Duncan J. D. Smith

Duncan J. D. Smith FRGS (born 1 December 1960) is a British travel writer, photographer, historian, and explorer.

Smith was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England in 1960. Both his parents were librarians. His maternal grandfather was P.G.M. Dickinson, former Archivist of the County and Borough of Huntingdon. Dickinson rediscovered the town charters of Huntingdon in 1941. Smith’s Scottish great grandfather was Alexander James Smith, who was instrumental in establishing Chivas Regal as a global brand in the early twentieth century. Smith’s great great grandfather was Henry Doman, the nineteenth century Lymington poet and friend of Coventry Patmore. His great great great grandfather was Professor Charles Spooner of the Royal Veterinary College.

Educated in Sheffield, Smith simultaneously ran his own private museum. He then attended Birmingham University and studied Ancient History and Archaeology. Between 1985 and 2003 Smith worked in the publishing industry, during which time he wrote five local history books about Sheffield and Yorkshire, four of them with his late father Trevor Smith. His book Yorkshire: A Portrait in Colour (1995) published by The Dovecote Press remained in print for over fifteen years.

Since 2003 Smith has worked as a travel writer, photographer, historian, and explorer. He favours travelling off the beaten track in search of unusual places and people. His European findings are being self-published in an original series of books called the Only In Guides under his The Urban Explorer imprint. Volumes include Berlin, Boston, Budapest, Cologne, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Krakow, London, Munich, Paris, Prague, Vienna and Zurich. Smith has also written for magazines such as Timeless Travels and Hidden Europe.

Smith’s travels also encompass parts of Africa (including Ethiopia), the Middle East (including Syria and Jordan), and Asia (Sri Lanka).

In 2007 Smith was accepted as a member of Travelwriters UK. In 2010 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and in 2011 he was elected a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers.

Smith has been described as “the thinking man’s exploratory investigator”.

In the Spring 2020 edition of Timeless Travels magazine Smith examines the history of Dunwich, an English town which is slowly disappearing into the sea.