My Work

British writer Nicola Williams has worked with Lonely Planet since 1996. She has authored more than 30 guidebooks for the Australian global travel publisher (majority-owned by BBC Worldwide); writes features and reviews for lonelyplanet.com and bbc.com/travel; and consults on various editorial projects in LP’s London and Melbourne offices. 

Nicola started as a singleton living the high life in an undiscovered Vilnius, clocking up weeks of night trains in Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe as features editor of The Baltic Times and later editor and writer for European city-guide publisher In Your Pocket. Three tri-lingual kids later, she pours her professional energy into dramatically more gourmet French, Swiss and Italian travel from her Lake Geneva base in Haute-Savoie, France.

 

As a freelance travel writer and editorial consultant, Nicola’s work appears in several publications, including Cool Camping France, Cool Camping Europe, the BBC-published Lonely Planet Magazine, French Magazine and Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

For the online weekend travel magazine Art of the Weekend, for whom she is a regular contributor, Nicola writes about everything from cliff-top drama in Cornwall to French gourmet chickens and vintage skiing with a retro kick in the Swiss Alps.

The travel bug first bit in 1990 when she bussed and boated it from Jakarta to East Timor to document the civil war there as a BA literature student at the University of Kent. Post-grad studies in Islamic Societies & Cultures took her to London’s School of Oriental & African Studies and on to North Wales to study journalism and report on local affairs for the North Wales Weekly News.

 

CV

• Date of Birth: 2 March 1971
• Nationality: British
• Languages: English, French

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Lonely Planet Coordinating Author, 1996-present

Liaise with commissioning editor on multi-author titles to create detailed book brief for authors; advise on style and content; briefly assess and compile co-author manuscripts prior to final book submission.

 

Lonely Planet Author, 1996-present

Sole author of several 1st editions including Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania; Romania & Moldova; The Loire; Provence & the Cote d’Azur. Co-author of dozens of multi-author titles, most recently Paris, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, Tuscany & Umbria, Italy.

 

Supervisory Council board member, In Your Pocket, 2000-01

 

Editor, Vilnius In Your Pocket, Vilnius, Lithuania, 1996-97

Responsible for editorial content of city guide Vilnius In Your Pocket (five times/year); annual guides to Kaunas and Klaipeda (Lithuania), Kaliningrad (Russia) and Minsk (Belarus).

 

Features Editor, The Baltic Times, Riga, Latvia, 1995-96

 

Chief Reporter, North Wales Weekly News, UK, 1993-95

 

EDUCATION

1992, MA in Islamic Societies & Cultures, SOAS, University of London

1991, BA in English & Comparative Literature with Theology, University of Kent