You may not have heard of Ibn Battuta (though you might have shopped in the gargantuan Dubai mall named after him), and so are unlikely to have dipped into his catchily titled magnum opus: The Precious Gift for Lookers into the Marvels of Cities and Wonders of Travel, which stormed the bestseller lists back in the 14th century.

To put it briefly, Ibn Battuta – Morocco’s Marco Polo; IB to his intimates – trotted about the globe in the Late Middle Ages, ranging across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, India and China for almost 30 years.

When he finally returned home to Tangier in 1354, he dictated The Precious Gift for Lookers… to a scribe from memory; some scholars say he cribbed bits, others that he made stuff up. Either way, he was a born storyteller, and nobody else had come up with the idea beforehand. So there.

Born and brought up a Muslim, IB trained as a jurist in Islamic law. His first stop was Mecca, naturally, but he didn’t so much catch the travel bug as hug it to his chest, and promptly set off for pastures new.

Given that IB frequently picked up and dispensed with female companions and slaves – as well as any souvenirs in the form of children – rather as modern travellers employ Uber, I’m a touch chary of proposing myself as his nomadic bosom buddy.