The Big Travel Podcast

From a council estate in East London, the son of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, Eddie Nestor talks Hackney hipsters, Windrush, tracing African roots, hanging with Idris Elba, getting accosted in a dark alley in Thailand and ‘being the first black guy to do a Persil ad in South Africa’. Covering Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, Dominica, St Lucia, The Gambia. Ghana, Thailand, Goa, British Colonialism...

Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark is famed for her no-nonsense attitude. She’s arranged her working life around her love of Scotland, was inspired by the Isle of Arran to write novels, accidentally stumbled into the fall of the iron curtain on honeymoon and feels her spirit soar driving a convertible in New York State. A passionate advocate for working smarter, she feels that overnight trains are th...

Surprisingly for a conversation that encompasses death, intensive care, cannibalism, Colonial guilt, poverty, the Holocaust and being kicked in the shin by small children Helen Zaltzman and Lisa manage to laugh their way through this episode with one entertaining story after another from ‘The Benign Dictator of the Podcasting Republic’. Travel highlights include Hawaii, Australia, Tasmania, Cambod...

Spending much of her teens wiped out with Chronic Fatigue meant when Felicity Morse DID get better she wanted to get out and travel, first working on super yachts in the South of France - from which time she has the craziest of stories. From sailing with the world’s richest, to travelling solo and finding discovering a surprising Native American heritage Felicity is all about the human connection....

The bailiffs took their family home in the same week Raynor Winn and husband Moth were told – completely out of the blue – Moth had a terminal illness. Destitute and homeless, they decided to backpack along the windswept cliffs of the South West Coast Path that runs the length of the west coast of England. 630 miles of steep, unforgiving terrain. With very little money for food and only a tent for...

Antarctica stores enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 58 metres. Why wait for this to melt when it could provide much needed water to drought-ridden areas and save lives? This is a question doctor-turned-author Paul Stidolph asks in his new book Forests in the Sahara. Paul talks harvesting ice, surviving mudslides in Nepal, the Japanese Hiroshima survivor he worked with in the monsoo...

Whether reporting on the Brazil World Cup, the Canada Women’s World Cup or dodging tear gas in a football brawl in France Kait Borsay takes everything in her stride. Her podcast – the Offside Rule – has been voted one of the best sports podcasts in the UK and she’s travelled extensively - Brazil, Canada, Bali, Kenya, Australia all over Europe and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

A funny, raw, open chat with Anna Hart, whose untameable adventurous spirit was ignited by a childhood in the back streets of Singapore. She’s seen Shakespearean scenes amid gorillas in Rwanda, lived as a digital nomad in Bali and New Zealand, been transformed by a shamanic haircut in LA and even been an ice road trucker. For Anna, travel, with the power to heal and transform, is fuelled by wander...

BBC Radio 4’s Jane Garvey has travelled extensively, albeit under duress. She went backpacking as far as Belgium, didn’t have a great time reporting from the Olympics in Atlanta and really doesn’t fancy going anywhere exotic like India. She does however have some brilliant stories to tell about her surprisingly extensive travels - taking in Ghana, South Africa, seeing her beloved Liverpool play in...

School’s out for summer meaning fun, sun, getting locked in a kids club and left behind in Mexico, falling off a slide and needing stitches in Turkey, free Pringles in Greece and going to Spain because 'we can't afford to go anywhere else'! This is travel from the kids’ point of view, travelling to Belgium, France, Spain, Wales, Mexico, Turkey, Greece, India and more. What they like about their ho...

Based in London, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco award-winning reputation management consultant and host of the popular Media Masters Podcast Paul Blanchard has the dream life of business travel. He loves driving across the USA, listening to podcasts, notching up 26 states and counting. When he’s not hot-footing it around the globe (Tajikistan, Pakistan, Tblisi Georgia, Nigeria, Tanzania,...

As one of the most famous women on UK TV, at the helm of one of our most poplar daytime shows, Andrea McLean is the Glasgow girl with the accent that no-one can quite place. Witty, warm and highly entertaining, Andrea grew up on a sugar cane plantation in the Caribbean, has hitchhiked through remote forests in Kenya and is so well travelled she started her career as a travel writer.  Learn more ab...

Growing up in a small town on the Sussex coast was idyllic for children’s author and musician Giles Paley Phillips until tragedy struck and changed the course of his life. As a teenager in a small town he found the dodgiest clubs, yet soon learned his guitar was his ticket to ride. He’s travelled the breadth of the UK playing in Paul McCartney’s studios in Liverpool, at Glastonbury and his latest...

Travel guru, guide-book author, journalist and the man to the whom world turns for anything travel related; Simon Calder is the Man Who Pays His Way, has hitchhiked all over the world and is also the man who over 12 years ago gave podcast host, Lisa, her first official travel writing commission after she interviewed him on her radio show. A travel packed episode with 'Mr Travel' himself. Learn mor...

Brought up in the family hotel in Fife, Scotland, Edith Bowman has travel running through her veins. She’s hung out in New York with the world’s biggest bands, been caught in a snowstorm in the salt flats of Bolivia, shot guns in Texas (which she hated), presented TV travel shows from all over the globe and loves nothing more than waking up in a new place a day with her kids and rockstar husband o...

A fascinating insight into the South Pacific and what is was like to grow up under British Colonial rule. Living in a house made of bamboo the kids' playground was the lush fields of the sugar cane plantation, mango trees, the winding river where they swam as their mums washed their clothes and of course the beautiful Fijian beaches. Taking us to Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, 1960s Liverpool (meeting...

Travelling the breadth of the UK in her enviable job as the presenter of BBC1’s Escape to the Country is more calming than Sonali Shah’s previous travels which included making a ‘kidnap plan’ when filming in Afghanistan, needing armed guards at her wedding in Kenya and being stuck in a military coup in Bangkok. With family from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and India she’s a true child of the Commonweal...

From humble beginnings in a slum tenement in Scotland, George Galloway has risen to become one of the UK’s most well known and also most controversial politicians. His self-confessed radical views have seen him banned from Canada, arrested in Cairo, meeting with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, spending time with Fidel Castro in Cuba and on first name terms with Nelson Mandela, Benazir Bhutto and Yasser Ar...

Live from a beach bed on the coast of Andalucia, Spain, on this episode Lisa tells us all about The Big Travel Podcast including guests so far and guests to come. There's even some singing.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The injustice of the death penalty is something to which Clive Stafford-Smith, one of Britain and America’s most powerful lawyers, has dedicated his whole working life. Clive describes Guantanamo Bay (there's a staff McDonald’s!), death rows across America, travels across the Middle East and campaigning against drone strikes in Pakistan with cricketer turned politician Imran Khan. A fascinating in...

Kate Mosse's vivid, evocative portrayals of landscapes come alive in her descriptions of the land and history that inspire her best-selling books, as you might expect from someone who’s sold over 5 million copies of her novels across the globe. The author talks about her love of rural France, Paris, Amsterdam, North America and also of literature, art and history in such a delightful way you will...

Millie can tell exactly what type of snow she's on by the swish of her sighted-guide’s skis. Since losing her sight aged 6 she relies on what she can hear, feel and sense – whether finding her way to class at school or whizzing downhill at over 115kph seeing only the blurred bright orange flash of her guide in front. Still only 19 she’s competed in two winter Paralympics, winning two silver medals...

Sports presenter Charlie Webster arrived at our interview cut and bruised from a fall the previous day during the London Marathon...but this is nothing compared to the 3000 mile cycle from London to Rio which ended in her being in a coma and given 24 hours to live. She’s worked all over the world – starting off at Real Madrid TV and then at ESPN in Singapore - and has the most incredible, irresist...

The transition from rap artist and Asian Beats DJ to serious journalist seems to have been pretty seamless for DJ Nihal, from BBC Radio 1 to serious news programmes on BBC Radio 5Live. Along the way he’s learned to embrace his Sri Lankan heritage, traced Buddha’s steps in India, DJed at the best parties and festivals and surprised himself by enjoying a family cruise. On his BBC Asian Network show...

Not making it big on Broadway might have been frustrating for Baylen Leonard but it was the UK’s gain as, despite having grown up in relative poverty in the Tennessee foothills, he’s now a well known radio presenter, DJ and broadcaster based in London, well known for having been an integral part of the popular Danny Baker’s team on BBC Radio London, and spreading the country music love around the...