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Simon Calder
Simon Calder is a UK travel journalist and broadcaster, recognised as Britain's leading travel commentator. In the early 1990s Simon took a call from the Independent who asked him to be a travel correspondent. Since then he has covered every significant development in travel and transport: from the opening of Eurostar and the launch of easyJet to 9/11, the Icelandic volcano and the catastrophic Covid pandemic.
About Simon Calder
Born in Crawley, very close to Gatwick’s runway, Simon Calder began his career in travel by cleaning out planes, frisking people and working for Sir Freddie Laker’s revolutionary Skytrain operation.
He then combined a job as a sound engineer at the BBC with researching and writing travel guidebooks. This took him all over the world as he wrote books on Central & South America, Russia & the Republics, the USA & Canada. To this day, he is proud of writing the first guidebook to Cuba, which remained the only one on the market for many years.
He is a familiar face and voice on the TV & radio, whether it be on the BBC, ITV, CNN or Sky, interpreting the travel news, giving travel advice and helping you get the best travel deal.
Simon has filmed for a number of BBC TV travel series, including The Travel Show, Departure Lounge, Perfect Holiday and the Holiday programme.
For BBC Radio 4, he crossed overland from Colombia to Panama in a series called Bridging the Gap, and tracked down the last refuge of the Inca empire in Looking for Vilcabamba.
He has reported live for ITV Good Morning Britain from Australia – straight after the first nonstop scheduled flight from the UK in 2018 – and for Sky News from a very empty Sydney in 2022 when the nation reopened to tourists after two years. Simon was also the first overseas journalist to enter the US after a 19-month Covid closure – which he did by walking across the Rainbow Bridge as the clock approached midnight.
Thanks to some technical competence from his time at the BBC, Simon has broadcast live from a wide range of locations. They include while climbing a volcano in Italy for BBC Radio 4; from a former Polish ferry off the coast of Greenland for ITV This Morning; aboard a plane 35,000 feet above Philadelphia for Talk TV; and from a 63 bus in London for Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 programme.
Over the years he has won many travel awards, but the one he is most proud of is the Hero Award from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute that recognises the work he does on consumer issues and the help he gives to travellers in distress.
Simon is known as “The Man Who Pays His Way” because he does not accept free travel
To book Simon Calder, contact The Speakers Agency on +44(0)1332 810481 or email enquiries@thespeakersagency.com
Simon’s speech topics include, but are not limited to:
- Travel and Tourism
- Transport
