You've met Rod Cuthbert, the travel entrepreneur, the founder of Viator and currently the interim chairman of Rome2Rio; now meet Rod Cuthbert, the author.

The Melbourne-based executive has self-published a book called "Vacation Rules: A Guide to Travel Happiness", co-authored with psychologist Sebastian Filep. The book is available on Amazon.

I caught up with Rod last evening in Melbourne where he shared the story behind the making of the book and the process of self-publishing which spanned New York, San Francisco, Indonesia and of course, Melbourne, a true exercise in outsourcing, crowd sourcing and collaboration.

Q: What prompted the idea?

A few things came together: first, I read Alain de Botton's Art of Travel. That got me thinking about why people travel, and what makes them happy when they do.

Then, I had a period (2005-2008 when I did a lot of travel and talked to a lot of travellers. I became intrigued about why two people, having a similar experience, could be having such different reactions to it. I asked a lot of questions and started to develop some theories.

Then the final piece fell into place: I read Michael Pollan's Food Rules. I saw immediately that the format of the book was one I could use to capture my ideas and deliver them in a readable way.

Q. Why did you want to write this book?

Like the proponents of positive psychology, I believe that there's much good to be gained by helping people achieve happiness. Given that many of us focus lots of energy on our vacations and look to those trips as a key source of happiness, helping people achieve better vacation outcomes seems like a valuable goal.

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