Paul Rowbottom

Cut adrift in 2006 by the sudden and unexpected breakup of his 17-year marriage, British-born chemist Paul Rowbottom emigrated to the U.S. and took up a position as a director in Pfizer’s New York City headquarters. Nine years later, when his employer offered him an attractive severance package, he took the money and ran. Literally! “Once I got over my initial shock,” he says, “I realized losing my job was an unexpected opportunity to travel the world and write about my experiences so that others could share them.” During the last two years, Paul has traveled extensively throughout the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia and the North Pacific Ocean, interrupted only by brief stays in the U.K. with his sons, Luke and Alex, and in his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I remember when I was a lad listening to so many adults saying their greatest regret in life was not traveling, not seeing the world,” he recalls “Those conversations had a profound impact on me.” Paul’s other passion — keeping super fit — is an integral part of his globetrotting adventures. His sightseeing trips often involve biking, hiking and skiing up and down mountains, running marathons with his Road Runners Club and Race2Adventure buddies, climbing cave walls, scaling the steep steps of ancient Aztec ruins, and other physically-challenging activities that invariably end with collegial gatherings and plenty of cold beer. What also comes across in Paul’s travel writing is his deeply-felt empathetic interest in the poor people of other cultures, past and present — a product of his humble childhood growing up in a housing estate in Sheffield — and the underlying quest of his world travel —picking up the shattered pieces of his former life and rearranging them into a healthy spiritual wholeness. This is Paul’s first travel book. You can read about his future travels in his blog, www.WheresPaulo.com.