Catherine Mack

It's the people who always sell a place to me, and that is why they often feature in my travel articles. They are the real key to ensuring a truly responsible form of tourism in the future. Plus I am Irish, so I am a sucker for people and their stories. I am now living in London, and I combine travel writing with full time parenting, which calls for serious juggling sometimes.

My best travel moments since completing my Msc. in Responsible Tourism Management in 2007 include: travelling round Ireland to write my book, ecoescape:Ireland (but it did make me pretty homesick); swimming from one Croatian island to the next on a Swimtrek holiday, watching my sons being taught to climb to the top of a sixty foot oak tree on the Isle of Wight, and walking with a donkey in the Alps for a week. Writing a regular slot as Ethical Traveller columnist in The Irish Times keeps me on my toes too. I am on a mission to get  local food production linked in with tourism whenever possible. But one of my greatest ambitions is to see the opening of a high speed tunnel rail link from UK to Ireland within my lifetime. For more info on my work, see my website, Ethical Traveller