January 2009: The Man In Seat Sixty One

The Man in Seat Sixty One is Mark Smith, who happens to know a thing or two about train travel.

Started purely as a hobby in 2001, it has grown into a full time job and the site provides sound practical advice to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying.

The site aims to do two things: first, it sets out to help people who already know they want to travel by train or ship but can't find out about it through normal commercial websites or travel agencies. Second, it aims to inspire and make travelling into an adventure where the journey is all part of the holiday.

Seat61.com has a huge amount of information available about train and ship travel around the world and 2008 proved to be an award winning year for the website, find out more here.

Also launched in 2008 was 'The Man In Seat 61' book which is the essential handbook for train travel from the UK into Europe and is available from Amazon.