For a long time Andy Moseley harboured ambitions of becoming an author but found his attempts at writing a best- selling novel always petered out, writes Will Gore. However, a change in genre, from fiction to travel writing, finally helped the budding scribe fulfil his dream.

The 42-year-old Kingston resident went on an extended holiday to America with his girlfriend, Liz Evans, and he turned his experiences into his debut book, Around the States in 90 Days, that is available to buy now.

“I tried writing fiction before and never managed to get to the end of a story,” explains Moseley.

“When I had the idea of going to America, I realised the story was actually written for me and it was just a case of bringing it to life.”

The book was labour of love for Moseley. He took a seven-month career break from his job at the Ministry of Justice, during which time he spent one month preparing for the trip and three months after it writing up his adventures.

Moseley has since spent holidays and weekends finishing off the book and he is delighted with the result.

“When I decided I wanted to take off from work, I knew I didn’t want to do anything useful – I just wanted a big holiday,” he explains.

“I chose America and thought, because it is expensive to get to, we should try to see as much of it as possible. The idea just built from there.

“The original plan was to visit every state until we ran out of money but we had to scale that back when we looked into the visa situation.

“In the end, we did a 90-day trip and got to about 25 states, although we only really passed through some of them.

“The only thing we stopped at in Kentucky, on our way to Tennessee, was a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant!”

Fast food notwithstanding, Moseley says celebrating his birthday at the Grand Canyon will live longest in his memory.

But what of the difficulites he came across during the jaunt?

“The scariest moment was when we picked up a car in Boston during the first couple of weeks of the trip,” he says.

“I was driving on a side of the road I am not used to and there were roadworks everywhere.

“Worst of all, there was this story at the time of a sniper who was shooting at people at random on the freeway!”

Moseley names Bill Bryson and Stuart Maconie as big influences on his writing and he is hopeful of returning to America in the future to visit the remaining 25 states and write a follow-up book.

In the meantime, he is busying himself promoting Around the States in 90 Days and can count a famous face – who also dabbles in writing alongside a day job in politics – as one of his readers.

“I was in the Teddington Waterstone’s and Vince Cable was there doing a book signing and, when he had a quiet moment, I went to speak to him.

“We struck a deal and bought each other’s books. I’m proud to say mine was £2.50 more expensive.”

Around the States in 90 Days, published by Lulu, £9.99, available from Amazon, Play, Borders and Tesco.