Bradley Mayhew was born in Sevenoaks, Kent in 1970 but spent over a decade living in Montana, USA. A degree in Oriental Studies (Chinese) at Oxford University kickstarted 20 years of independent travel in the remoter corners of Asia and a career writing guidebooks. With his classmate, he wrote the Odyssey Guide to Uzbekistan, the first guidebook to the country, in 1995. He has since written over 25 guides for Lonely Planet, specialising in Central Asia, Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, China and Yellowstone National Park, but also covering Mongolia, Jordan, Morocco, India and Sri Lanka.In the course of his research trips he's been arrested in the Tajikistan Pamirs, forced to make a self-criticism in Tibet, slept in a cupboard in Nicaragua and spent way too much time eating mutton kebabs across inner Asia. Bradley has also written for Insight guides and Rough Guides and has lectured on Central Asia to the Royal Geographical Society. He was filmed retracing the route of Marco Polo for a five-hour German TV documentary (Arte/SWR) in 2011, and then for the ten-part series Wanderlust (Arte/SWR), hiking ten of Europe's most beautiful long distance walking trails.Follow his blog at www.bradleymayhew.blogspot.com, or on Twitter at @bradley_mayhew.