Claire Boobbyer is a freelance writer, editor and photographer with

a passion for travel. She’s also a Cubaphile and Cuba travel expert.

She writes and photographs for guidebooks and articles and has

visited more than 40 countries. She has also edited more than 30

country, regional and city guides.

Her latest book, Frommer’s Cuba Day by Day, was published on

January 20th. An exhibition (Cuban Stories) of some of her Cuba photographs was held at Rich Mix, an East London gallery, from

January 27th—February 27th 2010:

(www.richmix.org.uk/rm_winter10.htm).

The Guardian is profiling these images at:

www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2010/feb/04/cuba-
photography-exhibition-rich-mix

Claire appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage on January

23rd talking to presenter John McCarthy about travel in Cuba.

Claire’s main interests are Cuba, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

She is also a Vietnam travel expert. Her most recent trips include a

5000-km journey around Cuba, a volunteering trip and rhino safari

in Nepal, and research trips to Laos and Vietnam. 

Claire began her career as a qualified journalist in Kent before the lure

(school geography lessons plus Redmond O’Hanlon) of South America

saw her backpack from the tail of Chile to the tip of Colombia. After

a run-in with a piranha in Bolivia, being trapped in a sea lion flash mob

in the Galápagos, and a sandboarding accident in Peru, she was hooked.

She moved to Barcelona to learn Spanish before becoming fluent in the Peruvian Amazon where she volunteered to capture snakes, frogs and

lizards for a rainforest charity project. A flesh-eating tropical disease,

followed by a stay at the unit for people under the influence of foreign

critters at University College Hospital in London, only strengthened her

resolve to return to Latin America.

Inspired by a friend’s tale of Elton John’s eulogic Candle in the Wind,

set to reggae in the barrios of Cuba, and the knowledge that Pope John

Paul II had requested Fidel Castro reintroduce Christmas Day as a public holiday, she left for the Caribbean. She arrived in Havana a few days

before Christmas 1998 with a Mum-made Christmas cake. Cuban

customs insisted the cake went through X-ray, quizzed her about its

cultural connotations and gasped at its monster weight. She has been returning to Cuba ever since.

As a Cuba travel writer, Claire’s work has appeared in a variety of publications including Time Out, The Independent and Martinair magazine. As a Vietnam travel writer her work has appeared in

Wanderlust and Pathfinder magazine.

She has written guidebooks to Cuba, Guatemala, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand

and Morocco and edited dozens of guides. These include Time Out Barcelona, and Time Out Dublin, as well as Time Out’s Fly Europe magazine.

Her photographic work has appeared in Wanderlust and Time Out

magazine articles and in guidebooks to Cuba, Guatemala, Belize,

Morocco, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.