Christopher P. Baker[4] (born 15 June 1955) is a professional travel writer and photographer, adventure motorcyclist, tour leader, and Cuba expert, and the 2008 Lowell Thomas Award 'Travel Journalist of the Year.
[1] Baker has appeared on dozens of radio and TV outlets as a Cuba expert, including on CCTV,[2] CNN,[3] Fox News Channel,[6] NBC, NPR, and Travel with Rick Steves,.
[8] He is currently partnered with actor-singer David Soul in producing a cinematic documentary[9][10] about the restoration of Ernest Hemingway's 1955 Chrysler New Yorker convertible,[11] in Havana.
The following year he attended the graduate Centre for Latin American Studies, at the University of Liverpool, where he received a Masters following his thesis on agrarian reform and guerrilla insurrection in Colombia.
He also published articles on agrarian reform for Land&Liberty, the publication of the Henry George Foundation of Great Britain.
In 1980, Baker relocated to California, where he received a Scripps Howard Foundation Scholarship to attend the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
His articles included first-person reports on such activities as bicycling in Bali,[16] hiking to Mount Everest, whitewater rafting in Papua New Guinea, and natural history cruising in the Galapagos Islands.
Baker's self-syndicated stories appeared in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada, including front-page stories in the Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner, and Toronto Globe & Mail.
[31] The journey resulted in publication of numerous magazine articles, plus Mi Moto Fidel: Motorcycling Through Castro's Cuba[1] (National Geographic Adventure Press, 2001), a literary travelog that won both the Lowell Thomas Award as 'Travel Book of the Year' and the North American Travel Journalists Association's 'Grand Prize.'
The judges of the Lowell Thomas Award, offered by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation,[32] said: "This is a wonderful adventure book… a meditation on philosophy, politics, and the possibilities of physical love.
In April 2011, Baker was the first foreign journalist to photograph and report the existence of Ernest Hemingway's long-lost and recently rediscovered 1955 Chrysler New Yorker convertible,[11] in Havana.
The documentary, in which Baker plays a fixer, translator and sidekick to David Soul, is being produced by London-based Red Earth Studio.
He has also been the keynote speaker at the North American Travel Journalist Association's national convention (2010)[57] and TBEX Travel Bloggers Exchange (2012)[58] Baker has been profiled in USA Today[59] and Geographical Magazine[60] and has been interviewed about Cuba on ABC, CBS, CCTV,[2] CNN,[3] Fox News Channel, NBC, NPR, and dozens of other radio & TV outlets.