My name is James Getgood and I'm a travel writer living in the amazing city of Barcelona. I work with newspaper and magazine editors, travel agents, bloggers and other entrepreneurs to help them write blog posts and articles that light the spark of adventure in their readers. I have been published in Japan Travel, Tales of Travel, Transitions Abroad and Matador Network, the largest independent travel site on the web. I am also a regular contributor for Intrepid Travel.

Growing up in the sprawling suburbs of South London, I dreamed of escaping the miserable, overcast days and the endless rows of identical houses. While other boys my age were kicking a ball around or getting into fights, I had my nose in a book, immersed in another of Tintin’s thrilling escapades. I spent hours poring over exotic maps, imagining myself sailing down the mighty Zambezi or trekking through the Amazon Jungle.

Real life had other plans. As childhood gave way to adolescence, my attention turned to more familiar concerns. Like so many other teenagers, the next few years vanished in a sea of homework, exams and underage drinking.

My love of travel was reignited during university, where I studied English Literature in the cathedral city of Canterbury. The open and collegial atmosphere was nothing like the stultifying conformity of high school life. The halls were full of well-educated and well-travelled people with their own amazing tales to tell. When my housemate regaled me with hilarious stories of his days spent working at a summer camp, I knew what I had to do.

The following July, I jetted off to America to work at Camp Wigwam, a summer camp in deepest Maine. Endless days spent by Bear Lake playing softball and singing songs by the campfire were a world away from a life of writing essays and all night drinking sessions. After camp, still eager for adventure, I jumped on a bus and journeyed from coast to coast across the Canadian Wilderness.

Those 3 short weeks lit a spark inside me that has never gone away. I stood under the roaring cascades of Niagara Falls. I tramped up to the crystal waters of Lake Louise. I glimpsed a lone wolf as it strolled down an empty highway. As the cities of the east rolled into the great plains of the west, I started to wonder how I could see more of this beautiful world.

My final year of university was a struggle. Dry lectures no longer held my attention and I was filled with dread at a life of pushing papers around a dreary office. Instead, my thoughts turned to jumping on a plane and heading out east to the grand temples of Thailand and Cambodia. I had a chat with the university’s career advisor, who told me teaching English abroad offered some amazing opportunities for travel.
 

My mind was made up. Even before I took my final exams, I enrolled in a teaching course at my local language school. It was intense and demanding, but I soon became a fully qualified TEFL teacher. Even back then, I didn’t imagine I would do it forever. I thought I would spend a few years getting travel ‘out of my system’ before going back to Britain, settling down, and getting a ‘real’ job.

Things didn’t work out that way. The next 14 years were spent jumping on planes to far-flung places. While tourists were snapping pictures of Rio, I was teaching English in a ramshackle favela on the hill. As my friends were sending out wedding invitations, I was at an elementary school in Seoul, singing Let It Go with Korean schoolchildren. By the time I got to Peru, my passport had become so battered that the border guard thought it was a forgery.

In 2016, I started Restless Nomads so I could share my love of the world with others. I believe that our planet would be a better place if we ventured out and saw the Earth and its citizens with our own eyes. I want people to get lost in the crumbling temples of Angkor Wat, watch the sunset over the Barcelona skyline or jump on a bus full of chickens in the mountains of Colombia.

I draw on all my experiences to bring the sights, sounds and, yes, even smells of the world to your readers. If you're looking for a travel writer who's seen it, lived it and loved it, send me a message with the form below and I'll get right back to you.