Simon Calder at 25: The five most inspiring explorers

The Independent’s travel correspondent, Simon Calder, looks back at a quarter century of travel

Over the past two-and-a-half decades I have met many impressive men and women who have helped to give the UK the best travel industry in the world.

Among them are 25 “travel heroes” whose expertise and energy have improved life for travellers. In the second of a five-part series, here are the most inspiring explorers.

Each has provided a travel tip and a happiest travel memory.

Douglas Bolton, television director

Doug and Simon’s first shoot was in Singapore (Doug Bolton)

Over 25 years I have been fortunate to film in locations from Essex to Easter Island with some excellent TV directors. And also Doug. How heroic is he? Well, on our first shoot in Singapore I ended up on the sofa in his hotel room (not for a bet but due to operational difficulties with the booking system). Later, when we touched down at Qingdao, China, the first thing that happened was that his very expensive camera was confiscated, which he felt rather took the edge off the week’s travelling and film-making. But using a combination of Canon stills cameras and an iPhone, somehow Doug got it to work. And eventually retrieved his camera from a Cathay Pacific office in Hong Kong.

Travel tip: “I have three: wear a smile – you can achieve a lot if someone sees a happy chap; when it comes to luggage, less is always more (even when it comes to filming equipment); someone once said to me, ‘Better to beg for forgiveness rather than permission’ – I have used this many times while filming abroad.”

Happiest travel memory: “Oddly enough, not my hotel on Singapore nor the camera-free tour of China. It was getting married to my wife, Vanessa. One of my filming clients is a high-end luxury holiday rental company and they offered us their penthouse of the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, in Colorado. It started snowing as we said our vows on the balcony, it was a very personal, intimate and a magical ceremony. Luckily, Simon wasn’t there to share our room.”

Susan Griffith, travel guidebook author

Travelling with my son, no longer in utero, in Melbourne (Susan Griffith)

Travel lifts the spirits and opens the eyes – which is all very well, except for the small matter of affording to reach all those inspiring places. Fortunately, Susan Griffith talked to hundreds of working travellers to write her groundbreaking book, Work Your Way Around the World.

Travel tip: “Boldly set aside all worst-case-scenario thoughts when deciding what time to leave to catch a flight or train.”

Happiest travel memory: “Pregnant with twins, I was already euphoric in the spring of 1989. The only way to visit Albania at that time was with an approved group. Ingeniously Simon had put together a group tour pegged to the Albania-England World Cup qualifier in Tirana, which prompted the Albanian tourism operatives to create a week-long football-themed itinerary for us. Fascinating, as the under-19s training match in Shkoder might have been, I decided to board a train heading south to Fier to access the ancient remains of the Greek city of Apollonia.

“The blue-eyed train conductor seemed untroubled at the absence of a ticket – I had tried to buy one at Durres station and been denied – and told me his name was Romeo. His sister’s name was Juliet because their father had been a lover of Shakespeare, having learned English by listening to the World Service across the Adriatic. Naturally the conversation turned to babies. He showed me a picture of his little daughter Jeyney. Jenny? No Ja-ne after Jane Eyre. At that moment, I wished for twin girls whom I would name Jane and Juliet.”

James Hill, Italian and US tour leader, Ciceroni Travel

An expert on Italy (James Hill)

All roads, as you know, are said to lead to the Italian capital. But to understand the city seemed to take me an eternity. This changed when I visited Rome in the company of James Hill, a British guide who lives in Italy and is steeped in its stories. He is also formidably expert in the hidden cultural treasures of the US.

Travel tip: “Three Italian recommendations. Visit Rome, Florence or Venice between November and February when they are at their least busy. Before you enter the Colosseum in Rome, buy your all-inclusive ticket at the Roman Forum – that way you don’t have to queue. If you’re travelling to the Bay of Naples with young children and teenagers, Pompeii is huge and exhausting but Herculaneum is more manageable with more tangible objects from the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius in a relatively small area.”

Happiest travel memory: “The first time I ever walked into Rome’s Pantheon nearly 30 years ago. It is remarkable to stand in an interior space from our shared classical past that is, for the large part, unchanged since the emperors Trajan and Hadrian erected it. It is still today absolutely breathtaking in its scale and ambition.”

Graham Hoyland: mountaineer, explorer and author of ‘Yeti: An Abominable History’

On Everest’s north side (Graham Hoyland)

The first of many occasions on which I pondered whether it was actually a good idea to attempt to climb Aconcagua with Graham was at the start of the trail to the Argentinian peak, when he had to ask for directions out of the car park. Nonetheless we made it to the 22,837ft summit of the highest mountain outside the Himalayas and even managed to find our way back to the same car park afterwards.

For Graham, Aconcagua was a mere hillock compared with reaching the summit of Everest (in 1993, he became the 15th British climber to do so), and despite the car-park incident he has successfully navigated a sailing boat to the shores of Antarctica.

Travel tips from nine trips to Everest: ”Don’t forget to pack: lots of passport photos as immigration eats them; photos of you and your family which are good for making friends with locals; alcohol-based hand cleaner; a pillow; some slip-on shoes/slippers for base camp and going to mess tent and toilet; at least one headtorch – handheld torches are useless; properly worn-in light hiking boots (not new boots); an MP3 player and your favourite music from home; a good comfortable day rucksack; dark, wraparound sunglasses or better still glacier glasses; spare sun glasses and spare prescription glasses, in case they get sat on and broken; a whistle for drawing attention; at least three big thick books, different from everyone else’s; a good sun hat with back-of-neck flaps; a pee bottle with a wide, leak-proof cap; sore-throat sweets; your favourite headache pills; a wad of lavatory paper, great for all sorts of uses apart from the conventional; a warm duvet or thick fleece jacket for sitting around in the evenings; and, most important of all, a large flexible sense of humour.”

Happiest travel memory: “Standing on a mountain pass just after spotting Yeti footprints in the snow.”

Dr John Mason MBE, astronomer and astronomical tour guide

Dr John Mason in Svalbard (Dr John Mason)

Roughly once a year, a strip of the Earth’s surface will be flung into darkness as the moon blots out the sun. And if you want to know the best place to travel for a total solar eclipse, follow the astronomical hero Dr John Mason. Better still, sign up for an eclipse tour where he is the guide, to hear the most lyrical exposition of the heavens.

Travel tip: “Learn to love maps of all kinds and never be afraid to use them.”

Happiest travel memory: “One very clear night, while doing an outdoor planetarium show for a group of guests in the Masai Mara, I was in full flow when one of the rangers tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the edge of the clearing where a mother elephant and her young calf were standing quietly watching the show.

“In the course of my travels I have seen many amazing night-time sights but three stand out: the incredible darkness that enveloped us at the start of the 3 November 1994 total eclipse of the sun viewed from on the Chilean Altiplano; the astonishing brightness and clarity of the summer Milky Way observed from Hao, a coral atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia, from where the nearest streetlight must have been nearly 1,000km away; and the amazing northern lights display seen while sailing into the narrow Trollfjord between the Lofoten islands and Vesteralen on 9 October 2015, which took on the form of a dragon, first looking down at me and then turning to show its profile – breathtaking!”