Guy Mavor
Guy Mavor
I am a languages teacher and writer (fiction, travel). My childhood was spent between France and England observing the two countries interact and misunderstand each other. It has led me to explore other cultures in my working life and try to bring them alive in the classroom or on the page ('show, don't tell' is sound advice for both professions). Before teaching I was a copywriter, the first editor of realmadrid.com and also wrote guidebooks. I even began a PhD on the post-colonial Buenos Aires frontier, but found myself doing too much imagining and not enough concluding, or indeed bill-paying. But the hybrid societies which can develop in the space between contact and conquest are a rich seam, and inform the stories I write. I teach full-time and write fiction and articles during the holidays, most recently for Travel Africa Magazine.
Many Africas
A recent project, which Covid turned from an almost-business to a blog, was to develop manyafricas.com, which focuses on sustainable travel to parts of the continent where there is a careful triangulation between conservation, whole-community uplift and visitor impact, with a longer-lasting, equal-footing connection forged between visitors and locals. Beyond offsetting massively on local tree-planting projects, I have no solutions on how to mitigate the tons of carbon produced by a trip there from another continent, but I still believe that travel can be good for both travellers and hosts. I aim to promote longer, less-frequent trips, and to encourage travel through landscapes rather than over them. I focus on community conservancies or tourism ventures in and around wildlife-rich areas which are rooted in local upskilling, supply chains, and indeed taxpaying and education. Overrated words include 'exclusive' and 'unspoilt', for their suggestion that people ruin rather than make a holiday. Areas covered include South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya.
@manyafricas
@manyafricas
@guymavor
Mexico
Published in November 2015, A Very British Guide to Contemporary Mexico was a dual project (coffee-table book and practical pocket guide) for Visit Mexico, aiming to encourage British visitors to the country by describing its ongoing cultural renaissance and long ties to the UK. I revisited various regions, interviewed individuals with a love of the country and wrote the introductory essay.
I am not up-to-date enough to provide any reliable travel advice to Mexico. It is dispiritingly, shockingly violent in some areas, and safe in others. But it has such energy, beauty and history you should seek reliable advice and go.
Photo: sand dune, Sossusvlei, Namibia