Tom Sykes Asks the Hard Questions About Anxiety and Travel

When Tom Sykes was rushed through the clogged streets of Manila in an ambulance, he knew it wasn't the exotic surroundings of the Philippines that had sent his system into panic mode. A seasoned expat, travel writer, journalist and author, he was accustomed to the physical and psychological challenges of travel. No, the root of his debilitating anxiety was looking much deeper. He set out to find it. In "The Years of Travelling Anxiously: A Travel Writer’s Search for Peace of Mind" Tom Sykes has authored neither a macho memoir nor a self-help text. It's a frank and thoughtful meditation on where this fear that so many travelers feel truly comes from. Intrepid Times will be supporting the launch of this book by publishing a series of interviews conducted by Tom with notable travelers and writers every Monday in March, starting next week. Dr Tom Sykes is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Global Journalism at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of six books, including the travelogues The Realm of the Punisher (2018) and Coast of Teeth (2023), and the novel Tangled Saviours (2023). His books have been praised in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Magazine, and his expertise has been sought by the New York Times, the BBC World Service and the universities of Oxford, Sydney, the Philippines and Hawai’i.