Paul Clammer trained and worked as a molecular biologist before an unexpected encounter in an Iranian teahouse led him into being sucked into the travel industry. He has worked as a tour guide for adventure travel companies in Morocco, Turkey and Pakistan.

In 2001 backpacked in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, during which he ended up having dinner with two Taliban ministers a fortnight before the 9/11 attacks. On that trip he had little more than a battered 1970s guidebook to assist him, and so in late 2002 he started writing an Afghanistan travel website called Kabul Caravan, collating his own experiences and those of the many foreigners now in the country following the Taliban's ouster. This led in 2003 to being approached by Lonely Planet Publications, who asked him to write the Afghanistan coverage for their Central Asia guidebook - the first time they had an author research in the country since 1978. That work eventually evolved into a ground-breaking stand-alone guide to Afghanistan, which was published in 2007.

Paul continues to cover Afghanistan for LP, as well as taking on other countries for the publisher - he has written on Pakistan's North-West Frontier, Baluchistan and Sindh for the Pakistan guide, and Nigeria, Mauritania and Cameroon for the West Africa guide. He is the head author of LP's Morocco and Dominican Republic & Haiti guides, and most recently visited Haiti to volunteer in post-earthquake reconstruction. Paul is the author of Bradt's Sudan guidebook.

Paul is available for writing commissions and travel consultancy: click here to get in contact.