I’m an author, editor and photographer, and I live in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, England.

I work primarily for Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. For Lonely Planet, in the last few years I’ve written new editions of Lonely Planet Kauai and Best of Hawaii; written a Pocket Guide to Oxford & The Cotswolds; covered the whole of Texas for Lonely Planet USA; contributed to the North Carolina section of Georgia & The Carolinas; and updated the Corsica chapter of Lonely Planet France. I’ve also updated three editions of Lonely Planet Greece, and updated New Mexico for Lonely Planet Southwest USA.

I was for several years a senior editor with Rough Guides. I have written sixteen travel, history and music books for Rough Guides as sole author, including Hawaii, Brittany and Normandy and Southwest USA, and shared authorship on many more, among them Barcelona, Japan and Australia.

I also recently updated the DK Eyewitness guide to Brittany, while for Insight Guides I've worked on the latest updates to California, West Coast USA and Southwest USA.

In total I’ve written 23 books on the Hawaiian islands, which besides the Lonely Planet guides mentioned above include six complete editions of the Rough Guide Hawaii; individual Rough Guides to Maui, Oahu and the Big Island; and other guides including Insight Hawaii, DK Eyewitness Hawaii, Berlitz Hawaii, Smart Hawaii and Inside-Out Oahu.

My Rough Guide to the Titanic is a definitive guide to history’s most famous maritime disaster.

As an editor, I co-edited Rough Guides’ Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth with my wife Samantha Cook. I also edited Elvis Has Left The Building by Dylan Jones; Inferno Decoded by Michael Haag, for which I also wrote three chapters; and Lloyd Bradley’s Sounds Like London, published by Serpent’s Tail. I also edited the original Rough Guides to India and the USA, and guides to Elvis, Soul and the Blues.

My photographs have been published in my own books, and also in magazines, newspapers and elsewhere.

Ray Bartlett began his freelance career when he jumped a freight train for 500 miles and sold an article and photos about the experience to a local newspaper. Years later, Ray is still wandering the globe with pen and camera in hand. He received an MA in Fiction from Boston University, where he taught for several years before devoting himself to writing full-time.

Ray is often on the road in Japan, Korea, or Mexico, and has numerous publication, radio, and podcast credits, which you can see at his website, www.Kaisora.com. His debut novel, _Sunsets of Tulum_ was published in October, 2015 from Barrel Fire Press and was a Midwest Book Review 2016 February fiction selection. His second novel, _Celadon_, was published in 2020. When not elsewhere, he lives in the USA.

Simon Richmond is a UK-based author and photographer with over 25 years of experience of developing, researching and writing travel guidebooks and other non-fiction titles for major publishers including Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, DK Eyewitness, Insight Guides and Thames & Hudson. Specialist areas include Japan (his Rough Guide to Japan won the guidebook of the year in the Travelex awards of 2000), Southeast Asia, South Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, Australia, the UK and USA. Other major topics covered during his career include consumer affairs, personal finance, food and the arts. He has also researched and presented radio and TV programmes and created online content for websites and social media.

With over 150 million guidebooks in print, Lonely Planet is a trusted source for any traveler. Since our inception in 1973, we've inspired generations of travelers to discover amazing places and enabled curious travelers to get off the beaten paths to appreciate different cultures and become agents of positive change.

Longtime Tokyo resident. Co-author of Lonely Planet guidebooks to Japan, Korea & China. Freelance writer covering travel, food & culture. Published in the Guardian, the Independent, the Sunday Times Travel Magazine, BBC.com, Lonelyplanet.com, CNN.com, the Japan Times & more.