On This Holy Island

Interest in pilgrims' routes is seeing enormous growth as people have returned to British holidays and walking. In recent years a number of people and organisations have attempted to rediscover ancient holy paths in Britain to cater for modern-day pilgrims. This resulted in the establishment of The British Pilgrimage Trust in 2014, which will be a good avenue of support for the book.

Oliver Smith is an acclaimed travel writer working mostly for the Financial Times, The Times and Outside Magazine in the USA. For 10 years he worked for Lonely Planet Magazine. During his time there he won Travel Writer of the Year at the Travel Media Awards, was AITO Travel Writer of the Year on three occasions, and was nominated for PPA Writer of the Year. He has walked big parts of the Appian Way in Italy, the Camino Frances (Or French Way, the most famous of all Santiago de Compostela routes), the Via Francigena on the St. Bernard's Pass in Italy and Switzerland and the North Wales Pilgrims Way. His first book, The Atlas of Abandoned Places will be published this October by Octopus. Oliver Smith studied at Cardiff University and currently lives in London. He is not committed to any religion.