User:PleasanceCoddington/sandbox/Paul Steele

Paul Steele, born 4th October 1971, is a British writer and one of the early adopters of social media. He was named the "world's most influential travel writer" in 2011 by the Daily Mail. His work is characterised by first person views of travel and real-life experiences.

Early life:

Paul was born in Oldham, Lancashire, and served in the army for 17 years from the age of 16 to 32.

2000s

Paul started documenting his hiking activities on Twitter in 2008. Initially he wanted to lose weight and started walking and grew a large following online organically.

He started a blog baldhiker.com in 2010 to diarise his travels and walks and was picked up by the press as a first generation blogger.

Achievements

Paul is a TV personality on shows including Britain’s Favourite Walks: Top 100 and other hiking programmes such as Duck Quacks Don't Echo. He was the lead content creator for the VisitBritain app Best of Britain on the first generation of Samsung smartphones and was an official 2012 Olympic and Paralympic ambassador for Samsung.

As an official VisitBritain contributor, Paul wrote for the national tourism authority between 2008-2013 covering events including the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Royal Wedding. Paul is known for his unedited documentary on global events as well as day to day life.

Paul continues to write from northern England to a large audience on Twitter which he has maintained organically.