A former stockbroker who has travelled the world has turned his hand to writing.

James Sumner, from Beaconsfield, penned his first novel, The Excursionist, as part of his PHD in travel and satire.

The self-confessed ‘dromomaniac’ – someone who has an uncontrollable physical urge to wander – has visited more than 100 countries and says he is “obsessed” with travelling – which is a strong theme in his book, branded “the anti-Eat Pray Love”.

The novel sees protagonist Jack Kaganagh wanting to visit 100 countries and join the Travelers’ Century Club before his 45th birthday.

Travelling alone for the first time since the death of his fiancé, he flies to three different islands, fumbling around in dreamily faraway places in order to tick off his last three countries.

Speaking about his own travel experiences, James, who has visited around 130 countries and grew up on the Heathrow flight path, said when he was a child, he would be intrigued by planes flying over his house, wondering where they were going.

“The planes would fly by and it would intrigue me how you could just fly from one country to another, and how the people would look completely different from one country to the next and all the buildings would be completely different,” he said.

“When you go on holiday and go out for supper everyone would be talking a foreign language – I always thought that was sensational.”

James said he got around the problem of travelling and working by Interrailing while at university and then choosing to travel on his own rather “go out drinking with a bunch of males” after he got divorced.

He said: “To travel on your own, people view you in a completely different way. People wonder why you’re travelling on your own, why you don’t have a friend, why you aren’t with your family and in certain cultures it’s really very odd.”

He did his PHD on what led to the growth of mass tourism in Britain, and the book was the creative side of his thesis.

Speaking about why he decided to do a PHD, he said: “I’ve always wanted to get a knighthood but I’m not somebody who’ll get that – I’d have to give loads of money away and that’s not me; do a lot of charity work and that’s not me; and be really successful, and that’s not me.

“So I thought if I can’t get a knighthood I’d get a doctorate. I’d always wondered why I was so obsessed with travel and wanted to know more about why I always wanted to travel.

“I spent five years doing it. The academic discipline is quite extraordinary. When my book was proofread to submit for my thesis, the guy who did it proofread it from the last word backwards. It was incredible.

“It was fantastic to see the first copy [of the book]. It has been very well received.”