JRNY Travel Podcast

Wei Hong Tseng is a London-based Taiwanese author and Instagrammer, posting under the handle @london.nanzhi. He’s written a Chinese-language travel guide available for sale in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia, and regularly shares insights and travel tips on the UK capital as well as his hometown Taipei. He and host Si Willmore talk about Wei Hong's experiences of moving to London,...

Reece Ayers grew up in the UK but moved to northern China in 2011. He was only supposed to be there for six months but 12 years later he still lives in Asia, having spent eight more years in China then moving to Taipei in 2019 for a university degree. He is now a journalist for TaiwanPlus , reporting on daily news, arts and culture, life and society, geopolitics and human rights. He tells host Si...

Rob Hodkinson is one of the founders of cycling company Pedal Taiwan . Originally from the UK, he has been organising and leading bicycle tours across Taiwan for seven years. An avid cyclist, Rob first came to the island in 2016 and never left.  He and host Si Willmore talk about Rob's travels and cycle trips and Rob shares his early memories of experiencing the country – the sights, sounds,...

Christina Theofilos is the chef at Psomi in Tampa Bay , Florida. A second-generation Greek American, born and raised in Tampa, her food celebrates the Greek concept of philoxenia , the art of making a stranger a friend. She and host Si Willmore discuss Christina's childhood, growing up with the notion that 'food is love', and how that has shaped her cooking and her career. The name of her restaura...

Toni Westland is a Federal Park Ranger who works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service . She has been the Supervisory Refuge Ranger at the 'Ding' Darling National Wildlife Refuge for over 20 years, overseeing the non-profit arm of the refuge. She and host Si Willmore discuss her love of nature from an early age, her work at 'Ding' Darling, and the man behind the refuge's name, the great rebel carto...

At the age of two, Cory Lee was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, meaning he would need a wheelchair. But this didn’t diminish his desire to explore the world - quite the opposite. Nowadays he is the mind behind the award-winning travel blog Curb Free with Cory Lee , where his goal is to share the world from a wheelchair user’s perspective with his 100,000 followers. He wants to show people...

"What idiot put a chef in front of a distillery?!" says Paul Menta, executive chef, distiller and owner of Key West First Legal Rum and extraordinarily enough a professional kiteboarder too. Paul is a passionate member of the Key West Community and has led many local fundraisers. In July 2023, he will be aiming to create the world's largest key lime pie as part of the Florida Keys 200th Anniversar...

Khris Johnson is Head Brewer and Co-Owner of Green Bench Brewing based in St. Petersburg, Florida. He’s been an active member of the Tampa Bay beer scene for years, working for Cigar City Brewing and Southern Brewing and Winemaking before opening his own brewery in 'St. Pete'. He and host Si Willmore talk about how Khris landed the dream job of brewing beer, his career including founding his own b...

Ed Chiles is the owner of Chiles Hospitality, operating the Sandbar, BeachHouse and Mar Vista restaurants on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key in western Florida. Ed was the managing partner for the Pine Avenue Restoration project in the City of Anna Maria and engages in a number of local sustainability initiatives. He and host Si Willmore talk about the All Clams on Deck project, which aims to r...

Robert Overton Jr is the executive director at the University of West Florida Historic Trust . He has over 20 years of public history experience, specialising in historic sites and museum management, and nowadays he oversees the UWF's operation of 30 historic properties. He and host Si WIllmore discuss Florida's less commonly known history and historic attractions including the Arcadia Mill Archae...

For so many of us, going into space was a childhood dream, but Winston E. Scott has made that a reality on many occasions. The veteran astronaut and retired United States Navy Captain has spent a total of 24 days in space in a remarkable career.  Nowadays he's the Director of Operational Excellence at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, overseeing the Astronaut Encounter...

We spoke to World Nomads Europe General Manager Jonathan Jono Frankham about travel writing scholarships, illegal petrol stations and why a big pot of coffee is important when buying insurance. The Kingdom of Thailand released a report noting that tourists travelling without insurance to the country have cost state hospitals $205 million which prompts the question: is buying travel insurance an et...

Nori Jemil is is an award-winning photographer, writer and videographer whose work has appeared in Nat Geo Traveller, BBC Travel, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveller and more. She’s been the British Guild of Travel Writers’ Photographer of the Year and she’s the author of The Travel Photographer’s Way , shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. She had just arrived in Santiago, Chi...

Zoey Goto is a journalist and author covering travel and music. She’s written features for National Geographic Traveller, Times Travel, GQ BBC Travel and Lonely Planet. She's also the author of two books including Elvis Style: From Zoot Suits to Jumpsuits and it's fair to say that this book is the culmination of many years of adoration for the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Zoey spoke to ho...

Richard Franks is a freelance travel writer and journalist based in Birmingham in the UK. He has been writing about travel, culture and music for over a decade, with bylines in BBC Travel, National Geographic Traveller, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, Rough Guides and many more.  He spoke with Si Willmore about searching for a secret colony of wallabies that live on an island in the m...

Karen Edwards is a travel writer, editor and author, focusing on sustainability, based in London. She’s written for BA High Life, Time Out, Telegraph Travel, The Guardian and many more, and her fourth nonfiction book, The Responsible Traveller , was published in July 2022. And in fact she’s about to start a brand new role, stepping into the brand new Sustainability Editor role at Wanderlust Karen...

James March is a freelance travel writer based in Birmingham. He’s written for a variety of publications including the BBC, Nat Geo Traveller, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, Lonely Planet and Condé Nast Traveller. James tells host Si Willmore about becoming a specialist writer on France, which is almost ironic given that France was the place where one of his less proud travel moments took pla...

TV producer and director Bella Falk has found herself in numerous scrapes over the years, including a car accident outside a Polish rice cake factory, having to stay the night in a brothel in Mali, and somehow accidentally climbing a volcano in Tanzania. She’s worked on a radio station in Ghana, volunteered in a school in Chile, and worked face-to-face with Greg Dyke, the former director general o...

In November 2019, Dr. Susanne Etti attended the climate change conference COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt . Dr Etti was representing Intrepid Travel as their first ever full-time climate scientist and was there to discuss research by The Travel Foundation which has revealed that there is "only one pathway" for the industry to reach net zero carbon by 2050. The fact that COP27 was taking place also...

Tharik Hussain is an award-winning travel journalist and author of Minarets in the Mountains: a Journey into Muslim Europe , where he and his family follow in the footsteps of the great Ottoman explorer Evliya Celebi through the Western Balkans. Tharik is also the creator of Britain's first Muslim heritage trails , in Surrey. He and host Si Willmore discuss his moving to London, completing th...

Happy holidays! Rochelle Turner is Exodus Travel's new head of sustainability. She tells host Si Willmore about her time in Japan and how she noticed how respectful the people are - so much so that schoolchildren eat all of their food out of respect for the farmer, and that every room in the house has its own pair of slippers -- including in the toilet. This deep respect for our environment is per...

Florence Kagiso, a guide with Desert & Delta Safaris, joined the team at the Chobe Game Lodge in 2007 and was therefore the first-ever female guide in Botswana. She tells host Si Willmore about her time in the travel industry and what it was like being a woman in an industry traditionally dominated by men. Flo shares insights into her life as a guide, including game drives, her adventures in a...

Alex Bescoby is a historian and documentary-maker who lived in Myanmar for a decade. His latest project, The Last Overland , documents a 19,000-kilometre journey home to the UK in an ancient Land Rover, recreating a groundbreaking 1955 expedition -- with one of the original adventurers, Tim Slessor. The Last Overland is available as a Channel 4 documentary and book , available at all good bookstor...

In this 12th and final episode of the second series, host Si Willmore changes tack slightly. Instead of speaking to writers or photographers who have contributed to JRNY magazine, he talks with Emma Gibbs, a freelance writer and editor with 15 years of experience in the industry - and JRNY's editor-in-chief. The pair discuss Emma's career - from Dungeon Keeper to author - as well as what you can e...

Host Si Willmore and travel writer / consultant Lee Cobaj discuss life between Hong Kong and Scotland, and becoming the go-to guy or gal for your niche. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.