The Times presents Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show, which will be held at Earls Court, London from Thursday, February 2 to Sunday, February 5, 2012 is the biggest gathering of travel experts in the UK. With more than 800 experts from 100s of destinations, this is the essential event for the discerning traveller and this year, it will be celebrating its 18th birthday, too!

Famous names from the world of Current Affairs; Food & Drink and Adventure will discuss their careers, travels and experiences in the ‘Meet the Experts’ Theatre. Among this year’s guests will be Sir Trevor McDonald OBE, Dan Cruickshank (Historian & Broadcaster); Peter Snow; Monty Halls; Dan Snow; Levi Roots (Chef); Jane Corbin (Senior BBC News Correspondent); Liz Bonnin (from BBC1’s ‘Bang Goes the Theory’); Ian Maxwell (Professional Tracker); Geordie Stewart (Youngest Brit to climb The Seven Summits); Lyse Doucet (BBC News Correspondent); David Lindo (The Urban Birder) & David Cornthwaite (Adventurer).

In addition to this there will be a vast selection of talks and panel discussions including many of the exhibitors such as Phil Teubler and Linas Zabaliunas of Baltic Holidays talking on A Summer journey through the Baltic States to St. Petersburg, while Guy Marks of Tribes Travel will be talking on Visiting the Galapagos Islands and Paul Goldstein of Exodus Ltd will be discussing Kilimanjaro - Summit out of the Ordinary! With more than 10 talks each day – there will be something to whet everyone’s appetite for travel!

Sir Trevor McDonald OBE was born and educated in Trinidad where his career in the media began. He came to London in August 1969 to work as a Producer in the BBC Overseas Regional Service. He joined ITN as a General Reporter in 1973 and went on to anchor every ITN NewsProgramme. Over the past few years, he has presented The Secret Caribbean and soon, he will be seen presenting the Mighty Mississippi.

Peter Snow joined ITN as a script-writer and reporter and began newscasting in 1962, reporting from around the world for over a decade. He joined the BBC in 1972 and was one of the first presenters of NEWSNIGHT and then presented Tomorrow’s World from 1997 until 2001, with filming trips to America, Europe, Japan and New Zealand. In 2002, he made a programme for BBC2 with his son, Dan to mark the 60th anniversary of the Battleplan: The Battle of Alamein:.  This led to them both presenting two further series on BBC2 – Battlefield Britain (2004) and 20th Century Battlefields (2007). Peter’s latest book is To War with Wellington.

Historian Dan Snow began his TV career, when he was joint presenter of two history programmes with his father, Peter Snow (see above). They have also jointly presented Radio Four programmes on the Black Prince and on the Peninsular War of 1808-14.  Dan has also presented a number of shows on BBC1 and 2 including Hadrian, The First Emperor of China, and Empire of the Seas.  He does regular reports on history for The One Show. His latest book – published by Harper Press in 2009 is Death or Victory – The Battle of Quebec and the Birth of Empire. He is editing the diary of his great grandfather – a first world war general – for publication. Dan is a sailing Yachtmaster. 

Biochemist, Wild Animal Biologist & Presenter Liz Bonnin began this year by filming the hugely successful Stargazing Live for BBC 2. As well as Bang Goes the Theory for BBC1, Liz presented an exciting new documentary for BBC Wales, Egypt’s Lost Cities, which transmitted in May. Liz also joined the Springwatch presenting team once again, and has just finished filming for the most recent series of Autumnwatch. In addition to her TV work, Liz completed a masters in 2008 in Wild Animal Biology and Conservation on big cat conservation with the Zoological Society of London, a project that involved traveling to Nepal to study tigers.

Monty Halls is a writer, explorer, television presenter and public speaker. A former Royal Marines officer who worked for Nelson Mandelaon the peace process in South Africa, he left the services in 1996 to pursue a career in leading expeditions. Having achieved a First Class Honors degree in marine biology, over the next decade he circumnavigated the globe four times on various projects, leading multi-national teams in some of the most demanding environments on earth. His television career began when he won Channel Four’s Superhuman competition in 2004. Since then he has presented series and documentaries for the Discovery Channel, The National Geographic Channel, BBC1 and BBC2, Channel 4, and the History Channel. His latest projects have been on the west coast of Scotland (Monty Halls Great Escape, Monty Halls Great Hebridean Escape)  and the west coast of Ireland - “Monty Halls’ Great Irish Escape” where he was living and working in Connemara with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Conservation Group.

Dave Cornthwaite is a British adventurer and author. His adventures are largely shaped by a passion for combining sport and travel to encourage people to look after their own little corner of the planet by thinking big, staying healthy and smiling as much as possible. Dave is probably best known for his Expedition1000 project, an ambitious series of twenty five journeys of at least 1000 miles in length, each one using a different method of non-motorised transport. Dave hopes to raise £1,000,000 for his selected charities by the end of the project, which will take him across three oceans, to both poles, and to every continent on Earth. Earlier this year, he spent three weeks in Nepal getting over vertigo by learning how to paraglide, in preparation for a 1000-mile flight over the country. One month later, he completed the 3rd journey of Expedition1000 by pedalling a tandem bicycle 1400 miles in 14 days from Vancouver, BC to Las Vegas. In the Summer of 2011 Dave became the first person to Stand Up Paddleboard the length of the Mississippi without motorised assistance, along the way breaking two world records, the longest distance paddled by SUP in one day, and the longest distance paddled by SUP in one journey, 2404 miles.

Dan Cruickshank is a regular presenter on the BBC, best known for his popular series Adventures in Architecture, Britain’s Best Buildings, Around the World in 80 Treasures and for his appearances in The House Detectives and What the Industrial Revolution Did For Us. His books include Adventures in Architecture; Around the World in 80 Treasures; Life in the Georgian City; The Guide to the Georgian

Buildings of Britain and Ireland; Invasion: Defending Britain from Attack; and The Story of Britain’s Best Buildings. He is an Honorary Fellow of RIBA with a BA in Art, Design and Architecture. For three years he was also a visiting professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Sheffield.

The phenomenal rise of Rastafarian musician Levi Roots is one of the most heart-warming business success stories to date. Levi made the big time from producing his Reggae Reggae Sauce, which was featured on the hit TV show Dragons’ Den. His first cookery book, Reggae Reggae Cookbook was published by HarperCollins in June 2008 and continues to sell extremely well. His second book, Caribbean Food Made Easy (August 2009) and third book Food For Friends (August 2010) were published by Mitchell Beazley. Caribbean Food Made Easy was accompanied by a BBC2 series of the same name.  He has recently released his latest book, which is a business book entitled You Can Get It If You Really Want (Mitchell Beazley, 2011).

Earlier this year (2011), 22-year-old Geordie Stewart stood at the highest point on earth – the summit of Mt Everest and realised a dream he had hatched 4 years previously to become the Youngest Brit to climb the 7 Summits – the highest mountain on each of the 7 Continents.

Ian Maxwell created and presented ‘Big Cat Track’ on Animal Planet which attracted great media attention and showcased his skills as the world’s foremost authority on animal tracking. He is now filming a new series called, ‘Max’s Big Tracks’ which will take him all over the world searching for elusive and rare species including the ‘Yeti’. Ian or ‘Max’ as he likes to be called, was born in Zambia and was inspired from an early age by the last of the old Colonial Hunters, who made their living by tracking and hunting wild animals.  Max is currently working on a commission for the SOS Lynx Foundation searching for the elusive Iberian Lynx and is due to visit Kenya to re-train the hardened game scouts of the Northern region. He also trains the Devon and Cornwall Police Force to man track.

David Lindo - The Urban Birder is a writer, broadcaster, speaker and bird guider. He wants urbanites to realise that there is a whole world of wildlife under their noses in the world’s cities. When not traversing the world studying urban wildlife he can be found looking for birds in west London at his beloved local patch, Wormwood Scrubs.