Somewhere around 1988, a sixteen-year-old from London got on a plane to Germany with a group of friends to see in the New Year. He had absolutely no idea what he was starting.
That was me. I’m Zak. I’m fifty-four, based in London, and I have now visited somewhere in the region of ninety countries. Sixty-two of them solo. Not because I’m anti-social (well, not entirely), but because solo travel is the only kind where nobody argues about the restaurant, nobody wants to turn the excursion bus around early, and you can sit in a side-street tea house for two hours watching the world drift past without having to justify it to anyone.
I started travelling properly on my own in 2014. Before that, between 1988 and 2014, I travelled on and off with partners, friends, and small groups of equally confused tourists. All of it was decent enough. But solo is different. You notice more. You talk to strangers. You make very questionable decisions without committee approval, and you learn from them.
These days I spend roughly six months of every year in South East Asia, with the rest split between London and wherever the next flight is going. The plan is to move to Asia permanently in 2027. If you want to help fund that particular adventure, the occasional click on an affiliate link would be quietly appreciated. (I’m joking. Mostly.)
About the images on this site
I want to be upfront about this, because I think you deserve an honest explanation.
Many of the images you see here are AI-assisted. And the reason I’m not in them, or when I am, you’re seeing me from behind or at a distance, is not a stylistic choice. It’s personal.
I’m an introvert. Not in the vague, fashionable sense people use to mean “I like evenings in.” I mean that showing my face publicly on the internet, and inviting the kind of commentary that tends to come with it, is genuinely difficult for me. I’ve spent enough time reading comments sections to know what people feel entitled to say to strangers, and I would rather not find out what they’d say about me. That anxiety is real. I’ve made peace with working around it rather than through it.
So: I write everything here myself, from notes I’ve taken on the road, from years of actual travel, from genuine first-hand experience across roughly ninety countries. The images are where I’ve needed a little help. I’m not trying to mislead you. I just want to share what I know without having to sacrifice the parts of myself that work best kept private.
I think most of you will understand that. If you don’t, I get it, and there are no hard feelings on my end.
What this blog is
The Road to Timbuktu is a travel blog for people who’ve been around a bit. More specifically, it’s aimed at solo travellers over fifty who want practical, unvarnished information about South East Asia and beyond, written by someone who is also over fifty, also solo, and also occasionally baffled by half of what he encounters.
I write about places I’ve actually been to, things I’ve actually used, and things that have actually gone wrong. There are affiliate links on this site; they help keep everything running, and I only link to products I own or would genuinely buy. The occasional sponsored post exists and is always clearly labelled. I’m not here to shift units. I’m here to be useful.
If I don’t know something, I’ll say so. If something was terrible, I’ll say that too. There are enough sites out there telling you everything is wonderful. This one will tell you when the overnight bus smells like something died in it, and what to do about that.
The slightly longer version
I’ve been travelling, in one form or another, since 1988. That first trip to Germany turned into a habit that has now taken me to around ninety countries across six continents. I’ve crossed borders on foot, by river ferry, by overnight bus, and once, memorably, in the back of a truck that was also carrying live chickens. I consider myself fairly experienced. The chickens would probably disagree.
Between 2017 and 2025, I spent six months abroad most years, with South East Asia pulling me back time and again. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia; I know these places well enough to have strong opinions about which border crossings to avoid and where to find a decent bowl of soup at seven in the morning.
The plan to move permanently isn’t a mid-life crisis. I’ve been building towards it carefully, practically, and with a spreadsheet. Asia suits me. The pace suits me. The food suits me. The fact that you can sit outside at a table on the street at eleven at night, eating something extraordinary that cost less than a coffee in London, suits me very much indeed.
Questions, disagreements, corrections
The comments are open. If you’ve been somewhere I’ve written about and I’ve got something wrong, please tell me. If you have a question, ask it. If you violently disagree with something I’ve said about packing cubes, I will read your argument with genuine interest and probably remain unconvinced, but still.
I read everything. I respond when I can. I’m better on here than on social media, for reasons that should by now be fairly obvious.
Email: