I like to Give Talks

I am a travel writer from Scotland and I like to give talks about how anyone can travel independently, how to get a job abroad and how to write about it. I interact with the audience, build on their ideas and advise them how to plan the journey of a lifetime. I particularly like talking to students but am also comfortable in front of business people, reading clubs and at book festivals.

I’ve been travelling independently all my life and have lived in Albania, Bosnia, Romania and Tibet. I can explain how I overcame my fear of travelling alone, how complacency often stops me and what skills have enabled me to thrive in some very unusual places.

I can talk about my Tibet book, or my new fairy tale  — and we can talk in advance about which part is most relevant; perhaps when I got attacked by dogs in Tibet, my sometimes farcical attempts at finding jobs, my disastrous affairs when on the road, why I gave up cannabis and what happened when the Buddhist monks of Lhasa challenged the Chinese police.

I can also discuss why writing is like a form of therapy, a useful way of processing our experiences without becoming a pub bore (as I was at one point).

Perhaps the most useful talk I can give is aimed at helping the audience realise that writing (diaries, memoirs, articles, books) is easier than they might have realised, as long as a simple daily routine can be implemented. Part of this talk covers self-publishing and its value — mainly as a way to archive your ideas, record family history, and make available the material you’ve already written (so many people have written fascinating reports, at work or at university, that just sit on a shelf — I say these should all be published, even if only a niche audience would appreciate it).

I would love to hear from you. Please send me an email: wolfemurray [at] gmail.com