Cliff Van Eaton is an award-winning author best known for his popular history of manuka honey.
In 2015, Manuka: The Biography of an Extraordinary Honey was named a finalist in the Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book of the Year. Later that same year it received the silver medal at the 44th Apimondia World Beekeeping Congress, held in Daejon, South Korea.
A Radio New Zealand (RNZ) interview with Cliff, focusing on the book and his career in international apiculture, can be found here.
Cliff has been fortunate to work with beekeepers in a number of countries, including such far-flung destinations as Solomon Islands, Viet Nam and Uruguay. During those trips he developed an interest in travel writing, and he’s carried that on more recently in journeys through Europe, Asia and the Americas.
In 2017, Cliff was named runner-up in the Best New Travel Writer of the Year category by the NZ Travel Communicators Association for his piece on Quebec.
“Whenever we travel, we constantly see things that appear either mystifying, or at least don’t quite make sense. It’s part and parcel of visiting somewhere new.
As tourists, though, we often have to put aside our many and varied questions in the rush to get to wherever we’re heading next.
That’s a big reason why I like to write when I travel. When I sit down to compose, at least some of what I just experienced and didn’t understand inevitably comes back to me, along with the motivation to look for answers while I’m still right nearby.
That seeking out is both fun, and often very illuminating. And it makes the travel experience so much deeper and more worthwhile.
My travel stories aren’t really about what I did. They’re about what I found out along the way. I love sharing those discoveries through words.”
~ Cliff Van Eaton