Travel guru Simon Westcott sets up second home on Hong Kong seashore
Big Wave Bay apartment gives away little about its owner's profession but says a lot about his love for nature, space and his Melbourne farm
Text Charmaine Chan / Styling David Roden / Photography John Butlin
His epithet is "travel guru". Yet Simon Westcott lives with few physical reminders of trips abroad - unlike those wanderlusters who fill their homes with memories of their adventures.
That may have something to do with the fact that, as the owner of Luxe City Guides, he is a professional traveller: British-born Westcott, who emigrated to Australia in the late 1990s and last year set up a second home in Hong Kong, is also co-founder of the Asia subsidiary of Mr & Mrs Smith (the hotel-booking service) and, for seven years, was the global publisher of Lonely Planet.
"I've always had a view that you need to be as present as possible when you're travelling," he says. "I don't take photographs and I tend not to consume. I prefer to spend my time and money on doing things when I travel."
Westcott's less-is-more attitude is writ large in his 1,600 sq ft Big Wave Bay home, a simple but stylish one-storey, three-bedroom property tucked in an idyllic pocket between the Dragon's Back and Hong Kong's only beach officially designated for surfing.
Though only a few minutes' walk from where day trippers are disgorged from minibuses on sunny weekends, it has an off-the-grid feel, intensified by Westcott's texted instructions for finding his home from the bus stop: "Call me when u arrive. I will guide you in … no house number that means anything".