Travel has always played a big part in my life. I was born in Germany but when I was one my parents moved back to England, thoughtfully taking me with them. Some 30 years later, by which time I had two children of my own, my wife Maria and I decided to emigrate to New Zealand. The kids then were aged three and four and we thought New Zealand was a much better place to bring them up, as indeed it turned out to be. We did some major trips to England and South Africa over the next several years but it was not until 1996, when the kids left home, that we left home too. We gave up our jobs, rented out the house, bought a couple of backpacks and set off to travel for a year. Before we knew it, that year became two, then three … and now, 18 years later, we have just returned to New Zealand and moved back into our house. We’re going to miss so many things about the places we’ve lived and visited over all that time, but it’s great to be back! My two books – All You Need is Luck and A Little More Luck – are about what it was like just giving up our “normal” life, leaving the rat race behind, and setting off on this huge adventure. And yet I wouldn’t, strictly speaking, call them travel books. They are really books about a particular lifestyle. But unlike, say, Bill Bryson’s experience of living in England (Notes from a Small Island) or Peter Mayle’s account of moving to southern France (A Year in Provence) or Chris Stewart’s fun and games settling into a remote new home in Spain (Driving Over Lemons), our new lifestyle has been much more nomadic. We have lived back in England, in Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, and in various parts of the United States – Colorado, San Diego, Seattle and, for about 12 years, in Santa Barbara, California. Those of you familiar with Santa Barbara will appreciate how hard it was to leave such a beautiful place. Our incentives were three baby grandsons in Auckland plus the prospect of returning to the grape-growing region of Marlborough, home of the very best sauvignon blanc! For many years I’ve worked as a staff writer or freelancer for newspapers, magazines and web sites all over the world. That’s something I plan to continue doing in New Zealand while (hopefully) finding time to complete my overdue third book.