Philip Briggs (philipbriggs.com) has been exploring the highways, byways and backwaters of Africa since 1986, when he spent several months backpacking on a shoestring from Nairobi to Cape Town. He is the world's leading author of guidebooks to African countries, with more than 30 years' experience. During the 1990s, he wrote a series of pioneering Bradt travel guides to countries that were then – and in some cases still are – otherwise practically uncharted by the travel industry. These include the first dedicated guidebooks to Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Ghana, new editions of which have been published regularly ever since. He has written many articles about Rwanda, contributed to two national tourist brochures, and worked on a government tourist database. His other Bradt guides cover Somaliland, Suriname, The Gambia, Sri Lanka, East African wildlife and safaris. When not travelling, he lives in the sleepy South African village of Wilderness.

Janice Booth's career has included stage management, archaeology, compiling puzzle magazines, travelling, editing Bradt guides and co-writing Bradt guides to south and east Devon. She has driven Land Rovers in Timbuktu, walked with water-buffalo in Tamil Nadu, and waded in the breakers of Namibia's Skeleton Coast. She initiated and co-wrote the first edition of Bradt's Rwanda, and has been co-authored or otherwise contributed to several editions since. An immense fan of the country, she has also lectured and written about the country – and led tours there.