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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.

Michael Kohn, a freelance journalist and travel writer, is a specialist on Mongolian culture and society. He has written two books and has published many articles on that country. From 1998 to 2000 he served as the resident foreign editor for the Mongol Messenger, a weekly newspaper in Mongolia. Working as editorial director, photographer, writer, layout artist, and advertising manager, Michael kept the paper alive on a shoestring budget. He simultaneously served as a correspondent for international news outlets, including BBC radio, the Associated Press. In May 1998 he wrote the AP preview article for Madeleine Albright's visit to Mongolia. In the autumn of that year he chronicled the political crisis in Mongolia with a series of articles for the AP. In August 1999 his stories broke the secret visit to Mongolia by the Bogd Lama, a high lama from India banned in Mongolia.

In the course of these assignments, Michael has interviewed several Mongolian prime ministers and presidents. Michael also worked with local media outlets in Ulaanbaatar - volunteering his time at the radio station, TV station and School of Journalism. He appeared in a Mongolian film and hosted a weekly talk radio show. In 1999, a story he wrote on poverty attracted the attention of the British embassy, which donated a stove to the family he interviewed. A visiting CNN news crew filmed the handover ceremony.

When not working, he became acquainted with life on the ground by hitchhiking to the most remote corners of Mongolia, spending weeks at a time with nomadic herders. He has traveled to every Mongolian province, trekked alongside Kazakh eagle hunters, run a marathon on the shores of lake Khovsgol and cycled across Mongolia's northern borderlands.

Michael has visited nearly 70 countries, many of them as a researcher for Lonely Planet. The list of guides he has authored or co-authored include Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, Central Asia, Israel & The Palestinian Territories, South Africa, Armenia and the Trans-Siberia Railway. Along the way he has reported on conflicts in Kashmir and Nepal.

Michael received Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He lives in California with his wife Baigalmaa and daughters Molly and Elizabeth.

Daniel McCrohan is a widely-published travel writer who has written or co-written more than 40 guidebooks for both Lonely Planet and Trailblazer.

An Asia specialist, he is one of the leading experts on travel in China and India, but has also written on Mongolia, Russia, Tibet, Bangladesh, Thailand and Singapore.

Back in his homeland, Daniel is also the author of six British walking guides, each published by Trailblazer, for whom he also researched and wrote the 10th edition of Bryn Thomas' seminal guidebook, the Trans-Siberian Handbook.

Away from guides, Daniel has contributed to a number of books on world culture and travel with pieces he has written on some of China and India's distinctive art, theatre and cuisine. He has also written about Chinese tea for numerous publications.

In television, Daniel was the host of nine episodes of the Lonely Planet travel series, Best in China. He has also been interviewed (in Mandarin Chinese) about travel in China by numerous Chinese television stations.

In 2017 Daniel and his family hiked and camped their way along the entire length of Hadrian's Wall, an epic, week-long adventure that spawned the podcast 'The Showdown: Hadrian's Wall versus The Great Wall of China', which you can listen to at www.traveltape.libsyn.com.

Follow Daniel's latest travels on Twitter (@danielmccrohan) or visit danielmccrohan.com.

Christopher Pitts works as a writer, editor, and translator for various publishers including Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveler, the Institute of East Asian Studies, and University of California Press. Visit him online at www.christopherpitts.net.

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Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Melbourne-based Shawn Low is Lonely Planet's Asia-Pacific Travel Editor. He is a regular contributor to the award-winning Lonely Planet Magazine (UK edition) and blogs for www.lonelyplanet.com and www.news.com.au. He has authored Lonely Planet guides to Singapore, Southeast Asia and China, and written for print publications such as Marie Claire Singapore.

Shawn has provided commentary on travel news and events in the media, including CNN International, Seven Sunrise, Ten News, ABC Radio, 2UE, 3AW and the Australian Radio Network.

Shawn was also the presenter and main subject of the China episode of National Geographic and Lonely Planet TV's Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled, which has aired internationally and was nominated for two Asian TV awards.

Find him on www.shawnlow.com and on twitter @shawnlow (twitter.com/shawnlow)

Watch a trailer for his show here: www.lonelyplanet.com/roadslesstravelled/china.cfm

Joe Cummings was born in New Orleans, and raised in California, France and Washington DC. After he graduated from college, the Peace Corps granted his request to be posted to Thailand, where he served as an English lecturer at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology in Bang Mot, Thonburi. He later earned a master's degree in South Asian Civilization from the University of California at Berkeley, and was a scholar in residence at the East-West Center in Hawaii. His Thailand guide for Lonely Planet was the first guidebook to that country written in English since 1928. An instant success, it remains one of the bestselling guidebooks ever published. He has authored over 50 other books, including coffeetable books, phrasebooks and travelogues. Joe has twice been honoured with the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Award and is also a recipient of Mexico's Pluma de Plata (Silver Quill) for outstanding foreign journalism on Mexico.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more