Abigail Flanagan

I’m a consumer journalist, travel writer, and wildlife obsessive with an overriding passion for the natural world. I’ve been a journalist – in one form or another – for over thirty-five years. I first cut my teeth on women’s magazines before moving into TV, including a long stint as a producer and director on the BBC’s flagship consumer show, Watchdog. Since then, I’ve gone on to freelance for a wide range of publications, including The Times, The Telegraph, and The Guardian.

My lifelong fascination with Africa is down to my mum, who spent her formative childhood in Kenya. Armed with my granny’s old photo album, Mum would recall evenings spent helping her pet chameleons catch flies, penknife and fire-building skills honed respectively (and, in hindsight, ill-advisedly) in a canvas tent and a thatched banda, and how she once followed lion tracks into the bush, armed only with a sharp stick. Again, not her best idea.

Today, my work focuses on travel, conservation, and wildlife. Never happier than when immersed in nature, I’ve been privileged to follow in my family’s footsteps to Kenya and beyond. Whether I’m lying in the Laikipian dust, photographing wild dogs, riding a Clydesdale across the Lake District, or hugging towering Ceiba trees in the Peruvian Amazon while nerding over mycorrhizal networks, our wild world never fails to blow my mind. As does our ability to destroy it.

A born-and-bred Londoner, when I’m not on assignment, I can usually be spotted in my favourite homegrown wilderness, Richmond Park, walking my Rhodesian Ridgeback and doing my best to steer clear of the deer.