August 1998. Cecil Rhodes was quite a guy: at one point he had two countries named after him, was the prime minister of a third, and was the richest man on Earth. He chose to be buried at Malindzidzi, or "World's View", in Zimbabwe's Matopos Hills, one of the most glorious places on Earth. That's my shadow falling near his grave.

HarperCollins has released my latest novel Invisible Armies in full, for free, on their web site until June 30th. Read it there while you can!

Longsheng is home to some amazing and ancient agricultural engineering: a string of 1,000-metre hills long since completely converted to rice paddies. Getting there was an interesting journey that involved a rugby scrum with a pack of brightly clothed middle-aged women on a dangerously swaying rope bridge, and then a long climb through fog, to yet another bridge - this one, looming in the fog.

March 2007, on the road out of Port-au-Prince. This walled cemetery abuts some of the poorest slums in the Western Hemisphere - poorest but full of life and colour, retina-searing taptap buses and pickups, painted store signs, bright clothes, and these half-voodoo, half-Catholic murals.

October 2006. A 48-hour journey through the forbidding Tibetan Plateau along the world's highest railway, which, as you can see, is not sealed against the thin air: instead, extra oxygen is piped into the cars. But believe me, you still start to feel pretty miserable at 4800 metres. A fantastic voyage; it was actually over too soon.

October 2006. A 360-degree panorama photostitched together from nine shots taken from a hilltop in Khutai, a scorchingly beautiful national park about two hours west of Ulaan Baatar. A glorious, glorious place.

July 2006. I lived in Paris for three months in the autumn of 2004, and I adore the city, but despite its pervasive beauty, it somehow always seemed camera-resistant: none of the pictures I ever took there really felt like they captured either the place or the moment. This one, taken on a subsequent visit, of beach volleyball with artifical palm trees on the plaza outside City Hall, somehow came closest.

I spent April of 2006 in New York City, writing my "children's book for adults" Beasts of New York (which I'm currently serializing online.) As part of my research I wandered to faraway corners of the city such as Staten Island, which boasts a surprising number of cool things: the world's largest garbage dump, an abandoned insane asylum, and this view, from a hill above a ruined fort that watched over the Verrazano Narrows in World War II.

October 2005. After a hard day of scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, and banging my head against things; after a long walk along the beaches at the northern tip of the fantabulous island of Zanzibar, watching ships called dhows being carved by hand from hardwood, seeing fish that shone like silver being carried in from the sea; I sat on a wooden deck that jutted out into the ocean from a ramshackle hostel-resort, ate pizza, drank beer, and as the sun set, snapped this picture of dhows at rest. It was a good day.

November 2004. Ruined bridge near Hampi, Karnataka, India. I rented a battered old bike in Hampi, followed dirt roads through thousand-year-ruins and surreal, towering, jumbled piles of rocks (which reminded me of Zimbabwe) until I reached this bridge - which had cracked concrete extending out into the river from either end, but no middle span. Instead I and my bike were ferried across on a coracle made of woven branches and plastic sheets.

A few months later, this experience, very slightly reworked, became chapter one of my third (published) novel, Invisible Armies.