Lucy Gillmore

I was the deputy travel editor of The Independent and worked on the travel desk for eight years. Before that I spent a year travelling around South America and fell in love with everything Latin. I took redundancy from The Independent two years ago to move up to Scotland to live with my boyfriend, a chef who owns a small boutique hotel called Monachyle Mhor in the Trossachs National Park. I continued to freelance, but also ran a tearoom during my first summer in the glen opposite the church where Rob Roy is buried. I can now make a perfect cappuccino. Last year I opened a luxury gift shop - Scottish cashmere, antlers, organic candles - in the old stable block.

Favourite places: The Lake District, Edinburgh, Loch Voil, Bath, Cornwall, New York, Venice, Paris, California (San Francisco, Big Sur, Yosemite National Park), Namibia, Kenya, Bali, Laos, South America - all of it