Philip Briggs (philipbriggs.com) has been exploring the highways, byways and backwaters of Africa since 1986, when he backpacked on a shoestring from Nairobi to Cape Town. He is the world's leading author of guidebooks to African countries, with more than 30 years' experience. He first explored Uganda by bus and train in 1988, two years after it emerged from a decade of civil war, and returned in 1992 to research the first edition of the Bradt guide. He has since revisited the country on numerous occasions both as a tour leader and to update subsequent editions. During the 1990s, he wrote pioneering Bradt travel guides to countries that were then - and in some cases still are - otherwise practically uncharted by the travel industry. These include the first dedicated guidebooks to Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Ghana. When not travelling, he lives in the sleepy South African village of Wilderness.