Tom is a freelance features writer and therapy trainee based in London. He has reported for the BBC in The Gambia on Chinese-owned fishmeal factories, recounted a journey to the most remote bothy in Scotland for Rough Guides and attempted to explain a trip through the galaxy from Amsterdam (with the help of psilocybin truffles) for Mr Porter. He has written for GQ, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Mundial magazine on a variety of topics.
What does a journey mean to you?
A journey is not a holiday. It might be uncomfortable or unpleasant. It is to be earned. I don’t want to go on a journey with people who look or sound like me. I want to feel like an outsider. Ideally, journeys are undertaken alone, among strangers, who may well become friends. A journey is about saying yes, repeatedly, asking people questions, and trusting their answers – fuelled by the desire, the obsessive need, to know what’s over there. I want to be taken along, but I don’t want to be catered for. Journeys happen in the gaps between the moments and events you think are going to happen to you. There are no sights or landmarks on a journey. I’m looking for food I haven’t eaten before and people I haven’t spoken to. I want to be shouted at in the markets, I want to know where the fisherman bring in their fish, I want to look out of the window of a battered vehicle and I want to be in a place they least expect me, the journey-maker, to be.
Which other country or location most inspires you?
My most memorable journeys have been in west and east Africa. Ghana inspires me to have fun, eat everything I’m offered and be kind.
Where would you go back to, and why?
Ghana. So I can lie on wild, unspoiled beaches, ride tro tros for the sheer thrill of it, dance till morning, eat fantastic food inexpensively, and be among some of the most generous and beautiful people I’ve ever encountered.
Top insider tip for London?
Find a group of friends you genuinely love.
What journey would you most like to go on?
I’d like to take six months and travel Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I haven’t been to any of these places and I enjoy travelling to countries I don’t understand yet.
