Stephen Keeling

Stephen grew up in England and graduated from Oxford University in 1992, securing a job with the Baltic Observer in Riga, Latvia, as assistant business editor. In 1995, after a year organizing exhibitions in Vietnam and Myanmar for an eccentric Chinese millionaire, he returned to journalism, working for Basis Point, a Hong Kong-based financial news provider. After three years in Hong Kong, he spent two years running the Singapore office before taking a break in 1999 to travel around the world: the trip took in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and South America, and ended in Jordan and Israel. 

 In 2000 Stephen returned to Hong Kong and Basis Point, where he became Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief after the company was acquired by a New York-based subsidiary of Reuters, the following year. After a couple of years in Shanghai, he moved to Taipei, Taiwan in 2003. He spent three years in the city, half of that time dedicated to writing and researching the first Rough Guide to Taiwan for Rough Guides, a leading London-based travel guide publisher that is part of the Penguin Group. In 2006, after 12 years in Asia, Stephen moved to New York City. In 2007 he wrote the first Rough Guide to Puerto Rico and contributed to Make The Most of Your Time on Earth. Since then he has updated the Rough Guides to Canada, the Caribbean, Florida, Mexico, New England, New York, Spain and the USA. He also co-authored the first Frommer’s Tuscany and Umbria with Your Family, which won “travel guide of the year” at the Italian Tourist Board Travel Writing Awards 2008. In 2009 he wrote his first piece for Travel Squire, a guide to Bangalore, and has also written for UK broadsheet the Independent, Budget Travel and other publications.