Born in Devonshire and transported to Tasmania when he was three, Charles cherished the quiet island life and came to understand his place in the world through Jack Kerouac novels, Guns N? Roses videos and countless viewings of Withnail & I. When he finally left the island he did so with staccato regularity, travelling widely through Europe, North America and Southeast Asia with little regard for sleep, money or haircuts. Along the way he worked as a cinema cleaner, fishing-boat deck hand, architect, croissant chef and mandatory Australian barman in a London pub.

In 1998 Charles sat in a room for six months and wrote about his adventures, creating what he widely regards as the greatest unpublished road novel of the modern era. In a vain attempt to get it published, he applied for a cartographic position at Lonely Planet?s Melbourne HQ in 1999 and landed the job. He proceeded to create maps and project manage for some years until the opportunity to pen Lonely Planet?s Best of Sydney 3 enticed him from his desk in 2004. His career as a travel writer crystallised when he gazed up from the Bondi Beach surf one morning and saw a sign saying ?Sushi, Internet, Bikinis, Beer?. Everything else just faded away.

Charles has written about travel for Melbourne street mags Ampersand and IZM and is looking forward to writing for Lonely Planet again, with sojourns to New Zealand and Singapore and a return to Sydney on the horizon. Charles lives with fellow Lonely Planet travel writer Meg Worby amongst the virtue and vice of Melbourne?s inner west.
A deft parachutist, Charles is willing to drop in almost anywhere, but his favourite places in the world are Tasmania?s east coast, Santa Cruz and the banks of the River Otter in south Devon. A travel tip? Thin socks are always a bad idea.