Brian Thacker

Brian was born in England, but he didn’t like the weather so he immigrated to Melbourne in Australia when he was six. He brought his family along as well and moved into a lovely hacienda in the tropical paradise of Bonbeach. Okay, it was a normal suburban house in Melbourne’s suburban sprawl, but to a family of sickly white Poms, the quiet bay beach was heaven and every free day was spent frying in the sun like all good Poms do. Not long after finishing an advertising course at University, Brian took the first of many trips overseas, hitch-hiking 10,000 kilometres around Europe. He then spent two years working as an art director for a London advertising agency before the cold mornings finally sent him scurrying home to warmer climes. The travel bug soon bit again and two years later he was off back to Europe to work as a tour leader for Top Deck, an 18 to 35 tour company where he escorted busloads of drunk Aussies and Kiwis from Paris to St. Petersburg to Budapest and beyond. In the winter months he worked (well, if you want to call it work) as a ski guide in Switzerland, where he got paid to get up every morning and go skiing. Brian's experience as a tour leader became his first book Rule No. 5: No Sex on the Bus (2001). Since then Brian has written six other books including Planes, Trains and Elephants (2002), The Naked Man Festival (2004), I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck (2005), Where’s Wallis? (2006), Sleeping Around (winner of 2009 Travel Book of the Year) and Tell Them to Get Lost (2011). His books have been translated into German, Thai, Mandarin and Slovenian. Brian has appeared at writer’s festivals and run travel writing workshops around the world, including Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Byron Bay, Ubud (Bali) and Singapore. When he isn't galivanting around the world he calls Melbourne, Australia home. So far he has visited 77 countries (78 if you count Tasmania).