Aisling Irwin (aislingirwin.com) is a journalist and writer who specialises in the environment, the developing world and science. A former correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, she has won several prizes for her writing. Co-authored with Colum Wilson, her Bradt guidebook to Cape Verde - the first ever English-language travel guide to the islands - was initially published in 1998. When Irwin first visited Cape Verde, it was an obscure destination with just a few tens of thousands of tourists each year. Although the tourist volume is now approaching seven figures, she believes that Cape Verde is, at heart, a place not to be consumed, but to be treasured and understood. Irwin and Wilson have co-authored one other book (In Quest of Livingstone: a Journey to the Four Fountains, about their retracing of David Livingstone's last journey), and she has contributed to books on various subjects, including Bradt's guide to solar eclipses.

Colum Wilson is a relief worker. He worked for Médecins Sans Frontières and now works for the UK government's Department for International Development, specialising in providing humanitarian aid to west Africa. Together with journalist Aisling Irwin, he has lived in and written about a range of countries including Zambia and Angola. They have co-authored two books: Bradt's Cape Verde and In Quest of Livingstone: a Journey to the Four Fountains, which retraced David Livingstone's last journey. During the time that he has been visiting Cape Verde, Wilson has seen it change from a country with little tourism to one definitively on the tourist map.

Murray Stewart has written or co-authored five Bradt guides, and has been published in national travel magazines. He updated the sixth and seventh editions of Bradt's Cape Verde guidebook, building on his understanding of Portuguese and a network of island-based contacts to convey the changes in this fast-developing country. He notes that Cape Verde does not have a wealth of obvious 'treasures', possessing few museums, no art galleries, a mere scattering of historical sites. Accordingly, he recommends 'travelling as an anthropologist such that little treasures appear and quickly turn into big treasures - treasures to store in the memory'. Although loving the Fogo volcano, Santo Antão's craggy peaks and the glistening beaches of Sal and Boavista, what won him over was 'the gentle patience of the archipelago's inhabitants, their ability to intimately share both time and space with each other (and me), and their commitment to live life communally'.