Agatha Bertram is derivative of the name of a character from a Graham Greene book. Augusta Bertram is the name of the Aunt in ‘Travels with my Aunt ’. Her nephew, retired bank manager Henry Pulling (yawn), meets his eccentric Aunt Augusta at his mother’s funeral. Aunt A pulls Henry away from his quiet suburban existence into a world of adventure, crime and the highly unconventional details of her past. They spend a fair bit of time in Paraguay.
Graham Greene wrote one of the all time best books about Vietnam (1), called ‘The Quite American’, he also wrote ‘The Third Man’, and ‘Our Man in Havana’. Also a non-fiction book called ‘Getting to Know the General’. I love them all. They could all just about be true.
Another of my favourite travel writers is an Irish woman called Dervla Murphy. Skills she acquired as a child were bike riding, day dreaming, stubborn independence, a love of books and writing and weirdly an acquired pain tolerance. The pain tolerance she got by torturing herself, thinking this might coming in handy one day. It did on a lone cycle from Ireland to India in 1962.
Curiosity, day dreaming, independence and a love of books is a good way to start.
And that, I hope, is the spirit of this website.
Agatha Bertram offers the travel perspective of someone who has been travelling for the last (ahem) twenty years having, mostly inadvertent, adventures along the way. It is a unique perspective of someone who has lived and worked in multiple countries and continents.
I write for ‘masters backpackers’ – people who have traveled a lot, but now not so much; and for people who will travel down the road if there is an interesting thing to see.
The years have thrown up a whole milieu of interesting people, some of whom I hope to persuade to contribute.
For the enthusiasts it offers:
- Information about destinations – local information about France, Japan, Australia, India and many more.
- The accidental adventures of a girl from the suburbs, or the bush depending on which bit of my life you’re talking about.
- Book reviews & recommendations – not just a travel guide, but a book to read that can provide context for a place or country.
[wysija_form id=”1″]If you’d like to contribute or have other ideas then I’d definitely like to hear about it.
Thanks for visiting!
