Helena Drysdale was born in London and has a degree in History and Art History from Trinity College, Cambridge. After a brief stint working for Walker Books, she wrote reviews of contemporary art for Artscribe Magazine, of which she became co-editor.

In 1985 she wrote Alone through China and Tibet (Constable 1986), followed by Dancing with the Dead (Hamish Hamilton 1991), which was also made into a documentary by Granada/WNET which she wrote and presented. In 1995 Sinclair Stevenson published her award-winning book, Looking for George, (published in paperback by Picador ), and in 2001 Mother Tongues, Travels through Tribal Europe was published by Picador.

Her new book, Strangerland, a poignant, dramatic, and true story of pioneering in the back bush of nineteenth century New Zealand, was published by Picador in 2006, and in paperback in 2007.

Helena Drysdale has written for a range of newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Times, The Times, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Evening Standard, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Vogue, Harpers & Queen, Esquire, and Index on Censorship. She reviews non-fiction for the New Statesman and The Spectator.

Helena has lectured to hundreds of institutions including The Royal Geographical Society, the National Trust, the National Trust for Scotland, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, as well as schools, universities and colleges. She tutors for the Arvon Foundation and runs writing courses, and edits non-fiction for the Writers' Workshop, an editorial agency. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter University. She has received writing awards from the Authors' Foundation and the Kay Blundell Trust, and judges the Society of Authors' Travel Award, and the Travel Writers' Guild Travel Book Award.

She has appeared on innumerable radio programmes, including Midweek, Woman's Hour, Kaleidoscope, Excess Baggage, the Jimmy Young Show, BBC Scotland, BBC World Service, as well as most local BBC radio stations, LBC, Radio 5 Live, and GLR.

Helena Drysdale is married to painter Richard Pomeroy and they live in Somerset with their two daughters.