I realised the other day, when scrolling through my Facebook feed and coming across photo after amazing photo of friends in exotic places around the world, that I know some pretty interesting travellers – people who spend most of their lives on the road, writing stories and taking photos of their adventures across the planet. I’ve decided to start doing a series of interviews with people whose jealousy-inducing posts inspire me to travel even more.

The first is with Justin Fox, my ex-editor at Getaway International, whose pen marks on my over-laboured stories when I was a lowly intern set me on my travel writing path. Justin spent 14 years at Getaway magazine, as a photojournalist, deputy editor, editor at large, and editor of the spin-off publication Getaway International, going on assignments that took him all over Africa and the world.  He’s cruised down the Niger River to Timbuktu, sailed a dhow to the Somali border, got manhandled by a gorilla in Rwanda,  flew in a hot air balloon over the great migration in the Masai Mara, explored the highlands of Ethiopia, learned to salsa in Cuba, crossed China on a Land Rover expedition retracing the footsteps of Marco Polo and slept at minus-five degrees Celsius in the Arctic’s ice hotel. He’s published many travel books, won awards for his travel journalism, and is now a freelance writer, photographer, part-time lecturer and novelist, having recently published his first novel, Whoever Fears the Sea.

Why do you travel?

Because if you leave me alone in one place too long I start chewing my hand off. A sedentary life and boredom are sort of synonymous for me. Movement is the elixir. I also find it much easier to write when I’m on the road.

What was your first trip without your parents?

Hiking with my school class mates in the Witels when I as about 13. We swam naked in the streams and told ghost stories at night that completely freaked us out.

What’s been the most meaningful journey you’ve done?

I spent a couple of months in the winter of 2004 driving around the edge of South Africa, tracing the borderline. I wrote a book about that journey, The Marginal Safari, which describes the emotions, highs and lows of getting under the skin of the country.

Where in the world have you felt happiest?

It’s less about place and more about the people I’m with. So the happiest places seem to be those where I was in love. Like sailing down the Nile on a cruise ship with a lover I’d not seen for many years. Or visiting the Italian Riviera and doing cheesy romantic things with my girlfriend. Happiness is usually people, not places.

What’s your favourite room you’ve ever slept in?

There was that sumptuous room with throw cushions and mosquito nets and kelims right on the beach on Mnemba Island, just off Zanzibar, that had the whole tropical fantasy down pat.

Who are your favourite travel writers?

If you count WG Sebald as a travel writer, he’d be close to the top of my list with his more travel-orientated books such as Rings of Saturn. I love much Jonathan Raban’s writing, especially his masterpiece, A Passage to Juneau. Geoff Dyer, Colin Thubron and Bruce Chatwin would also be on that list. In South Africa, I think William Dicey’s Borderline is a damn fine travelogue.

What’s the best story or book you’ve written?

I think my favourite book is The Marginal Safari – it’s the accumulation of a lot of my ideas about travelling and writing. I’ve also just finished a novel, Whoever Fears the Sea, set in Kenya and Somalia, which is by far the best novel I’ve ever written, especially given that it’s the only novel I’ve ever written.

If you could live anywhere where would it be?

A simple, laid-back tropical island wouldn’t be half bad. I’m thinking of one of the nossies in northwestern Madagascar. Failing that, a cottage in rural Provence would be alright.

What places that you’ve travelled to have had the biggest impact on you?

Strangely, all my answers would probably be African. Northwestern Namibia for landscapes, the Okavango Delta for wildlife, Madagascar for beaches and the mud cities of Mali for cultural exoticism. Oh, and Ashgabat for the weirdest, off-the-wall-insane city on earth.

In the age of blogs, social media in an over-reviewed world, what do you think the future of travel writing is?

It’s a bloody disaster. Every Tom, Dickhead and Harriet thinks he can be a travel writer. The good stuff has been swamped by the open sewer of mediocrity. There are few gatekeepers left, few editors who can hold back the tide of drivel. Travel writers worth their salt can’t make a living because too few care about quality, so they turn to PR or custom publishing or underwater basket weaving. All is lost. Make for the lifeboats.

Find Justin Fox online at Justinfoxafrica.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @JustinFoxAfrica. 

Google+