Fear is found on a creaking glacier in the Caucasus mountains and joy is encapsulated in the perfect Shanghai dumpling.

I have travelled every continent and lived on three, eating everything I was told to (and many things I should not have). Trips of a lifetime, I’ve had a few, from playing piano while crossing the Drake Passage to Antarctica, hiking through ancient olive groves in Palestine, I’ve danced at Irish weddings and in Russian nightclubs, taken a dingy to find all-but-forgotten Australian rock art galleries, and slipped out of bed and into a Maldivian lagoon. I have a particular soft spot for the wilds of the Middle East, scarves and carpets.

And while I love a $500-a-night hotel room (who doesn’t?), sometimes the best stories are found in a $20 guesthouse. With an eye always out for good markets and great street eats, I am a travel writing creating features for Sydney’s Sun-Herald and Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers, and hunt down the travel news for the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age Traveller section each week.