Simon Usborne

There is a tendency for travel writers to confect emotion - being moved as the sun's perfect orb dips into the wine-dark sea, wowed by the artistry of a star chef or humbled in the face of the vast African plains. Often it comes across as hammy, or worse, fake.

Simon Usborne's work is different - travel journalism more than travel writing - using interviews to get to the heart of a story, foregrounding the people he meets along they way rather than his own feelings, and creating features that are fascinating to read whether or not you have any intention of going to the places being described.

His review of the new Broadwick hotel in Soho is a good example. Ordinarily hotel reviews follow a standard path, using bumpf from a press pack to back up descriptions of the rooms, food and spa. Instead, Simon used a conversation with the owner to discover an intriguing and poignant backstory - of the now multi-millionaire owner's childhood as a magician's assistant and breakfast toast supervisor. The hotel was reviewed numerous times; no-one else got this amazing tale.

Still on hotels, he flew to Switzerland to go behind the scenes at the world's top school for hotel managers, where students pay from than $200,000 to learn how to poach eggs, pour wine and polish toilets. It's a brilliantly off-beat, off-diary feature about a world usually out-of-sight.

None of which is to say that Simon can't do sweeping, evocative, destination stories. Always up for getting off the beaten track, he went to Svalbard to live on a converted navy ship and follow the small but growing number of adventurers to "skiing's northern frontier". His writing brings the reader along, allowing them to vicariously experience something of a trip few would actually consider. "We march several abreast as a 360-degree Arctic view slowly unfolds. White pyramids thrust up from a midnight-blue sea. In every direction, great glaciers tumble towards the water..."