About Duncan JD Smith
The Urban Explorer Duncan JD Smith has a real knack for mapping the lesser-known parts of cities, discovering aspects of urban history which most visitors miss. One has the sense of a man who has conducted impeccable research but still contrives to arrive with an open mind. That’s a rare touch.
Hidden Europe magazine
Duncan is the thinking man’s exploratory investigator. He takes you to strange places, certainly, but more importantly his talented writing inspires you to consider what’s on offer long after you’ve closed the cover on any of his fine books.
CuChullaine O’Reilly, Founder Long Riders’ Guild
Duncan JD Smith is The Urban Explorer, an independent travel writer, guidebook author, historian, photographer, and publisher. Having worked for many years selling other travel writers’ books, in 2003 he decided to start writing and publishing his own. He has subsequently embarked on a lifetime‘s adventure, travelling off the beaten track in search of the world’s hidden corners and curious locations, from the Baroque gardens of Prague and the wartime bunkers of Berlin to the souks of Tangier and the rock-cut churches of Ethiopia.
Duncan’s findings are being published in a ground breaking series of guidebooks, the Only In Guides, designed specifically for the purpose and published under his own The Urban Explorer imprint. Volumes on Berlin, Boston, Budapest, Cologne, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Krakow, London, Marseille, Munich, Paris, Prague, Seville, Tangier, Trieste, Vienna, and Zurich have all been published, with a new title, Athens, in preparation. Aimed at independent cultural travellers, these city tales from new perspectives provide unforgettable memories. The series has garnered considerable press and public acclaim, global distribution, and sales in excess of 200,000 copies.
As a result of his extensive travels, not only through the storied cities of Old Europe but also in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and America, Duncan also generates original illustrated material for print and digital media. He has been commissioned to write articles in magazines such as Hidden Europe and Timeless Travels. Duncan has great affection for the places about which he has written, as well as an extensive photo library available for commercial usage.
Duncan has appeared on radio and television to promote his work, including the American shows Raw Travel and Mysteries at the Museum. He has also given illustrated lectures in bookshops and universities, to societies and even at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. He released an audio tour of Vienna in 2010.
Duncan was born in Sheffield, England in 1960, to parents whose ancestors included poets and doctors, farmers and whisky distillers. He first got the history bug when his grandfather, the Huntingdonshire historian Philip G. M. Dickinson, showed him an ancient turf maze and the grave of a Roman soldier in his back garden! Suitably inspired, Duncan opened his own little museum when he was just eleven before going on to read Ancient History and Archaeology at Birmingham University. Together with his late father, Trevor, he wrote and illustrated four highly successful books on the curiosities of Sheffield and Yorkshire, their home town and county respectively. He also penned the best-selling topographical book Yorkshire: A Portrait in Colour.
Still a passionate collector of everything from fossils to items of family history, Duncan’s interests also include vintage Penguin travel books and with them a fascination for forgotten British travellers of the 1920s and 30s. In his spare time he enjoys archaeology, architecture, gardening and natural history, and has an eclectic taste in music and film.
Duncan divides his time between the UK and Austria, and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
