Armchair Explorer

In this special bonus edition of the Armchair Explorer we are showcasing an episode from one of my favourite travel podcasts: Out There. The episode is called Conservation 2.0, and it's about a subject very close to every outdoor lover's heart: National Parks. The outdoors is a place for everyone. It’s where we all come from, it’s in our DNA, our blood, it is where we all belong. That’s why we hav...

Follow BBC travel presenter and You Tube star Mike Corey into the depths of the Brazilian Amazon to experience Ayahuasca, Kambo and other mind-altering indigenous plant medicines.  This is not your average psychedelic tourist experience. Mike travels to a traditional village in remote part of the jungle where foreigners have never been before. There, in the thatched roof long house, he gathers by...

Follow explorer Mario Rigby on a 7,500-mile trek across the entire length of the African continent. Travelling on foot from Cape Town to Cairo, through South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt, Mario sought to understand the lives of African people better, to learn from them, sleeping where they slept, eating where they ate, living side-by-side, step-by-step.  B...

Follow world-record breaking explorer George Bullard on a world-first kayak from Greenland to Scotland across one of the most dangerous stretches of water on the planet. No one thought they could do it. Most people assumed they would die trying – and they nearly did, more than once. But, despite the odds, over six weeks, George and his expedition partner Ollie Hicks, crossed 1,200-miles of open oc...

In this special listener episode, we follow teacher Adam Seldon on a 300-mile trek across the Balkans, one of Europe’s most mis-understood and rarely visited regions. Travelling from Sarajevo, in Bosnia, across Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece, Adam links together some of the region’s most spectacular scenery, national parks and long-distance trails. It’s a fantastic adv...

Follow travel author and doctor Stephen Fabes on a six year, 53,000-mile journey from his home in London across Europe, Africa, The Americas, Australia and Asia. He will cross deserts, jungles and the highest mountain ranges in the world; he will face the freezing winds of a Mongolian winter and the stifling heat of an Indonesian summer. In Peru, he is held up at gunpoint; in Nepal, a deadly blizz...

Follow travel author Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent on one of the toughest motorcycle journeys on the planet: six weeks and 2,000 miles through the near impassable mud and steep mountain slopes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Crossing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the main military supply route during the Vietnam War, moving men and supplies from communist controlled North Vietnam to t...

Follow Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras on a quest to discover South America’s hidden wonders. From the Last Incan Bridge and the Machu Picchu of the North to the Everlasting Lightning Storm and a statue of a squid fighting a whale the size of the statue of liberty (yes, you read that right), this is an epic ride through Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru’s weirdest and wildest wonders. Th...

 Levison Wood is one of the world’s most well-known explorers, TV presenters and authors. Join him for a 5,000-mile journey through the heart of the Middle East, from the front lines of Iraq and Syria through the Empty Quarter desert to Yemen, the West Bank and beyond. 13 countries in five months, his most complicated and dangerous expedition yet. Following in the footsteps of great explorers such...

Follow Red Bull photographer Christian Pondella as he descends inside the Greenland Ice Cap, a place that no one had ever gone before. Greenland is one of the most remote and extreme countries on Earth. 80% of its surface is covered in ice, temperatures can reach -65°C. But it holds the second largest ice sheet on the planet, and it’s melting fast. Christian teams up with legendary ice climber Wil...

The Seven Summits is the ultimate mountaineering challenge. To stand on the highest peak on each of the seven continents is a feat only a handful of people have ever achieved. Rebecca Stephens MBE is the first British woman to do so. She's also the first British woman to summit Everest, and she's going to be taking us step-by-step up every single one of those climbs. Are you ready to stand on the...

Follow journalist Simon Parker as he takes part in the world’s craziest race: 2,500-miles and two weeks across the length of India … in a rickshaw. You read that right. Welcome to the Rickshaw Run: if Monty Python went on a road trip, this is what they’d do. The rickshaw, if you haven’t ridden one before, if perhaps the least suitable vehicle on the planet for long distance travel. Used commonly a...

Travel to the Kalahari Desert, in Namibia, where under the shade of a Baobab Tree, eight San elders are gathering to perform their traditional healing dances one last time before they pass on. The San are among the oldest continuously surviving tribes on Earth. They have lived among the plains of Southern Africa as hunter-gatherers for at least the last 20,000 years. And for all those long years,...

Follow world-renowned explorer Ed Stafford on the expedition that made his name: walking the entire length of the Amazon River, on foot. People thought that it was impossible, that he would die trying; and they were nearly right. He was attacked by a tribe of angry machete wielding indigenous peoples, he faced Narco drug traffickers and giant anacondas. But gradually, step by step, over the course...

Close your eyes. Picture that darkness, that starless night. If that was all you could see, no color, no shades, no shape or light, nothing at all but blackness, would you still have the courage to explore the world? This week’s guest, Christopher Venter, aka The Blind Scooter Guy, did and does, and he’s going to take us on a journey sightless from Sicily to Southern France and show us the world a...

Bhutan is the last of the great Himalayan kingdoms. Still largely untouched by outside influences, shrouded in mystery and magic, this Buddhist country, hidden for centuries on the roof of the world, is like nowhere else on the planet. Follow British Travel Writer of the Year Emma Thomson as she explores the culture and majesty of Druk Yul, Land of the Thunder Dragon, as it's known by its people....

Follow You Tube star Drew Binsky to two of the world’s most dangerous countries: Iran & Afghanistan. We also hear about visits to Yemen, Syria, Somalia, North Korea and more. The media calls them evil. Politicians say they want to do us harm. But if you have the courage to walk the streets of Tehran and Kabul, of Damascus and Mogadishu, you’ll see that nothing could be further from the truth....

Follow professional sailor Mark Towill on The Ocean Race, the ultimate around-the-world sailing competition: nine months, and 45,000 nautical miles, through some of the toughest seas on the planet. Only the strongest sailors in the world are able to compete, and only for the glory. There is no prize money. The Ocean Race (formerly the Volvo Ocean Race) is the toughest team challenge in sailing, an...

Follow ex-pro surfer Jon Rose on his ultimate adventure horse trekking through the remote wilderness of Mongolia. This is the 'Land of the Blue Sky', a place of limitless space, and boundless freedom, where bands of nomadic families still live the old way, tending livestock and moving with the seasons.  But this is more than just a story of adventure; and it's about more than horse trekking in Mon...

40,000 miles, two years and 17 countries: travel across the Americas from Alaska to Argentina with overlanding expert Dan Grec. This is one of the world's most epic road trips and we have a front row seat.  The term 'Overlanding' refers to self-reliant expedition style adventures, usually in 4x4 vehicles and to remote locations. Think of it like extreme road tripping. Just about anywhere in the wo...

Free diving is breath hold diving. You have a mask, wetsuit, fins and your lungs. That’s it. Take a deep breath, dive down, hold it, and whatever you do. Don’t. Let. Go. Sound easy? It’s not. But it’s worth it. When you scuba dive, you’re a visitor to the underwater world. It’s loud and often scares away the marine life. With breath hold diving, you’re a part of it. You see the ocean on its own te...

Join best-selling author Adam Weymouth on a 2,000-mile canoe journey down the Yukon River, from its source in Northern Canada, through Alaska, to the Bering Sea. It's one of the wildest and most pristine places on Earth filled with Moose, Bald Eagles and Grizzly Bears. But this is more than just an epic paddle. The Kings of the Yukon are the King Salmon, the Chinooks, who swim up the river every y...

Alone on a mountain top in the Pyrenees, in the pitch black of night, without another soul around, a woman hears a voice echoing out of the darkness. It was an experience she couldn't understand or explain. It terrified her. But it also changed her life.  Follow nature writer Jini Reddy on a Vision Quest, a lone wilderness vigil on a remote mountain in the Pyrenees for five days without food, phon...

The Anwals are the last remaining migrating shepherds of the Indian Himalayas. Each spring, they take their flocks from the heat of the valleys to graze among the high alpine pastures of the Himalayas. They won’t return until Autumn. It is a way of life that has remained unchanged for generations. Follow in their footsteps on this incredible journey, hiking village to village, and staying in small...

Seeing mountain gorillas in the wild is one of the rarest and most inspiring wildlife experiences on the planet. There is an immediate bond, a sense of connection. When you look a mountain gorilla in the eye, you see yourself reflected back. Follow Praveen Moman, one of the world's leading conservationists, into the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda in search of the critically endangered mountain gorill...