Simon Calder

Simon Calder (born 25 December 1955) is an English travel writer and broadcaster, currently senior travel editor for The Independent newspaper.

Biography

In 1962, Calder joined the Woodcraft Folk and travelled with the group to the Lake District. That same year after the USSR sent nuclear warheads to Cuba, Calder's parents decided that with Gatwick airport only two miles away they were in the line of a potential Soviet target. The family moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands, for a short holiday while the danger passed. The school he attended, Thomas Bennett in Crawley, compulsorily taught Russian, which Calder comments was not useful on regular school and family trips to France.

Calder's first job was a cleaner for British Airways at Gatwick and later as a security guard. He began during this period writing budget travel guidebooks, starting with the Hitch-hiker's Manual: Britain. He later studied for a degree in Mathematics at University of Warwick, while also indulging his love of hitchhiking around Europe. At one point he was the holder of the record for the quickest hitchhike between Land's End and John o' Groats.