ABOUT FARAZ

Faraz Shibli is a British travel writer and adventurer. He is a contributor to Mongolia: the Bradt Travel Guide (3rd ed.) and The Kindness of Strangers: Travel Stories That Make Your Heart Grow, a collection of tales by travel writers, explorers and adventurers, including Ed Stafford, Benedict Allen and Sarah Outen, in aid of Oxfam. His words have been published by the i newspaper, British GQ, BBC Travel (with Lonely Planet), FOX 4 News, The Great Outdoors and many more.

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In 2011, aged 25, Faraz became the youngest Briton to cross the Gobi Desert on foot. Using Bactrian camels to carry his equipment, he spent two months walking 1,600km across nomadic Mongolia, the world's most sparsely populated independent country, before travelling from its southern border with China to near its northern border with Russia by horse, road and rail.​ His other expeditions include living, herding and hunting with the Kazakh eagle hunters of northwest Mongolia, trekking through the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, travelling in a loop by bicycle, boat and hitch hiking through the jungles of rural northern Laos and long-distance cycling in Thailand.

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A barrister by day and an adventurer by… well, just other days, really

—British GQ

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Faraz is also a barrister specialising in international law, with over 15 years’ experience working in private practice, government and the United Nations. He has represented refugees escaping conflict and persecution in countries such as Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq; advised the Government of Mongolia on comprehensive reforms to its labour and human rights laws; and advised the UK Government on EU law, including novel legal issues relating to Brexit. He is a trustee of Coalition Peace, a charity developing tech to make peacebuilding resources available to local NGOs, communities and peace initiatives in Africa.

 

Faraz was born and grew up in Scotland. He was educated at Warwick and Oxford and now lives in a village in Northamptonshire.