The Adventure Podcast

Nick Hayes is an illustrator by trade and the author of ‘The Book of Trespass’ which details how we, the public, have been excluded from nature throughout history. Living on a canal boat Nick is passionate about public access to the countryside and our right to roam, actively encouraging people to trespass in a responsible manner. In this episode Nick explains what his rebellion involves, how...

Lara Maiklem is an author with an obsessive hobby: Mudlarking. Also known as the ‘London Mudlark’ she spends hours searching the Thames foreshore for items left behind by the river from the past 2,000 years. Strictly never using a metal detector she patiently hunts for what the river chooses to reveal. From discarded engagement rings, to a glass eye and even a tudor shoe.  In this episode Lar...

Megan O’Neill is an Irish Singer-Songwriter who has opened for Sir Tom Jones as well as performing with the Lighthouse Family and Jamie Cullum. Her love of music has led her on numerous adventures from arriving in Nashville fresh out of university to performing at private Oscars parties in L.A.  In this episode Megan tells Matt how pushing herself physically is integral to her song writing -...

Emily Penn is a Skipper and an Ocean Advocate. During a sailing trip around the world, Emily was having a swim and surfaced to find she was surrounded by plastic - from lighters to toothbrushes. Since this moment Emily has dedicated her career to solving the issue of plastic pollution.  In this episode Emily tells Matt about how we’re all contributing to the plastic problem and the impact it...

Episode 072 of The Adventure Podcast sees a return of our dispatches - shorter form content where we delve into a specific subject, issue, idea or story.  In this episode Matt speaks with Sophy Roberts (who featured in Episodes 50 and 51). Sophy is an author and journalist, currently in isolation in Portugal having just been evacuated from Nepal due to the rapid spread of the Indian variant o...

Corin Smith is a fly fisherman, photographer and salmon farm campaigner. Born in the highlands of Scotland, Corin's working life has taken him from a tech startup in London to fly fishing in the Seychelles. He's never been one to sit still. Now back in his homeland, Corin has taken up the role of ‘activist’, exposing the harsh realities of salmon farming.  In this episode Corin talks about th...

Robert Martineau has many strings to his bow, most recently adding ‘author’ to his list of achievements. His book ‘Waypoints - A Journey on Foot’ is about his 1,000 mile walk across West Africa. Robert is also the co-founder of Tribe, a natural nutrition company, running community and charity which fights human trafficking.  In this episode Matt and Robert talk about his trip but quickly delv...

Henry Fletcher is a facilitator, storyteller and maker. As a facilitator, Henry helps people immerse themselves in nature. As a storyteller, he seeks a positive narrative around our relationship with our surroundings and the environment. As a maker, he creates beautiful cairns – a pile of stones, which when carefully structured, can last centuries. In this episode Matt and Henry discuss concepts o...

An ultra-endurance cyclist, Emily Chappell started her biking adventures as a cycle courier in London before cycling from Wales to Japan. The cycling feats didn't end there and in 2016 Emily was the fastest woman home in the 2016 Transcontinental Race. In this episode Emily draws on her Masters in Gender Studies as she discusses the importance of not being defined by your gender and why it's now t...

David Yarrow is a fine art photographer, conservationist and author. David is best known for his iconic monochrome wildlife photography, as well as for capturing celebrity portraits including Cindy Crawford and Cara Delevingne. David has many boasts, from taking the historic image of Maradona at the 1986 World Cup to his work in wildlife conservation. He calls himself  ‘an artist’ but is also...

Reza Pakravan is an explorer, filmmaker and writer. In a past life Reza was working the 9 to 5 but today he documents his epic adventures. From travelling the full length of Africa via the Sahel region to earning a Guinness World Record for crossing the Sahara Desert by bicycle. In this episode Reza is incredibly frank about the commercialisation of exploration, his attitude to breaking world reco...

George Butler is an award-winning artist and illustrator who specialises in documenting reportage and current affairs in ink rather than with a camera. In 2012 he walked into Syria from Turkey where he started to capture the war-damaged town of Azaz as a guest of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Since then, his work has taken him to Afghanistan, Ghana, Yemen, Belarus and Myanmar, and in this episode Ge...

Describing himself as a "biologist with a lot of other interests", Dr Niall McCann works on the frontline of conservation, and in his spare time has skied across Greenland, rowed the Atlantic and cycled through the Himalayas. In this episode Niall talks to Matt about the accessibility of adventure if you're willing to look for it, his recovery from a near fatal speed flying accident, and the impor...

Steph Jeavons is an author, journalist and adventurer from Wales. The first person to circumnavigate the globe and ride a motorbike on all seven continents, Steph has always led an unconventional and adventurous life, embracing even the ‘darker adventures’ from her youth. At the age of twenty she found herself in prison – looking out of her cell window and making herself a promise: get off drugs,...

Leon McCarron is a writer, broadcaster and adventurer - originally from Northern Ireland, he now calls Iraq home. Leon’s championing of ‘slow travel’ has taken him across China on foot, walking through the Empty Quarter Desert and riding across Patagonia on horseback. Now based in Iraq, he uses storytelling to address the myriad misconceptions around this country and its people, and in this episod...

Robert Swan is the first person in history to reach both the North and South Poles on foot, and undertook both of these pioneering expeditions in an era before GPS or satellite phones. He has gone on to dedicate his life to protecting Antarctica, and to preserving it as a unique natural reserve for science and peace. In Episode 061, Robert shares his extraordinary experiences of the polar regions,...

Cal Flyn is a writer and journalist who lives on Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. Her latest book tells the story of a dozen abandoned places around the world, from Chernobyl to the volcanic Caribbean, and particularly at how nature reclaims and rebounds after humans leave. Cal’s conversation with Matt explores the peculiar connection humans have to abandoned spaces, as well as the concept...

Acclaimed journalist and author Ed Ceasar has written on subjects as varied as gorillas in the Congo, an imprisoned Russian billionaire and the world’s longest tennis match. Most recently, his book 'The Moth and the Mountain' tells the extraordinary tale of Maurice Wilson's 1935 attempt on Everest. In Episode 059, Ed shares his stories – and his love of stories – from the quirkier and less convent...

There are many reasons to venture into the mountains. Matt Sharman is the antithesis of the ‘conqueror’. A gentle but accomplished mountaineer, this episode of the podcast details Matt’s life as a mountain guide, and the formative experiences he’s had at high altitude, and how they’ve changed him. He also tells the story of his personal attempt at Mount Everest and his views on the ever-changing m...

Explorer, endurance athlete and renowned speaker, Ben Saunders holds the record for the longest polar journey on foot, and has skied more than 7,000km in the polar regions. In this episode he tells the story of these vast journeys on foot, and of the parallel journey of internal exploration over two decades. Ben shares what inspired him at the outset of his career, and what continues to motivate h...

In this episode, cold water swimmer, rock climber, and deep thinker, Gilly shares her unique, heart-warming and enlightening perspective on the world. Her story takes us through a diverse career path (including stints in a knitting shop in Edinburgh and a fashion brand in NYC) and face-to-face with profound loss and grief that changed her, and how she now sees the world. Support this show http://s...

Hunter describes himself as a ‘fencing contractor, deerstalker, turner of stones and walker of paths’. Brought up in the woodlands of Gloucestershire, Hunter lives with his hands in the earth. Heavily influenced by the poetry and prose of those who have wandered the countryside before him, Hunter took it upon himself to canoe the length of the Yukon river with no past experience, and entirely on h...

Tom Randall used his student loan to trade the stock market and pay his way through university, before moving to London and dividing his time between a brake-neck-paced stockbroking career and more than a dozen climbing trips to Yosemite. Deciding to turn his back on the City, Tom moved to Sheffield to focus on rock climbing full-time, and is now both an accomplished professional athlete and an en...

Michael Turek has been taking photographs since he was eight years old. In this conversation with Matt Pycroft - that ranges from a close encounter with a Siberian tiger to a lifelong affection for the Yorkshire Dales - he makes an eloquent case for photography being one of the closest things we have to teleportation.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-adventure-podcast . Hoste...

After a fourteen year career in the British Army, Jay Morton found himself catapulted from clandestine special forces secrecy to household-name celebrity. In this conversation with Matt Pycroft, Jay talks about growing up on active military service in Afghanistan in his early twenties, as well as the roles that both commitment and suffering have to play in a life well lived. Support this show http...