As the child of journalist and author William Stevenson, who wrote ‘A Man Called Intrepid', Andrew Stevenson was given no encouragement to follow in his father's footsteps, not least because the latter knew how hard the profession was in terms of making a living.

So Andrew studied economics and became an investment banker in Canada, a United Nations economist, a safari operator in Tanzania, and an adventure company owner and manager in Norway.

Whatever his occupation, he did it well, but deep within him was an innate wanderlust - thanks to a childhood spent living in Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Scotland, Malaysia and Singapore while his father followed his profession.

As well as he fitted into the business world, Mr. Stevenson also found it restricting, so as a bachelor with none of the traditional responsibilities of those living on the other side of the altar, he decided to shuck the formalities of life for a while, don a backpack, and take to the open road.

In the early 1990s, during a trek around the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal he kept a meticulous diary of his experiences, and when he returned home with voluminous notes and a host of photographs, he decided to turn them into book - a project which took him three and a half years to complete because he had resumed working.

For some writers, such an oeuvre would have been enough for a lifetime, but in Mr. Stevenson's case it became the spur to see more of the world and capture its wonders in print. To date he has written four books, and now launches his fifth: ‘A Nepalese Journey On Foot Around The Annapurnas'. Two more, one on Australia and one on Norway, are due out later this year.

The fact that Mr. Stevenson can now complete writing a book in approximately four months as opposed to three and a half years is attributable, in part, to a change in his modus operandi and lifestyle.

For a start, he has learned to streamline his note-taking to make it more succinct, and also adopted a more disciplined writing timetable. Gone are the bachelor days when he would write when he liked and for as long as he liked - often throughout the night. Now, following his marriage to Dr. Annabel Carter, he normally keeps to a 40-hour writing week, writing Monday to Friday from 7.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. with time out for lunch.

“This schedule is a lot healthier,” he says. “Generally I don't work at the weekend or in the evenings, but of course there is some flexibility. If, for example, I go lobster fishing I will make up the time in the evening, and I also swim every day.”

Now a full-time writer, Mr. Stevenson undertakes two or three trekking expeditions a year on average, each of which becomes the genesis of a future book. Fortunately, his New Zealand-born wife grew up with a love of the outdoors, and shares his passion for adventure.

“Annabel loves the mountains, trekking, and travelling as much as I do, so she doesn't feel threatened by my wanderlust, which is a really nice change for me,” he says.

The couple spent last Christmas in Antarctica, and have also travelled to the Himalayas and canoed and camped in Ontario.

As befits a keen fitness practitioner, Mr. Stevenson's holidays do not include the soft life of fine hotels, fancy cuisine, luxury cars, or any other creature comfort. Instead, he prefers to travel with a backpack and eat and sleep simply - in order words, he likes trekking.

“Trekking to me is sanity - regaining a perspective on life,” he says. “It is also healthy. Walking is one of the best things you can do besides swimming. Also, the diet is extremely healthy. There are no preservatives in the food, it is all organic.”

Referring to his latest book, which follows the stages of three key routes: the Annapurna Circuit, the Annapurna Sanctuary, and the epic trail north into the secretive principality of Mustang, the author says that he firmly resisted the temptation succumbed to by so many others to produce a coffee-table book filled with endless photographs of craggy, snow-capped mountains.

“Books of the Himalayas are typically full of pictures of the mountains, which I find very boring, so in my book there are only two pictures of the mountains themselves. Instead, I make the point that everyone can relate to the pictures. They are of the tea house, the path, the people you meet - both trekkers and locals - and not just the scenery.”

The end result is a parade of fascinating full-colour photographs supported by well-written, inspiring text, and integrated regional maps which are easy to read. “Landscape” shaped - that is to say, longer in width than length - the overall effect is of an immensely appealing book which gives the reader, both in words and pictures, the feeling that he or she is actually there - which is precisely what Mr. Stevenson aims for in all of his publications.

“In trekking I am not doing anything really special. I am not riding elephants in India, climbing Everest, or walking across Africa,” he says. “Some 10,000 people do the Annapurna Circuit every year because it is known as the classical hiking route in the world. What I am deliberately trying to do is portray that it is not difficult, and that there are a lot of people who hike. I just hope that my travelogues are like a person's diary. In fact, the best compliment I can get is if someone says, ‘I am on that trip with you' because then I feel I have interpreted the experience, and conveyed the message that everybody can do it. It's the same with the photographs. The book is basically everybody's photo album, and again my best compliment is when someone who has done the trip says, ‘I know exactly where that picture was taken, and I recognise the people'.”

Mr. Stevenson feels that Nepal is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and clearly he has a special affection for the Annapurna region, which he has visited several times.

“The Annapurnas are ten times more beautiful than the Himalayas,” he says.

As an environmentalist, he is also deeply impressed with the strides the people of Nepal have made in terms of improving their economy, and raising their personal and community standards of living through the development of tourism.

“When I first went to the Annapurnas, accommodation was very, very basic. You slept on a platform bed in a dorm which was very smoky from the fire. There was no toilet, no sanitation, and you could only get tea in the tea house,” he says. “Today, in some villages you will find tea houses with proper beds and pillows, adjacent western toilets, carpets on the floor, solar-heated showers, and everybody speaks English, so there is a huge change.”

Tourism is an essential part of the 1989 Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), which declared the region a conservation area, made the people responsible for its protection, and also taught them how to cater to western tourists.

For example, menu times and prices have been standardised, fuel-efficient stoves have been introduced, and a system of stacked cans now carries smoke out of the rooms, thus reducing the incidence of tuberculosis among the native population. A $20 fee collected from every tourist trekking in the Annapurnas funds schools, health clinics, irrigation, micro hydropower, and reforestation. Through this system, ACAP has reaped over $2 million in annual funding.

“The changes are not only tremendous but for the better,” Mr. Stevenson says. “It is sustainable development in the sense that the area is not dependent on foreign aid. As long as the tourists come, the people will have income to fund their projects and meet their aspirations.”

So successful is the ACAP scheme, in fact, that the author says the Maoists cannot make inroads there - the only region of Nepal able to make that claim.

“A Nepalese Journey On Foot Around the Himalayas' is available at the Bookmart, Washington Mall Magazines, and the Book Cellar in St. George's for $30.