Born in 1973 in Northern Ireland, Gareth McCormack graduated from Queen's University Belfast in 1995 in law. After two years of walking and climbing through Asia, Australia and New Zealand, he returned to Ireland and established himself as a professional writer and photographer. He has worked extensively on the Lonely Planet series of walking guidebooks and is a regular contributor to the Irish magazine Walking World Ireland. His photographs have appeared in magazines, newspapers and advertising worldwide and he still lives in the north-west of Ireland.