Paul Harding : Coordinating Author ; Goa. Paul first landed in India in the mid-'90s looking for adventure and soon found himself in Goa looking for a decent beach hut. After many return visits to India as a traveller, writer and photographer, he keeps landing back in Goa, where the pace of life is a little slower but the wit of the people is often quicker. During his travels Paul worked on Lonely Planet's Goa guidebook in the 2000s and was fortunate enough to be drawn back for this edition, where he sampled seafood and beaches, sunsets and susegad and chose to ride a Honda Kinetic over an Enfield.
Contributor to more than 40 Lonely Planet titles, this was Paul's 9th assignment on India and the second time with his intrepid young daughter, Layla. Iain Stewart : Mumbai. Iain grew up in Leicester, a very Indian town transplanted to the Midlands, UK (complete with its own curry mile). He first visited India in 1991 and explored the sights at totally the wrong time of year, with temperatures approaching 50°C in parts.
For this trip he wised up and travelled post-monsoon : bar-hopping in Mumbai, meandering down the Konkan coast and having several near-misses with tigers in Tadoba. Abigail Blasi : Abigail fell in love with India on her first visit in 1994, and since then she's explored and written about the country from north to south and back again. She's covered plenty of other places for Lonely Planet too, from Mauritania and Mali to Rome and Lisbon.
Abigail wrote the Scams, Women & Solo Travellers and Health chapters. Trent Holden : Beyond Goa. On his third time authoring in India, Trent checked out Hampi's ruins before hitting the beaches in Gokarna. A freelance travel writer based in London, Trent also covers destinations such as Nepal, Zimbabwe and Japan. In between travels he writes about food and music.
