John Smith was born in Belleville, Ontario.  He now resides in nearby Prince Edward County with his wife, Marion.  He was a graduate of both Wilfrid Laurier and Western Universities, and he was a high school English teacher for thirty-one years.  While in the teaching profession, his love of travel led John to design and teach several Travel & Tourism courses, too.  After he retired from teaching, he felt that it was a natural, logical step to then become a freelance travel writer and photographer – and he is certainly very involved with this endeavour at present.

John has always been an avid cyclist and photographer, and this has led to the publication of two books: Cycling the U.S.A. and Cycling Canada.  He has also had recollections of his two-wheeled adventure treks published in many newspapers and magazines - and has given several slide presentations of his cycling adventures.  He has also written “Cycling Around” features for a number of years for a Canadian newspaper (the Intelligencer) and is presently contributing a “Freewheeling” column to a seniors’ magazine (Fifty-Five Plus).

John’s travel writing has included many soft adventure and travel destination pieces – and his journeys have taken him to such intriguing places as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Costa Rica, Russia, China, Africa, India, Europe, the Caribbean, etc. Yet he says that he is still interested in seeing more:  “We live in a wonderfully diversified world, and I never tire of exploring it.”

John is a member of both PWAC (the Professional Writers Association of Canada) and TWUC (The Writers’ Union of Canada).