First and foremost – Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed celebrating wherever you are in the world. We had a great time with family and friends Down Under in Melbourne and yesterday I took my first flight of 2013 here to Kuala Lumpur.

But as previously mentioned 2013 for 40before30 is going to be about more than just the travel blogging. I’m looking to connect and engage more with fellow travel addicts, and bring you more opportunities to travel too. The first part of this plan is to launch a twitter event for those of us that love to combine our passion for travel with an appetite for reading – introducing #TravelBookChat.

If I take myself and the conversations I have had with many of you as an example, it seems that being a travel addict and bookworm go hand in hand. I love to read before a trip to get me in the mood, during a trip to pass long dull journeys, and after a trip to bring back happy memories. Be it fiction, non-fiction, map or guide book – I always have my nose buried in something!

When I started the Travel Reads series reviewing and recommending my favourite travel books it seemed you all felt the same way about travel and books. You agreed with some of my choices, hated others and often referred me to something even better.

So I thought we could all get together online and have these conversations with each other at a set time. It will be like an online reading group specific for the travel sector. You don’t have to have read anything in advance for this first one; just come prepared to convince us why you think your choice of book is best and be ready to debate the merits of well know ‘must reads’.

Save the Date

The first #TravelBookChat will take place on the 16 January 2013 at 7.30pm GMT. We’ve selected a theme of India to kick things off because there is such a wealth of page-turning content in this area. Plus the Ang Lee directed epic, Life of Pi, movie will be released on the 22^nd December so we can rant about whether the film is as good as the book (is it ever?!)

What We’ll Cover

To give you an idea of the type of subjects we will cover during the chat, below are some example questions. If you have something you would like the group to cover please feel free to submit your own questions for consideration in the comment section at the end of this post:

Favourite fictional characters
Non-fiction must read
Biggest tearjerker
Most memorable read
Best guide book
Best and worst book to movie conversion
Shantaram – yay or nay

How To Take Part

To take part simply log onto to twitter at 7.30pm GMT on Wednesday 16^th January and search for the hashtag #TravelBookChat. I’ll be tweeting a series of questions and comments for us to consider over a period of 30 – 45 minutes. I’ll label them Q1, Q2 etc. so please label your answers A1, A2 and include the hashtag #Travelbookchat so we can follow your answers. Feel free to respond to others answers, as well as mine, and let’s have a good old friendly book debate.

The Bonus Part

The people at my favourite map and travel store in the world – Stanfords – have agreed to sponsor the chat. They’ll be picking a participant at random to win a £15 voucher for them to spend online. We’re sure there will be lots on your reading list after the event and this will help you make a start on it. They’ll also be taking part in the chat with us so watch out for their knowledgeable recommendations.

If you have any questions about any of the above or have a question to submit for the India book chat please leave it in the comments section below. We’d love to make this a regular event so if you have any requests for the next area we should cover in the chat please submit that below too. Look forward to hearing from you and chatting travel books with everyone on the 16^th January.