Robert Byron was born in 1905, and educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second World War, when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed by a U-Boat off Cape Wrath. Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing.

Award-winning travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron was born in London on 14 June 1939. Among his books are Mirror to Damascus (1967), The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon (1968), Jerusalem (1969), The Lost Heart of Asia (1994) and In Siberia (1999). Colin Thubron is a regular contributor and reviewer for magazines and newspapers including The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator. He lives in London.