then in Leeds and on both of those counts you would just meet people that otherwise you would never have met. I must say that working while you're watching friends and people you know - getting drunk and having fun was a bit tough and I was amazed at how little money I earned, but it was great and I'd really recommend it to anyone – if you're thinking about doing bar work. It's a really fun job.

2. What was the chain of events that led to where you are and what you do today at Lonely Planet?

I've been very fortunate in that when I started to think about a career after travelling I had two possible lines I wanted to go down. Either publishing or doing something in travel. I suppose the enthusiasm to do something in publishing came from a History Degree – you naturally spend a lot of time in the library with a lot of books and as for travel – that would give me the opportunity to get out there and do it. So it's a happy convergence of events really that I got to do a temping job at Lonely Planet and I suppose I've clung on for dear life since then. It's been fantastic and I've had at least eight different jobs and worked on lots of different areas of the business - logistics, marketing, public relations, a touch of writing and also the environmental side of the business. Here I spent time looking at our strategy for sustainable travel.  So I suppose the chain of event is that since I started at Lonely Planet - the company has grown and so there have been opportunities to grow with it and I have been lucky enough to pursue things that I've always wanted to pursue on the writing front. I suppose the major thing that got me to a position where I felt like I was acting as a spokesperson for Lonely Planet was the page in the Observer – which I suppose came about as a fairly happy confluence of circumstances. They redesigned their page at the same time that we had an idea for an ask the experts feature.

3. What was the very first article that you had published?

I did some work for the Leeds Student and then it was actually an Australian publication, when I started at Lonely Planet – which was a mixture of traveller's questions and travel features - and then I started to push things to various publications. But yeah the first thing was in the Sydney Morning Herald's Get Away page and it was just a piece of advice on Prague. Again it had an element of fortune in there because having a Lonely Planet connection really helped. There is the assumption that it is impossible to get a job for Lonely Planet and be a Travel Writer, whatever that means, but I really don't think it's impossible provided you're prepared to do a bit of work for nothing, grab the opportunity when it comes along and get your hands dirty. It's all the stuff you don't see that's important.

4. You contribute to TNT, The Observer and various other publications – in addition to Lonely Planet. Out of these which would you say - requires you to adapt your writing style the most – in terms of your target demographic?

I think that probably the best example is TNT Magazine. The great thing about TNT is that of all of the magazines in it's field, it stands out as one that has great writing and a real voice - so it has this kind of anarchic fun loving tone to it. Quite often with something like the Observer you need to adapt – not a dry tone but a very factual tone. You have 150 words to tell someone all these things they've asked about Central America – all these things they've asked about flying with Ryanair or something like that, and there isn't always room to breathe.

With something like TNT the readers really respond if you're quite cheeky. For example someone wrote in this week and said they've always wanted to go to a Christmas Market in Europe – what would you recommend?

Well I said I hate Christmas Markets. They are the most terrible - awful thing and they are complete crap - designed to get tourists travelling to these rubbish cities where they wouldn't go to otherwise. The only reason to go travelling in winter is to go to places where there aren't the crowds - there would be in the summer or to go skiing. If you go to a Christmas Market you're going to be drinking disgusting tasting wine and I was thinking that – when I wrote it, I couldn't have written that for anyone else. But they really like it. The interesting thing is that I churn through a lot of stuff on a weekly basis and it disappears out into the effer and you assume people read it but you don't know. However if you meet an Australian or a New Zealander in London and you say I do this stuff in TNT then they say they love that page and they use it for this, this and this. It gives you a chance to let your personality out.

5. Imagine that someone comes along, puts a gun to your head and tells you that you're going to be stranded in one place for the rest of your life. You're then told to choose where – what location do you choose and why?

I would definitely be stranded in London. I think that the passion I have for travelling would be doubled for London. I'm extremely biased about it and extremely attached to it. If I could be stranded in a foreign place I'd probably choose somewhere like Southern Tanzania which is so lovely on the eye, has beautiful - friendly people and it's got enough in it to just make you go wow. There are definitely bits of Southern Tanzania that you could happily spend the rest of your life in. 

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