Kim Wildman grew up in Toowoomba, Australia with parents who unwittingly instilled in her a desire to travel at a very young age by extending the immediate family to include 11 exchange students.

After graduating from Queensland College of Art and having studied photography, she packed her backpack and headed for the bright lights of the USA for a three month stint working as a camp counsellor. Returning home she briefly flirted with a career in business management, but, with her feet growing evermore restless, she was soon off on her next adventure to southern Africa where she was inspired to combine her three loves: photography, writing and travelling.

Several years and a journalism degree later, Kim found herself trading in the 9 to 5 grind for the wandering lifestyle as a guidebook author for Lonely Planet. During her time with the company she co-authored and updated some nine guidebooks including Lonely Planet's Athens, Romania & Moldova and South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland.

Having warmed to eccentricities of the former Soviet block, she then spent a year living in Eastern Europe where she helped a friend set up a B&B in the heart of L'viv's old city in the Ukraine. But in desperate need of sunshine, regular flowing tap water and decent toilet paper, she moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 2003. There Kim completed a Masters of Philosophy in Public Culture through the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town and in her spare time wrote her 10th guidebook, Offbeat South Africa.

Since returning home in 2006 Kim has contributed regularly to the MSN online travel networks in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, updated the latest Bradt Travel Guides to Ghana and Tanzania, and written travel features for the likes of Australian Women's Health, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Planet Africa, Stamford Life and Voyageur magazine.