Donald Reid was brought up in Glasgow, studied law in Edinburgh, and took to the high seas afterward to avoid the threat of an office. He worked on travel books and magazines in Cape Town, and has now settled back in Edinburgh, where he works as a freelance writer and editor. Reid is the author of The Rough Guide to Edinburgh and the coauthor of The Rough Guide to Scotland.
Barbara McCrea was born in Zimbabwe and taught African literature at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She lived in London for 15 years, working on Rough Guides to Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Cape Town, before returning to southern Africa. McCrea now resides close to the beach in Cape Town, where she swims, rides horses, and climbs mountains to keep sane.