Helen Moat (helenmoatsite.wordpress.com) is a freelance writer, linguist, teacher and traveller, whose work appears regularly in magazines such as Derbyshire Life, Wanderlust and BBC Countryfile. She grew up in Northern Ireland, spending her childhood travelling the length and breadth of the island of Ireland in her Dad’s Morris Minor, which gave her a lifelong case of wanderlust. She moved to England as a young adult, then enjoyed spells in Germany and Switzerland before settling down in the UK’s Peak District, which has become her adopted home – and the inspiration for much of her writing, including Bradt’s guidebook The Peak District (Slow Travel). When not cycling along Europe’s rivers to Istanbul (an experience recounted in her travel narrative, A Time of Birds), camping in the East African bush or trekking in Thai rainforests, she is likely to be found wandering on the Peak moorland or spinning her wheels through the dales.