Originally from the United States, Kirk Smock worked on a USAID-funded sustainable tourism development project in Guyana for six years as a writer, communications specialist and tourism consultant (for three of those years, Kirk lived in Guyana). For the tourism project, Kirk worked closely with Guyana’s tourism lodges, community tourism projects, tour operators, and various government bodies and stakeholders, to help build the birdwatching, sport fishing and adventure travel sectors in Guyana. Over an extended period of many months, Kirk used many modes of transportation – ranging from dugout canoes, minibuses, Bedford trucks and motorized boats to bikes, horses, trekking, ancient Land Rovers, walking, small planes, bamboo rafts and Tapirs (the trucks, not the animals) – and travelled extensively in Guyana to research and write the first edition of the Bradt guide to Guyana, which was also the first dedicated guidebook to Guyana. The memories of spending countless weeks in Guyana’s interior with local Amerindians teaching him about the astonishing biodiversity that live in the country’s vast rainforests and savannas remain some of Kirk’s fondest. He currently lives in Madison, WI with his family. This edition has been updated by Claire Antell, a Latin American travel specialist who has promoted South America for many years as a tour operator, UK representative, marketing consultant, freelance writer and Executive Secretary of the Latin American Travel Association. Claire fell in love with Guyana in 2004 when she first visited the country on a familiarisation trip and realised she was in one of the continent’s last frontiers for tourism where the mouth-droppingly beautiful Kaieteur Falls is still a well-kept secret and the rainforests, savannah and local Amerindian villages offer some of the most authentic and pristine experiences in the Americas. Since then she has returned every year to Guyana to explore and promote it to intrepid travellers around the world and has represented the destination in major consumer and travel events around the world.
