ISLAMABAD — GENEVA — Isobel Shaw, an Irish-born travel writer whose guidebooks introduced thousands of visitors to Pakistan, died on Wednesday (Nov 11) at her home in St-Cergue, Switzerland. Ms Shaw first came to Pakistan in 1978, when her husband, Robert Shaw, was posted to Islamabad as the Ford Foundation’s representative.
During her three years in Islamabad she learnt Urdu and, with Hilary Adamson, wrote A Traveller’s Guide to Pakistan, published in Islamabad in 1981 and one of the first modern guidebooks to the country. Her Pakistan Handbook (1989) was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel and Guide Book Awards, and her illustrated guide to Pakistan ran to five editions. With her son, Ben Shaw, she wrote the Pakistan Trekking Guide (1993) and a trekking guide to the Karakoram and Hindu Kush, published in Lahore in 2013.
Other writers on the region recommended her as the best guidebook writer on Pakistan. During the 1990s she worked as a tourism consultant to the government of Pakistan and gave the keynote address at the Pakistan Tourism Convention in Karachi in 1993. After the 2005 earthquake she gave talks to raise funds for orthopaedic care for survivors.
The same year, the Pakistan Society in London honoured her for advancing public knowledge and understanding of Pakistan in Britain. Her last book, Trekking Guide to the Karakoram and Hindu Kush of Northern Pakistan, was published by Vanguard Books in Lahore in 2013. She returned to Chitral that year, at the age of 70.