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. Returning home she briefly flirted with a career in business management. However with her feet growing evermore restless, she was soon off on her next overseas 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 started writing regular southern African travel updates for Northstar Travel Media, worked freelance for Travel Africa, abouTime and Itch and completed a Masters of Philosophy in Public Culture at the University of Cape Town. In her spare time she somehow managed to write her 10th guidebook, Offbeat South Africa.
After spending the better part of the last 10 years continent-hopping, in early 2006 Kim decided it was finally time to return home and rediscover her Australian roots. Since then she has contributed regularly to Ninemsn Travel, helped update the latest Eyewitness Australia travel guide, and even dabbled in politics authoring a new book, Australia’s Prime Ministers: A View of Life at the Top, to be published in early 2008.
