The True Travel Podcast

American travel journalist and editor Nikki Vargas joins Laura to talk about her new memoir - Call You When I Land - in which she bares all - love, lust (and wanderlust)... and a murder mystery. Laura catches Nikki in the throws of her book tour to discuss some of the most gripping moments in her memoir: calling off the wedding to her college sweetheart with days to go, making it as a writer in th...

The podcast's very own host, British journalist and travel writer, Laura Sanders, documents her journey through Peru with small group tour specialists G Adventures. South America's third-largest country, Peru is a land of deserts, glaciers, lakes and jungles. But it's most famous for Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas.  Learn more about this powerful civilisation as Laura make...

Hot off the back of a tense finale of Race Across the World season 3, the winners talk to Laura about their experience, what they've been up to since and where they're off to next. Buzzsprout i s the #1 podcast hosting platform and made launching the True Travel Podcast really easy. As a subscriber, you get tons of guides, from finding the right equipment at the right price to growing yo...

As we approach the new year, Laura asks Skyscanner's Travel Trends Expert, Laura Lindsay, about what and where is up and coming in 2023 - so you can get in there ahead of the crowds. According to Laura, we're more determined than ever to travel despite the cost of living crisis, but we're looking for places which offer better value for our hard-earned cash. As a result, lesser-known...

The True Travel Podcast: Travel Guides takes you on a journey to an exciting destination, sometimes with the help of a guest expert. In this first Travel Guides episode, award-winning travel journalist and author Tharik Hussain (S4,E4) joins Laura to tell us what Saudi Arabia has to offer as it undergoes a dramatic transformation. Having lived there for some time and travelled the country extensiv...

Travel journalist Oli Smith joins Laura to talk about the world's abandoned wonders, as detailed in his new book, Atlas of Abandoned Places. During the episode, Oli talks about some of the destinations which feature in the book - many of which he's visited himself - as well as some of his earliest adventures as a young backpacker and his career as a travel journalist. Oli also tells us w...

Tharik Hussain is a British-Muslim travel writer and author who’s been travelling in search of Europe's native Muslim communities.  Tharik released his book Minarets in the Mountains:  A Journey into Muslim Europe  in July which is all about his adventures around the Western Balkans, connecting with muslims who have lived there for centuries. During the episode, Tharik talks about the way Mus...

James Willcox is the co-founder of Untamed Borders which creates bespoke tours in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, among other unconventional destinations. During this episode, James tells us the story behind Untamed Borders and how it has helped documentary film makers - most recently Michael Palin - access and explore these seemingly cut-off corners of the globe. But you don't...

Mary Novakovich is a British travel journalist specialising in Croatia and the Balkans. Both her parents are originally from Croatia, which at the time of their births was part of Yugoslavia.  Mary’s memoir, My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia's Hinterland, was released in August this year and documents her many journeys to visit family in Lika, where her mother was born...

Jess Vincent started writing about travel a few years ago when she went backpacking in South America. It wasn’t long before she scored commissions with the big names and won awards for her words.   Jess has covered South America extensively, penning stories about hiking the Camino Copalita - a little-known trail only a privileged few get to experience in Mexico - and tasting the country's anc...

May 29th marked International Everest Day and so joining Laura this week is The Telegraph’s Lucy Aspden who recently completed Basecamp Everest. Leading her up the mountain was the son of Sherpa Tenzing, one of the first two men to summit Everest almost 70 years ago. The trek to Everest has changed a lot since then and Lucy tells us what it’s really like to summit basecamp in 2022, with far more c...

Cheryl B Engelhardt is a marine biologist turned bestselling New Age artist and composer from New York. She holds the unofficial title of being the first person to make an entire album on a cross-country train in the USA. What started as a cheaper way to travel to the Grammys ended up being a 9-day round trip from New York to LA after the event was cancelled during the pandemic. Cheryl produced he...

Kate Wickers is a travel journalist and author whose debut book -  Shape of a Boy - is a memoir about travelling with her husband and three sons from Borneo to Cambodia, Mexico to Thailand, and everywhere in between. Each chapter of her book is a different family trip and includes a life lesson her three boys learned as well as the laughs, cries, and experiences they’ve shared along the way. Durin...

If you think that travelling sustainably means spending more money or going to some far-flung place to plant trees, think again. Sustainable travel journalist Richard Hammond from the Green Traveller explains how any holiday can be made more planet-friendly. From what you decide to pack to choosing accommodation with the right eco credentials, Richard's new book The Green Traveller  is full o...

This week, we’re heading to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco to hear from Alice Morrison, a British author, adventurer and self-proclaimed 'Indiana Jones for girls.' She moved to Morocco eight years ago and now speaks Arabic. Alice tells us of her adventures across the Sahara desert, encountering snakes, quicksand and lost kingdoms. During this episode, Laura asks her about one of her most...

Author and journalist Pip Stewart completed a world-first expedition through the depths of the Amazon jungle in 2018.  She followed the Essequibo River in Guyana from source to sea, taking three months in total.  Pip hiked, kayaked and hacked her way through the dense, unexplored wilderness along with two friends and five members of the Wai Wai indigenous community.  They went through with this ex...

Once a frequent flyer and jetting off to Europe most weekends, editor at The Independent Travel, Helen Coffey, quit flying for a year in 2020. She's now written a book about her flight-free adventures and the impact of the aviation industry on the planet. Throughout the pandemic, ‘build back better’ has been the buzz phrase as the travel industry had time to reflect during lockdown on its imp...

Kicking off season three with Laura is Carmen Roberts, presenter on the BBC's The Travel Show, who takes us behind the cameras on some of her most memorable assignments. Born in Singapore, Carmen has since lived in Australia, Japan and the UK and visited more than 80 countries.  During the episode, she reminisces about some of her most memorable assignments with Laura, taking us from a bizarr...

Guidebook writer Rebecca Hall talks all things Greece as she sits down with Laura to discuss her travel writing career and some of the hidden gems she's discovered in the country she now calls home. Originally from London, Rebecca has traveled all over the world, but Greece has always had a special place in her heart. She moved there after graduating from University to teach English.  That wa...

Travelling artist Natasha Cross, who’s originally from London, has been making her way up through South America; painting, volunteering and teaching as she goes. She’s currently in Bolivia, a country which stole her heart and stopped her in her tracks three years ago.  During that time, Natasha has seen the country go through a political crisis and was at one point walking through blockades to get...

American photojournalist Adam Schluter travelled to Europe with less than $50 to his name and just one night in an Airbnb and took a huge chance with an idea for a photography project.  Luckily for him, a travel company liked it and agreed to sponsor him to travel along Europe's railways, taking photos of complete strangers and asking for their stories.  The project is called ‘Hello from a St...

Travel journalist and author, Shafik Megji, talks backpacking across India and South America, writing travel guide books, the countries he wouldn't write about for ethical reasons and so much more. Have you ever picked up your hefty Lonely Planet or Rough Guide book on your flight somewhere and wondered who writes all of that and what level of research they undertake? Well this week’s guest,...

This week, Laura speaks to travel journalist Simon Parker about his world cycling expeditions and his exciting career so far.  In 2016, he cycled and sailed from China to London for a documentary. That was his biggest challenge until lockdown in 2020, when he completed a 3,500 mile cycling expedition around the UK, which he’s now written a book about. Simon’s reported from more than 100 countries...

What it's like being a solo female backpacker from India in Latin America, scares and scams at the borders,  travelling in India (which is more like a continent rather than a country), and living in the experimental community of Auroville with Manisha Singh. A few years ago, Manisha realised that working in the corporate world in Mumbai wasn't for her. Dissatisfaction with her job combin...

Tom Chesshyre joins Laura to discuss some of the highlights of his 25-year career as a travel journalist as he releases his tenth book. Tom started out as a sports journalist before realising he wasn't particularly excited by reporting on footballers' injuries for the rest of his career. Soon after, a holiday of a lifetime to South Africa turned into his first big travel story as he foll...