Tom Chesshyre

Londoner, Tom Chesshyre, has held stints at the Coventry Evening Telegraph, the Cambridge Evening News, Sporting Life, Sky Sports, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent before joining the The Times of London in 1997. He is the author of four travel books: How Low Can You Go? Round Europe for 1p Each Way (Plus Tax), 2007; To Hull and Back: On Holiday in Unsung Britain, 2010; Tales from the Fast Trains: Europe at 186mph, 2011; and A Tourist in the Arab Spring, 2013. His new book is Gatecrashing Paradise: Misadventures in the Real Maldives - a description of a 600-mile journey around the edge of paradise, island hopping some of the most beautiful, remote spots on the planet.

Gatecrashing Paradise

When the ship carrying the French sailor François Pyrard hit a reef in the Maldives in the middle of the night in 1602, the crew believed their game was up. “We started with the shock, she suddenly struck a third time, and heeled over,” he writes in his account of … Read more