Lisa Grainger

Lisa started out in Johannesburg as a news reporter, before moving to London, with £50 and a backpack. She has worked at The Times and Sunday Times for over 30 years, with stints as deputy editor of Ultratravel on the Telegraph and features director of Elle.

She is also a contributing editor to Conde Nast Traveller, and a regular panellist and speaker.

She has a home in London – although, she says, she lives ‘mainly out of a suitcase’.

Lisa grew up in Zimbabwe, surrounded by nature. As a girl, her mother bought her a set of 12 encyclopaedias about the natural world, which she read cover to cover, from A-Z.

She is passionate about finding ways to make tourism fund conservation and communities: making the model more sustainable for all.

Africa is her big love, whether that’s the equatorial forests of central Africa, the deserts of Namibia or the islands off Mozambique. She goes three or four times a year, at least, updating her knowledge, and getting her hit of stars, big skies and warm, welcoming people.

To drive through Africa (with a mechanically-minded man and all the kit), learning as I go, to go inter-railing again, for months, and to become David Attenborough’s assistant.