ALASKA: riding on the 0645 Classic Coastal train south from Anchorage to Seward

My globetrotting career began one wet Monday morning in 1985 when I went to London's Liverpool Street railway station and caught a train to Hong Kong. After travelling on the Trans-Siberian Express across Russia (then the USSR), and through the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, I then spent a month touring China just as it was cautiously opening up to the world. I sold some stories about this to the Guardian, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers, and since then I've been all over the world looking for stories and adventures. I now specialise in the Caribbean, luxury travel and forgotten places, but I still love nothing more than sitting on a train looking out of the window as the world rolls by...