THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY - HONG KONG

presents

“What The Travel Writer Saw”

by

Paul Deegan

on

Tuesday, 1 April 2008

We are delighted to welcome Paul Deegan to Hong Kong to address the Royal Geographical Society on What The Travel Writer Saw. Since 1988, when he proposed and co-led a 47-strong environmental expedition to clean out Everest Base Camp at the age of 18, Paul has been a media figure. More recently, Paul has been a leading freelance travel writer, criss-crossing the globe and filing hundreds of stories for more than a dozen publications. In ‘What The Travel Writer Saw’, Paul tells some of his most fascinating stories from six continents, illustrated by superb pictures.

In India, Paul joined an expedition to the island of Car Nicobar, which had previously been visited by only one foreigner in the preceding half century. During an assignment to Ecuador, Paul travelled to the Galápagos archipelago in the aftermath of the Jessica oil spill. On a voyage to the Antarctic Peninsula he accompanied an individual who overcame all the odds to achieve an extraordinary ambition.

From exploring a connection between Lake Titicaca and a village on Peru’s northern coast to photographing the declining art of fishing with cormorants in Yunnan, Paul’s short stories illustrate the speed of change in some rural areas, as well as the impacts of the tourism industry that travel journals promote.

What The Travel Writer Saw also includes tales from Paul’s first season in the European Alps, where he survived his alpine apprenticeship by fool’s luck, an expedition to Mount McKinley in North America, during which Paul was caught in wind-chill temperatures of –100ºF (-73ºC), and a journey to a “different planet” that cost £300. Paul led an expedition to a previously unexplored mountain massif on the border of the former Soviet Union and China, also co-organising a winter expedition to the Himalayan kingdom of Zanskar. In May 2004, Paul completed a 15-year quest when he reached the summit of Everest.

More than 250 of Paul’s stories have been published in newspapers and magazines ranging from “The Sunday Times” to “Climb” to “Geographical”. Reports of his adventures have appeared in “The Telegraph”, “The Guardian” and the “Baghdad Times”. He has held editorial positions on several titles and is currently the Equipment Editor for “Geographical” magazine. Paul’s first book, “The Mountain Traveller’s Handbook”, was published by the British Mountaineering Council. It has been described by “Trail” magazine as “a mine of useful information”. The book received an Honorary Mention at the U.S. National Outdoor Book Awards. Paul has appeared on most of the terrestrial and satellite news programmes in the UK, and has been interviewed from the field by the BBC’s Radio 4, Radio 5 and World Service stations. Paul, who has lived in the popular mountain destinations of Chamonix and Kathmandu, is currently based in the USA.

Members and their guests are most welcome to attend this lecture, which is HK$50 for Members, HK$100 for Members' guests and HK$150 for others.