![Christine Osborne and Masai, Kenya 1976 [Photo © Christine Osborne Pictures]](http://travelswithmyhat.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/COsborne-and-Masai-Kenya-1976-001.jpg "Christine Osborne and Masai, Kenya 1976 [Photo © Christine Osborne Pictures]")
Bonjour and Ahlan wa Sahlan!
The Travels with My Hat site is a window on my work – the books I’ve written, the photos I’ve taken – plus an active blog. It is also the title of my forthcoming memoir.
My journeys began in the Pacific islands in the 1960s, when travel was far less homogenised than it is today – a time when you could simply roam, without having to state a return date on your airline ticket. And while I have flown across the globe on more occasions than I can recall, my happiest times were of travelling slowly around the world on the old Messageries Maritimes packet-steamers spending days in exotic ports like Tahiti, Aden and Djibouti, or Mombasa, Dakar and Zanzibar, frequently disembarking to explore terra-firma with a notebook and camera – no laptops in those days.
In the 1990s, I began specialising in world religions focusing largely on people practising their chosen belief and observing the associated rites of passage. Together with my travel images, they have been used in a wide variety of books produced by leading academic publishers. When Bill Gates launched Corbis, a leading photographic agency, my image of a ‘Blue Man’ on a dune in the Sahara was chosen from a million others to promote the Corbis website. You can find it on the cover of my book on Morocco – see the About page listing my books on travel, culture and food.
Click Book Preview for a taste of my unique adventures working as a freelance photojournalist in countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and Ethiopia, at a time when there were no PR agencies, or tourist offices and in some places, no hotels. In one Arab Gulf state, I slept in the desert with a pistol under my pillow.
The Blog is essentially my take on current affairs, notably in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. I also comment on human rights and the environment, especially sharks and other marine life. Aside from travel, my interests include a swathe of things from fishing and diving, to eastern cuisines, the media, real estate and gardening – I have a huge garden filled with camellias, rhododendrons, jasmine and weeds.
Enjoy travel via Travels with My Hat without getting your feet wet … Bon Voyage!