Ferne Arfin

Ferne Arfin, your Guide to UK Travel, is an American abroad. A freelance writer, guidebook author and native New Yorker, she has lived in the UK for many years. A writer all her life, Ferne started out as a newspaper journalist in Boston. She wrote corporate literature, advertising copy and public relations before seeing the light and turning her attention to full time journalism and travel writing. Now, with her constant traveling companion Wallace - a very discerning and well traveled West Highland Terrier - she spends as much time as she can discovering new places around the UK.

Ferne's travel writing has appeared in the London Sunday Telegraph, the Los Angeles Times, Modernism Magazine and the Travelers' Tales Anthology "A Woman's Europe."

A member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, she is a frequent contributor to Fodor.com's Travel Wire and has written chapters for Fodor's "London 2007" and "Fodor's Guide to the Da Vinci Code". She is also a published author of fiction, the national coordinator of a journalism course delivered in UK prisons and has contributed articles for special sections in the International Herald Tribune.

Ferne is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she earned a Bachelors Degree in Journalism from the Newhouse School of Communication. She also earned a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.

I once read a recipe for chopped liver pate where the author plunged right into the chopping and the seasoning without mentioning that you had to cook the liver first.

Some guides are like that - full of idioms and cultural references visitors don't get yet failing to explain how to book a seat on a train.

Even though I've lived in the UK for years, I've never stopped being American. So I combine the kind of insider knowledge only gained from years of experience, with the fresh eye of the visitor I have never really stopped being.

I'll be seeking out the destinations and attractions that you, as a visitor, will enjoy most. I'll explain the cultural and bureaucratic differences you may find puzzling, and I'll lead you to experiences you might not try without my encouragement. When I say, C'mon, you'll love it, I know what I'm talking about because I'm just like you.