As a singer, writer and journalist, Jonny Bealby has miles of travel under his belt. His experiences have given him the ideal background for setting up Wild Frontiers, a specialist tour operator which takes small groups and tailor-made tours to roads less travelled in Asia, Africa, South America and beyond.
The early years
Educated in England, Scotland and Canada, Jonny developed his passion for travel early and on leaving college journeyed extensively in Australasia and the Far East. Returning the UK he became a sound engineer before forming his own rock band, Tin Gods, in 1984. The group recorded four singles and one album and were featured on a number of radio stations and television shows before splitting up in 1990. To supplement his income as a musician he had a variety of jobs including being a stunt horse rider, circus roustabout, motorcycle courier and photo-journalist, to name but a few.
A new direction
In 1991 Jonny needed a new direction and so set off on a motorcycle from London to Cape Town. Travelling down the rarely – if ever – undertaken western route through Algeria, the Congo, Angola and Namibia and returning via the east, through Ethiopia and Sudan, he had many adventures on a journey that took 10 months to complete. The outcome of this trip was his first book Running With The Moon (William Heinemann) which was published in 1995 and has since become something of cult travel classic.
Encouraged by the book’s success, Jonny then decided to undertake a journey he had always wanted to make. Following in the footsteps of his two heroes from English literature, Peachy Carnehan and Daniel Dravot, from Rudyard Kipling’s short story The Man Who Would Be King, he travelled across remote parts of India, Pakistan and into war-torn Afghanistan in search of the mythical lands of Kafiristan. For A Pagan Song (William Heinemann), the book about these travels, was released to considerable critical acclaim in 1998. It was this journey that gave rise to the idea of forming Wild Frontiers.
Silk Dreams, Troubled Road
Then, in the summer of 1999, Jonny set out on what is, to date, undoubtedly his most bizarre travel escapade. Accompanied by a girl he’d known for less than five hours, with little or no knowledge of local languages, customs or politics, he travelled by horse along the old Silk Road, from Kashgar, in Western China, to the Caspian Sea. Recording their adventures – and misadventures – for television on a DVD camera, Jonny travelled 2,500 kilometres in the saddle, crossing ‘the five ex Soviet Stans’ in what proved a long and gruelling trip. The book, Silk Dreams, Troubled Road, came out in Summer 2003, and the film about this trip has been played on Discovery more than 20 times. To see a clip of the show on youtube, please click here
Travel and Tourism
As a writer and traveller Jonny Bealby has visited more than 80 countries and, in addition to his books, has had articles featured in numerous publications including the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Observer, Guardian, Daily Mail, Elle, Traveller and Wanderlust. He has also lectured to the Royal Geographical Society in both London and Hong Kong on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 2002 he took his small sole-trader business, called Wild Frontiers (named after the Northwest Frontier), and expanded. Taking the same approach to trips that served them so well in Pakistan – namely, ‘off the beaten track-meet the locals-get beneath the surface’ kind of tourism – the business exploded. In 2002 WF took 19 clients to 2 destinations; in 2007 WF took 700 clients to 35 destinations.
While not guiding trips, Jonny runs the business in London where he lives.
