Been There, Done That

True tales of mishaps, humour, cultural encounters and resilience.Alistair Smith has been a professional writer in one capacity or another since leaving school: from hard news stories, feature writing, public relations, newsletters, travel writing, and the ghost writing of biographies or memoirs. He’s written about everything from the price of fish at the market to the disappearance of a Prime Minister who got eaten by fish.Of all these, travel writing remains his passion, fired by the creative challenge required to not just inform but to inspire readers to share experiences of places, events, people, cultures, sounds and smells from diverse and unique destinations in Australia and around the world.Over a period of 30 years, he’s travelled the globe, visited all seven continents and more than 100 countries, and checked out the remotest corners of Australia (literally ... he once went to Peoppel Corner). And he’s written about most of them. This has seen him win multiple national awards for his travel writing, including three times Travel Writer of the Year, and led to him being chosen to judge other writers’ efforts as well.He says he was born with a Celtic/Viking wanderlust. He grew up and started his writing career in Scotland before migrating to Australia. His first travel story was about Athens, where his Greek-owned ship stopped on that voyage to change crew.Alistair lives in suburban Melbourne. He has two daughters, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He and his wife Nancy were together for almost 60 years, before she passed away in 2022. She accompanied him on many of his travels, and shared many of the experiences he writes about here. He dedicates his book to her.