What does home mean when you are always moving on? What does belonging mean when your address changes every few years? And how do we reconcile our evolving identities with the places we’ve left behind? Catriona Turner talks about her travels from Scotland to France, to Congo and Uganda, and back home again over 14 years, and how she has redefined what she calls home.

For more episodes on home, check out my solo episode on Sanctuary, Retreat, Belonging: The Importance of Home in Difficult Times; and for more on Third Culture Kids, check out the interview on Djibouti with Rachel Pieh Jones. You can also find more about my thoughts on home in my memoir, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways.

Catriona Turner is the Scottish author of Nest, A Memoir of Home on the Move.

You can find Catriona at CatrionaTurner.com and her book, Nest, on Amazon.

Catriona: Yeah. Coming up for 16 years ago that we left in 2009 and that was because of my husband’s job. So we had met a couple years before and it was always kinda on the cards that his company might ask him to be globally mobile.

So when the opportunity came up, we did, I had been teaching for 10 years and I was happy to kind of take a career break to move to Southern France for three years, because who wouldn’t?

Jo: Yeah, for sure.

Catriona: — on the company Dollar and off we went. We got married about the same time and 14 years later, we came back having, by then moved to Uganda and back to France and the Republic of Congo and Denmark, and then back to France.

One more time in Paris before we came back, yeah. Coming up for two years ago now we’re back in Aberdeen, in the northeast of Scotland, which was where we left from.

Jo: And with two kids.

Catriona: Two kids that joined us along the way.

Jo: Well, it’s interesting and I wanted to talk to you ’cause although we lived in different places, I left England in 2000 and returned in 2011.

So I was away 11 years and no children so I understand the sort of being away longer, but let’s go back. ’cause I mean, depending on who’s listening, but the South of France, I mean obviously there’s the language, but I feel like —

Catriona: Well, I mean, they’re two really different countries, so, Uganda in particular. So that was my first experience of like being out of Europe, living somewhere completely different. But really the quality of life there was incredible.

In the end, we were only there for a year, or I was only there for a year, my husband was there a bit longer, so we didn’t fully take advantage of it but Kampala is this incredibly cosmopolitan city actually. It’s relatively very developed, great coffee scene, great food scene.

There are people living there from all over the world because it’s like a real hub for the region. Kampala, well the time we were there, I mean, still relatively stable country compared to some of the countries around about it. So a lot of NGOs have a big base in that part of the world. , the World Bank, there’s like big organizations and big companies that are based in Kampala, so it’s a really lively city, relatively developed.

We ate so well. I got really hooked on Ugandan coffee. I know you love coffee. Like East African people know East African coffee. They know Kenyan. They maybe know Rwandan/Ethiopian coffee of course. But Ugandan coffee is what I’m always searching for. Now it’s not exported as much.

But yeah, I stopped breastfeeding at that time and got back into coffee in a big way. And the travel, of living, in Uganda, we were in the city but having gone from somebody who thought that safari would be something I would do, once in a lifetime, you know, something you would do when you retire to then living somewhere, you could go and do it on a weekend.

And we did it on several weekends. It was just a little mini break, well a big mini break ’cause it was five hours of driving across,

Jo: but it’s easier than me visiting you in Aberdeen from down here in Bath.

Catriona: Well, yeah. Oh, definitely, But it was a shorter drive than that. And yeah, we had amazing Safari weekends well, that,

Jo: I mean, that can, sounds pretty, pretty idyllic in Uganda, but obviously the Congo is more known for civil war and, not being a safe, stable country.

Catriona: We were living in the Republic of Congo. So not the DRC, not the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is where there’s serious problems.

Republic of Congo or what people often call Congo-Brazzaville is much more stable, for good or ill, I won’t get into the politics of the country, but it’s stable. And not as interesting, I would say to live in as Uganda where you can have easy travel.

The tourism in Congo not as developed. We had a good life there, like in many ways, and people, I think a lot of people imagine living somewhere like that as being very confined to sort of compound living and my husband previously had worked in Nigeria on rotation, and that had been his experience, just kind of getting driven in and out of a compound to go to work as opposed to in Congo where we lived in an apartment complex owned by the company, but the town was really quiet.

We could walk around, we could go to the beach, we could walk to the shops and restaurants and very French feeling to me, and I would tell I had a lot of French friends living there, and yeah, there’s a few English speaking people living there, but because the country is so largely French speaking, you really have to be able to speak French to live and work there.

So most of my friends are French, and I would say to them, oh, it feels so French here. And they would say, no, it’s not, it’s Africa. But relatively, the French influence is still very strong. So we had French supermarkets, french restaurants, French patisseries.

Jo: It’s an ex-French colony, right?

Catriona: Yes.

Jo: And look, I mean —

Catriona: Yeah. Yeah. We went to Namibia

Jo: Very German.

Catriona: Yeah. Yeah. I think probably most people wouldn’t realize how how vast of an area is considered francophone. Africa is so many countries that are still, where the main language or the official language is French, where the currency is still linked to the Franc. Still kind of linked to French economics. And it’s the franc that is the currency across a lot of African countries still, which is fascinating.

Jo: And so, I mean obviously you had young kids as well, so —

Catriona: The challenges of living in countries like that? Like, I’m moving all the time. I think that’s more the challenge.

You know, we were well looked after and we were living in stable places on the whole Uganda that I had some personal challenges because at the time there was, in 2014, there was a big anti-gay anti homosexuality bill that was going through parliament. There was an anti pornography law that was going through Parliament that caused a lot of problems with, it became known as the Miniskirt Law because women were being targeted for dressing in a certain way.

And so, there was instability, at least in the values and the misaligned values, I guess is how I would describe it when I was living there. And I was only there for a year, so I didn’t really have to think too deeply about it because I knew in the back of my mind, well, we’ll be leaving.

And so I don’t have to think too deeply about this. You know, I have a baby and a toddler and I’ll just get on with things. Yeah. But in Congo is much more, it just stable from that point of view.

But, the challenges for me were more that —

My next place, my next move will be something more. You know, I’ll do it right next time.

So, that was the turning point that came for me eventually, was to realize that that was how I was living, that being in transition all the time. I still had to find a sense of living my life in the moment and not letting that temporary nature of it hold me back from doing things.

Jo:  It’s really interesting in the book, ’cause you used the word expat — short for expatriate — which I always find interesting.

And we’ve talked on this show before about third culture [See Djibouti interview with Rachel Pieh Jones] and briefly when I, with my mom and brother lived in Malawi, also Sub-Saharan Africa back in the eighties, we would you say we were expats, but then when I lived in New Zealand for like seven years, and Australia for five years, I never used the word expat.

And I was wondering what do these words kind of mean for you and like —

Catriona: Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s heavy with connotation, that word.

And to begin with, when I started writing and I was blogging and writing about this idea of living in transition and, I really completely avoided the word expat because I was writing about living in different countries and travel, and I thought that that was a serious thing that I was doing and that the connotations of expat of privilege and comfort and perhaps living in a bubble, I thought, well, I’m doing things differently. That’s not me.

And as I wrote though about the particular experience of having the privilege and the challenges, I realized that there wasn’t really another word. That kind of encapsulated all that. And I started to embrace it because that way I was finding the people who could read what I was writing and connect with them.

And increasingly now, I just use it as carefully as I can. I was a serial expat, and that’s the word, the phrase I would use for myself, my own experience, because I was never settling in one place.

And in contrast to people who have to make a life for themselves in a new country, they have to integrate in some way, or they have to negotiate the terms of the host culture, the expectations that they have of what integration looks like, or, I couldn’t do that really, not in the same way I could experience a new culture in a new country, but I couldn’t really integrate.

And so that in itself is a luxury of not having to negotiate that cultural negotiation. But it’s also a challenge because you don’t necessarily feel that you are finding your place in a new country.

So that’s why the term expat resonates for me, for one of a better one, let’s say. And I think, it’s an ongoing conversation that, that people are having in the third culture space. Because, because of the connotations, because of , the racial overtones as well, you know, because some people,

Jo: Is it mainly used for white people?

Catriona: That’s definitely a perception that people have, and my experience is that it’s used. Well, I mean, it’s a technical term. It’s on paper. It’s a contractual thing,

Jo: and as in you are not, you don’t have a right to live here. You are just here for this job or whatever. Yes. Temporary. You don’t really, I mean, you obviously have the rights that as according to you by that, and your husband’s contract was protecting your situation, but as soon as that was over, you were gone.

Catriona: Right. And you’re not going through an immigration process. And if you went to that country’s government and said, actually, I want to immigrate here, then everything would change.

Jo: oh, okay. That’s really interesting. ’cause I went to Australia and New Zealand on a visa and then, and then applied for citizenship in New Zealand and Australia. I was on a working visa. So it’s like that in itself. As you say, even a legal definition is interesting.

Catriona: Yes. Yes. And, I think it’s really important to challenge these terms and question them. I think it’s really important for white people to call themselves immigrants when they’re immigrants, and I know lots of people from the global south who call themselves expats because they’re expats, and, you know, are claiming that term.

Jo: I think that’s so important. And, well, my husband is a New Zealander, he’s an immigrant here in the UK. And my sister-in-law’s Canadian. She’s an immigrant, and my other sister-in-law is Nigerian. She’s an immigrant.

So I agree. The words, words can be used for different people, but I think it’s interesting to talk about them, as you said, you used to avoid these words because they were difficult.

I like talking about those. But let’s come to the word home since we’re talking about difficult words.

Your book is Nest, A memoir of Home on the Move and you talk a lot in the book about what the hell is home anyway.

And it was funny ’cause you said your husband will use the word home when returning to a hotel room like that you’ve never even been to. And I’m exactly the same, which I thought was quite funny, whereas you were uncomfortable with that.

Catriona: I talked about how, when we first met, he would say, yeah, on holiday, shall we go home? meaning a hotel room. And I thought that was so strange.

Home was like two places, the place where I grew up, and then the place where I had moved to and was living. It was a physical thing, a geographical thing.

I had left my hometown and moved to Aberdeen for university and then chosen that as my home, like that had really become part of my identity that I had done that. And that was a place where I belonged and I felt it kind of belonged to me.

And then so when we moved away for, as I thought at the time, three years, and I would say to people, oh, we’ll be going back home. You know, we’ll go home and, and that’s still a place that’s important to me and I’ll still belong there.

And people would say to me, oh, you know what, no, give it five years.

People would actually say that because talking about this idea of how the experience changes you, and actually I was so terrified of the idea that I would no longer have that identity of that place being home for me.

That was one of the reasons why I really found it hard to, sort of fully embrace being in a particular place. I sort of held places a bit of a distance because I had this idea of home, but then I realized that I was living this temporary life. I was kind of always waiting for, waiting to the go to the next place or waiting to return.

The kind of arrival fallacy of, you know, when we get there, that’ll be my life properly. If you’re doing that, as it turns out for two years here, three years there, and a year somewhere else, eventually it becomes a decade and that that is your life.

So I was kinda gradually learning that home could be with people, home could be many places, and home does feel like many places now but even more importantly, a sense of home inside me that I could take anywhere by reconnecting with things that were, in my core, things that were important to me, one of those turned out to be writing, so that I was coming kind of home to myself in a way.

Now I’m back home, but when we moved to Paris in 2021, having lived in France twice before and having lived in Congo as well and living that sort of francophone lifestyle, returning to, even though I’d never lived in Paris before moving, there also felt like a homecoming because of the frenchness.

So that home can be multitudes and it can be something we carry with us as well and I think, I hope that’s something that’s universal in my memoir because I do think, I actually think that almost all memoir, not biography, but memoir —

Jo: Sometimes multiple times.

Catriona; Yes. Well, definitely. I mean, having, having kind of gone through that one on a kind of large global scale, if you like, and then written that story, I realized that I can go back to other times in my life and and sort of see that I’ve told that, told myself that story before.

Jo: And I wonder if what we mean is — when we use the term home — is comfort. Comfort or being comfortable. And so when we feel at home in ourselves, it’s now because we are comfortable in ourselves. And that before we felt somehow discombobulated in some way. And so that can happen in different places.

Like where I am now, I was born in Somerset, in England, and I never ever thought I would return to Somerset. Bath is not where I was born, but you know, it’s quite a big county. But being in Bath where I am and I’d gone to school in Bristol and having traveled a lot myself, I also was like, this is kind of weird to be doing this.

And yet it wasn’t home until the pandemic and then because we had to be here and I had to walk around and around and around, and then I was like, oh, maybe this is home.

[Check out my solo episode: Sanctuary, Retreat, Belonging: The Importance of Home in Difficult Times]

Catriona: Yes, there’s an element to which Denmark is really home for me as well because of the pandemic, we were there. We were there when and when it started and it really grounded, like literally grounded us.

It was the only time we had, like in 2020 was the only year we ever spent like within the borders of one country from start to finish. We did a big road trip. Denmark was very relaxed during the pandemic and we did actually do a big road trip of the country that summer.

Jo: That was gorgeous, a gorgeous summer.

Catriona: Yeah, it was, it was such a summer. Last year I went back to Denmark for a visit and I was really overwhelmed actually, by the feeling of being back home. The place in particular where we had lived, but also in Copenhagen, which we’d visited a lot, and I have friends now, writer friends, and yeah, it also felt like going home and so I just say I’m going home all the time.

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the place where I grew up on the other side of Scotland for a visit, and that was home. And then I said, oh, we’ll go home now and home to Aberdeen. So, I mean, I was saying that to myself 30 years ago when I went to university. I had two homes and now yeah, I could be saying, I’m going home.

And I did, in fact a couple of weeks ago, say that I, I heard myself say it to my kids. We were staying in a rental flat and I said, oh, should we go home?

Jo: And you meant that and, well this is interesting because again —

Than you, or do you feel like perhaps you’ve moved towards them, what attitudes they’ve naturally grown up with, which is this moving around kind of sense, and that you’ve learnt to be that way as an adult, whereas maybe they’ve just grown up that way.

Catriona: Yeah, it’s interesting. My older son just turned 14, so, they’re obviously in, still in transition. They’re becoming different versions of themselves all the time.

And they really asked to come home. To come home. To come back here, which had never been home for them. We had always kind of imagined that we would come back for secondary school here.

Jo: That’s why my mum came back too, so I could go to secondary school.

Catriona: Yeah, I mean, I obviously grew up in the same town all my life and, and I, I wanted to give them an experience of that consistency. So they could decide for themselves, how that would be. But even a couple of years before we came back, they were saying, oh, when will we get to live in Scotland?

And one of the reasons that they were able to say that I think is ’cause we had bought a house here while we were away, because before that they weren’t quite sure. Oh, okay, if when they were little they would say they were French ’cause they spoke French, or then they would might, they might say they were English ’cause they also spoke English. English.

Jo: They’re so lucky. Do they know how lucky they are?

Catriona: I feel that, I feel we tell ’em all the time. So they, yeah. They know it up here. I dunno if they know it in here. But they definitely know it.

Jo: They might later on in their lives. I mean, they’re too young to really realize it.

Well, let’s talk about you actually coming back to Aberdeen then — the challenge of repatriation. I saw on your Instagram you put some quotes, you said before that somebody said “you can never go back.”

Catriona: Yeah. I think it’s more the bigger changes in me than the place. Having kind of stepped away from the big changes, having stepped away from my own culture and then seeing it, coming out of the water as it were.

There’s this metaphor, the story of the two little fish swimming along two young fish and then an older fish comes along and, and swims past and says, ‘Hey, kids, how’s the water,’ then swims away?

And then the one fish says to the other, ‘what’s water?’

Because, yeah, that’s a good analogy for our culture. We don’t see it really until we’re either step away from it or we’re forced to. And so I’ve spent a long time kind of uncovering my Britishness and my Scottishness, the things that I always thought were normal, just normal default things.

And then you move away and you discover that they’re just British and Scottish quirks. And then what you realize is you can kind of pick and choose from the things that you just were automatically doing and becoming.

You mentioned Third Culture earlier, which we didn’t really get into, but the idea of not being tied to one place. That’s a cultural part of me now as well. It’s the idea once you’ve moved abroad and lived abroad, you realize you can do anything actually.

And then you get addicted to the idea of doing new things and adventure. There definitely was a time for about two years we were preparing to return. And I was all for it. I was really looking forward to being in one place for a while and not having to pack again, but then I was also thinking, well, you know, if they just offered us one more just for a couple of years, maybe we could do another adventure.

So I think now I have much more of the mindset of I can kind of try anything, do anything. And I think sometimes that will make me stand out a little bit here, but that’s, that’s okay because the thing about midlife as well as you know, is that’s a coming home as well and realizing a different, a different way that all the decades of like fitting in with other people’s expectations of yourself, you don’t need to do that anymore.

Jo: Be left behind.

I mean it’s interesting, you mentioned there seeing your own culture from the outside. I also feel having been away 11 years. Yes, there’s things wrong with the UK and with England and with Scotland and there are always problems in every single country.

But when I hear people moaning so much all the time about everything that’s wrong, I mean, that is a national pastime. Obviously moaning about stuff, but, I’m like, seriously —

So what are the things that you are now like, oh yeah, this is great. This is so Scottish, or this is so British.

Catriona: Yeah, it’s funny because, yeah, I had that this morning. Exactly. I got a Tesco delivery and the first thing was complaining about the weather and, and you were like —

Jo: but look, I got a delivery!

Catriona: Yes, exactly. And then, you know, what, what are you up to today? I said, oh, I got some work to do. Oh dear. I’m thinking, no, I love working. What are you talking about? What fascinated me living abroad and meeting people who had been to Scotland. Well, first of all, when you say you’re from Scotland, everyone knows what that means.

But so many people who I met who’d lived here. Like 99.9% of them loved living here, especially in Aberdeen, which surprised me to begin with. There were the few that just were like, no, I couldn’t cope with the weather which is fair enough. But everyone else absolutely loved it.

And the reasons were the countryside. And Aberdeen is this very livable city. It has universities and has a lot of industry, but it’s a kind of small city as well. It’s very livable and you can get out to the Cairngorms within an hour.

And realizing that people from other parts of the world don’t see that kind of rolling hills and green countryside, they don’t see the history and the culture. Yes. I was speaking to a Canadian friend the other day who absolutely loves the theater that we have and how accessible it is, and she said, it’s so cheap.

And I thought, I don’t think it’s cheap, but like compared to a small town in Canada or a similar size of town in Canada, we have big theater companies that tour here. We have lots of local theater as well, so yeah, I appreciate all that. Where I live, I can walk pretty much everywhere I want to go, and I love that.

Jo: I love the architecture!

Catriona: Yeah. The architecture and the history of that. Aberdeen’s, the granite city. It’s all built of granite. So people talk about it being gray, but it’s not. It’s sparkles, it’s silver, and when the sun shines, which it does relatively actually quite a lot here. So I’m really enjoying all of that.

I’ll tell you one little thing that most British people would not appreciate is the Royal Mail and the postal system. Yes. Which I suppose might not be what it used to be, but it’s still much more reliable, much more accessible than almost anywhere else. Well, anywhere else I’ve lived.

And they put it through your door in this country. Like you would never realize it until you left. That is an absolute luxury. Nowhere else I’ve lived. Do you have a letter box in your front door and the postie comes and puts your mail right into your home? You don’t even have to step out your door.

Jo: And now you’re saying that I’m remembering going to the post office with a box and everything when we were in Malawi? So that, yeah, so you had to go somewhere else.

Catriona: But even in France and Denmark, the mailbox was at the end of the drive or the bottom of the building. You still had to kind of go get, collect it, get it.

Jo: That’s probably true in a lot of America as well. I, I guess. I think so, but it’s interesting.

Well, I think we could talk about this all day, but I did want to ask you, since this is the books and travel show. Apart from your own book Nest —

Catriona: Well you said third culture, so I better reference Third Culture Kids, where the term came from. I think it’s Ruth Van Reken and David Pollock, who really described in detail the experience of this idea of children, particularly children growing up away from their home culture, not fully part of their host culture, therefore, part of a third culture, so that’s a really useful, it’s almost like a manual for helping kids grow up with that.

Another memoir that I really love, by my friend Dina Honour, It’s a Lot to Unpack. She was a New Yorker who followed her English husband to move first to London and then across Europe, and she writes really, really insightfully about giving up identity as particularly for her as a New Yorker and as an independent woman to follow her husband’s career, and the implications of that.

If you want some fiction, there’s this book, The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye, which is a thriller, kind of domestic thriller by Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore who is a Pakistani German Italian writer and expat, very third culture. She’s from Pakistan. Her husband is German Italian, so she has at least one of those citizenships as well. Currently lives in Portugal, and so that’s a novel set in an around an international school in Portugal with women from very diverse backgrounds coming together and uncovering the secrets in their past. So if you like to read about, even if you like to learn about lifestyle through fiction, that’s a really good one as well.

One more really useful book, um, particular about repatriation is called The Art of Coming Home by Craig Storti. Fantastic. I read that before we moved back and I found it really useful

Jo: ’cause people just assume, oh, it’s gonna be fine when you’re just going back. But there’s so many challenges.

I also felt, and it’s funny actually, I was just thinking as you were talking there, I think when we left London to move to Bath, that was actually quite a culture shock in itself. Having lived in London for a number of years and then moving basically more to the sticks that actually I was about six months of struggling and wanting to go back.

And actually that was probably a form of repatriation in a way, into a different kind of life. You know what I mean? Maybe you got that when you moved, like from Kampala back to somewhere that wasn’t so cosmopolitan.

Catriona: Yeah.

Jo: It can happen. Right?

Catriona: I, I mean, I think we’re all going through that. Well, most of us go through that at some point, and I actually wrote an essay recently about the culture shock I had when I first moved from one side of Scotland to the other. And the differences I was so aware of.

Jo: You are writing another book, aren’t you?

Catriona: Yeah. I’m very slowly working on a repatriation memoir, so it’s kind of in real times as it happens. I’m writing pieces about that, that hopefully will become, well, not hopefully, I’ll make it happen.

Jo: It will will happen. But in the meantime, people can get your book Nest: A Memoir of Home on the Move. There it is.

Catriona: My website is CatrionaTurner.com and on Instagram, I’m CatrionaTurnerBooks.

And if you want to get a taster of the story of Nest, I actually did a TEDx talk back in November, and that’s available on YouTube. It’s called Find Your Main Character Energy. It’s about language and identity, but it kind of ended up being a bit of a the book in a nutshell.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Catriona. That was great.

Catriona: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honour.

The post The Geography of Belonging: Finding Home With Catriona Turner appeared first on Books And Travel.

Why does Egypt continue to fascinate curious travelers? What hidden chambers might lie beneath the pyramids of Giza? How does the duality of Egyptian mythology influence thriller writing? Join thriller authors J.F. Penn and Luke Richardson for a conversation that weaves together archaeological intrigue, travel insights, and the creative process behind crafting compelling adventures in one of history’s most enigmatic settings.

Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series.

You can find Luke at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com and his books on Amazon. You can also find his trip notes and pictures at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/egypt

If you enjoy thrillers inspired by and set in Egypt, check out The Giza Protocol by Luke Richardson and Ark of Blood by J.F. Penn.

Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Luke Richardson. Hi Luke.

Luke: Hello.

Jo: I’m so excited to talk to you. Just for the listeners, Luke is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series, and today we are talking about Egypt, which inspires locations in several of our books, Luke’s thriller, The Giza Protocol, and also my Ark of Blood.

We share an enthusiasm for action adventure thrillers. Obviously, we both write them and this is a topic we like to geek out on.

Luke: There’s so much about Egypt as a country, isn’t there, that just, it’s so evocative of the stories that we write, you know, there’s so much mysticism and so much magic there and, and it conjures up images from Hercule Poirot on the Nile solving murders to the glamor of Cleopatra, to the ambition of Rameses.

And we are not the first writers to be captivated by this. This has happened from Shakespeare all the way forward through the romantic movements, people have been captivated by the magic of Egypt. But there’s also that mystery to it there. There’s things that people don’t know about Egypt.

What were the pyramids for? How were they built? Of course, people say they’re tombs for the Pharaohs, but it’s far more interesting, I think, to consider some of the other theories about maps and power plants and really imaginative, fun stuff that makes our stories tick.

Jo: Yeah. And it’s funny ’cause I was thinking about this in terms of why did I become obsessed with it?

And you and I both have read a lot of the same books, you mentioned there that so many writers have done Egypt. And then of course I’m a little bit older than you, but Indiana Jones obviously and yet we still want to go and see it ourselves, I guess.

And I remember when I was little, we went to Bristol Museum and there was a mummy there and we actually went back quite recently and it was a pretty crap mummy, to be honest. It was pretty bad.

But as an 8-year-old, it made me think, what the hell? Who are these people? How is there a dead body here? Do you remember being interested in that macabre side and the Book of the Dead and hieroglyphics?

Luke: Yeah, certainly. I think when I was maybe 12 or 14, The Mummy film, the first one, I think it, maybe it’s 1998 or 99 or something like this came out, and the whole thing about the mummification process, cutting the tongue out and pulling the brain out through the nose and all this grim stuff that just the kids just go wild for that.

You’ve got a very sort of sick sense of humor, haven’t you, when you are of that age, and I remember that being fascinating as well. For sure.

Jo: Yeah, and I had these hieroglyphic like activity books where I would try and draw the hieroglyphics and I, I really, I really did think I was gonna be like an archeologist, but then of course I went myself in the, I guess, more than a decade ago now.

Luke: Yeah, so we went in 2000 and I have to remember now, 2003 in January, 2003, and I’d written the first draft of the book, I did it a bit backwards on this. I had written the book and I wanted to go to check if I got it right, and then it was with my editor at the time or my first group of readers.

And then I took it back and then made all the changes about, no, it actually takes this length of time to walk from here to here or do this thing or that thing and, and sort of jiggled things around after going on the trip. But I knew for me it was really important. I was writing this book. I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to feel right. And for me, making that trip and I was fortunate enough to have the resources and have the time to be able to do that and incorporate that into my writing.

Jo: Was it 2003, did you mean 2013?

Luke: I meant 2023. Sorry, I’m getting completely confused. It was like two, three years ago!

Jo: I was gonna say, how old were you?!

Luke: It was 2 or 3 years ago, yeah.

Jo: This is interesting because I went in, it must have been 2005, and one of the interesting things that we’re both obviously interested in is the pyramids. The Pyramids of Giza and when I went, there was still a really big distance between Cairo and the pyramids, but I imagine when you went, it was actually really close.

So tell us about that specific trip.

Luke: Yeah, it’s, it’s Cairo, just sprawled. It’s an incredibly vast city that’s so noisy and polluted, and busy. I love places like that too, because it’s fun and it’s vibrant and there’s great markets and mosques and monasteries and temples.

It’s a real sort of fusion of this African, Asian, with the European elements in there as well. It’s a really interesting city. And that’s featured in the book as well. Actually, I based part of it in this place called Manshiyat Nasser, which is the Garbage City they call it.

And it’s become a little bit of an alternative tourist attraction. It’s on the hill or one of the hills in, in Cairo. And on the top of the hill there’s a monastery carved out of the rock. And you go inside and it’s this giant cave that seats about 600 people in this auditorium. And then you walk down the hill and you walk through the borough of the city where the people sort out the rubbish, they recycle Cairo’s rubbish.

And on the ground floor of all these buildings, you’ve got people there sorting the the plastic forks and spoons into different trays and milk. Bottles from other bottles and glass for things to other things. And people coming in with donkeys and trucks laid them with this rubbish. And the thing that I loved about that is you walk through this place, and this is modern Egypt, right?

This is the way life is in lots of places around the world. You walk through this place and there are people living this sort of simple life, doing the job that they do, but yet there are still hair salons and nail bars and tea shops and restaurants and all the stuff that we have in our towns is there too, just in a different way, you know?

And I absolutely love that. It makes you think about your own existence. It helps you reflect on, I think, on some of the things that we hold important in our lives.

Jo: And well, and in fact, even thinking about the ancient Egypt that’s inspired our modern thrillers as well, is that they have the same thing, you know, hair salons, and the like.

I remember being fascinated by the little Egyptian glass jars that still you can find in the museums, and they were full of perfumes and all that kind of thing. That was just fascinating to me.

And I was just thinking also, what’s different between our two trips almost 20 years apart. The other thing is when I went, I visited the Old Museum of Antiquities and it was crazy.

I remember going in there and what was weird is it was crammed full. I mean, talk about the terrible mummies at Bristol Museum. This was mummies, mummies everywhere, like literally just hanging out and then everything had these tiny little handwritten notes on. It was a very strange experience.

Luke: Yes, it has. It is very different now. It’s this beautiful marble and chrome building. Really expansive, very sort of modern. It’s, it’s clearly had had a lot of investment in it. And you see that in the mummies and you can walk around and see them.

They’re all arranged in their sort of family groups through the various eras of Egyptian history. But you’re right, it’s still, you look at it and you, you think that is a person. And I feel in our society, Europeans perhaps. Death is quite detached from us, isn’t it? It’s not something we see and experience in a visceral sense.

We know about it. We know that it happens and we know people who have gone through it to put it in that sense, but we don’t often see them and actually seeing that person there and these are long dead people, you know, seeing that person there is is quite moving, isn’t it?

Jo: And I guess the other thing we should talk about cliche, because this is the problem with a place like Egypt, I often find where like Venice is the same, right?

Tell us about visiting like the pyramids. Everyone in their head has the pyramids. Tell us about that and the sphinx. What was that experience like?

Luke: Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it, to think about that because you do have that sort of idea of what they would be like.

And I think the thing that resonated with me was just the vastness of not just the pyramids themselves, but the plateau on which they are created. It’s absolutely, it, it, it’s, it’s massive. You think about it, you know, the size of something like Stonehenge or the Vatican. These things that we’ve seen, which are tiny in comparison to these giant blocks of human created stone that are some distance apart, and then the desert just sprawls out of sight on all directions.

And that was one thing that resonated with me, or I remember from it, but I also quite like how you can get up close to them. You can stand next to that block and even that first level of block is out of my arms reach.

And I like that you can be very tactile with that as a monument. Whereas in some places, in some monuments, you’re kept at a distance, aren’t you? Away from them.

Jo: Well, that’s interesting ’cause I also have a picture standing on that first level—

Luke: Oh, you wouldn’t get away with that now.

Jo: Oh, really? Interesting. And of course you can’t go inside. I mean, I wanted to talk about this — as just in the last few days as we are recording this, there have been these new findings of potentially a vast complex of underground chambers and shafts extending nearly two kilometers.

This 3D radar thing that they’re showing could revolutionize the understanding of ancient Egyptian engineering. Tell us a bit more about how you’ve woven that into your thriller and your thoughts on what the hell is going on with all that?

Luke: Yeah, I know, and there’s always you, you use the word conspiracy theory there, which is an interesting one, isn’t it? And there’s always people that say, it’s this, it’s that, you know? There’d always be this back and forth between it. But ultimately, I love the fact, and I say this to people all the time, I get quite a lot of comments saying this isn’t true. We know it’s not true. And it might not be true. Okay? But my point is.

Isn’t it more fun to be open a little bit and go, there’s a possibility that this is true and this exists. And I really enjoy exploring that possibilities both in my writing and in the stuff I read and the conversations I have and those sorts of things as well. So yes, that’s my first thing. It would be fun to consider that it isn’t true.

Now, here’s an interesting story. Have you heard of a guy called Edgar Casey? I don’t think so. He was a clairvoyant. He’s American. Never went to Egypt. He was a clairvoyant in, I want to say sort of the 1920s, but I might be wrong. And he used to go into a meditative state and predict stuff, and he predicted stuff like the war and the Wall Street crash and stuff like this.

And he also predicted in one of these things he predicted that beneath the pyramids of Egypt was this massive library that contained all of the lost scripts from Atlantis or the Alexandria Library, and I just thought, that’s amazing, isn’t it?

Now. Of course, it might not be true. He might have just made it up, but he said some things which did become true, and that’s one of the things I’ve played with on this story, the idea that that could be there and no one exactly knows, because most often digs and archeology on that site is not allowed to take place.

Jo: And then of course you could say, well, they don’t let it happen because there is something there.

You mentioned modern Cairo and how it’s not at all like how people would have ancient Egypt in their head. I mean, like you said, well, for a start it’s Muslim and in thinking interestingly about Egyptian gods.

The mythology that is so rich and in The Valley of the Kings, the stories that are painted there, and the Book of the Dead and all that kind of thing.

Luke: I play a lot with this idea in my story in quite a lot of my stories, actually, not just specifically this one, with that idea of duality that the Egyptians loved, you know, as above, so below.

The ground representing the stars, the heaven representing the Earth, and mirroring each other. You know, the monuments that set up to supposedly mirror the constellations and the sphinx supposed to look at the constellation of Leo during the point at which it was there and the Nile that reflects the Milky Way and all of these different things that they talk about, the mirror image between the skies and the earth.

I like that. And I think that’s particularly important or relevant in when we talk about ancient Egypt because you think about how clear the skies must have been. We have so many electric lights now, and cars and all these things that street lights and whatever that turn our skies, that bleach them,  this orange that we see all the time.

But in those days, it must have been so crisp that the night sky, you’d have seen so much that it would’ve been hard not to have been enchanted by what you saw and what you saw after dark. And that’s something I’ve really lent on heavily in the book.

Jo: And then I guess a lot of the monuments do have these figures of gods.

I was thinking then of Abu Simbel, which I went to visit in the desert towards like what would’ve been Nubia back then and just how, again, the size of it to stand there right by the Pharaoh’s feet. And of course that’s, although that was moved for the Lake Nasser, it still is orientated towards the sun, so the rays of the sun will hit the statue of the God at the back.

What are the other places that stick in your mind from your trip?

Luke: We visited Luxor as well on that trip, but we started off taking a trip out to Siwa, which is an Oasis right out in the desert. It’s about 50 miles from Libya, in fact, and it makes its way onto a lot of countries Do not visit list, perhaps including ours. But I didn’t check. I make a habit of not checking because I feel like if I do know, I’ll be worried about going.

I generally find, by the way, that places that are on do not visit lists are the best places to visit at the most. Interesting.

Jo: That is not travel advice, everyone!

Luke: Yes. Certainly not travel advice.

So we visited Siwa, which is this Oasis in the middle of the Sahara, it’s an eight hour drive in on one road and an eight hour drive back on the same road. There’s only one place to go on along this road, and it’s just a fantastic mystical place.

The Templars are said to have visited there. Alexander the Great is said to have made it that far. If you were traveling across the Sahara during any point before air travel, you’d have stopped there because it was the only place within three or 400 miles to get water and to have a meal.

Because of that, it’s just a really fascinating mystical place. And I remember on one of the days, we hired a local guide and he drove us out to the start of the desert, and what I didn’t realize is that the oasis itself is probably a hundred feet lower than the surface of the desert, hence why it’s got the water.

So we climbed up, we reached this giant wall of sand, literally like the end of the earth. It looked like it just absolutely vast ahead of us. And we scrambled up this wall of a wall of sand and sat on the edge to watch the sunset over the desert there, and I just sat there thinking about the enormity of it all.

This body of sand stretches from where we are right the way over to Morocco at one side, right the way down to Sub-Saharan Africa at the other side, and thinking about how that has remained unchanged quite a long time, and how our lifespans don’t even compare to this thing that I’m witnessing now. It’s very powerful.

Jo: Yeah. Well I think this is another sort of my obsessions as well, this Memento Mori — remember, you will die — and making the most of that time. And of course that sunrise, sunset over an oasis, the ancient Egyptians would’ve seen that too. So I think that that is lovely.

And it’s interesting what we discover that changes our perspective.

But I guess water is a really big deal. Obviously you mentioned there the desert, but also the oasis, the Nile is hugely important in Egypt, the dam and Lake Nasser and the coast. You went up to Alexandria I think as well.

Luke: Most of the people in Egypt, I think like 95% live within 50 miles of the the Nile because it’s the only part that’s green and and lush. And there’s obviously a couple of oases dotted around through the desert, but water really is the most powerful thing for them.

And you can see it, it switches from night to day as you travel up the up the Nile Delta and then out into the desert. It just dries up instantly and it becomes this desert that stretches forever. And that’s an important thing to both the modern Egypt and I think the ancient ones as well, and that’s something that’s changed, I think.

I don’t know exactly how much, but I know that when the dam was built in the 1950s or sixties, the Nile has become a lot smaller than what it was prior to that period, and that’s affected, obviously the way I know it used to actually run past the pyramids a lot closer to Giza, whereas now it’s about five or six miles away near the center of Cairo.

Jo: The other thing that’s weird of course, is that, I dunno why we think this, but I think it’s because our maps have Egypt, and you think, oh logically the river must go south, but it doesn’t.

Luke: Yeah, I think it’s one of the only major rivers that runs south to north, isn’t it? It’s quite unusual. I mean, there would be no logical reason why it would have to run the way of our maps. How convenient!

Jo: But it’s interesting ’cause where you went, you went to Alexandria, right?

Luke: MYeah, we started there.

Jo: Which I haven’t been to, but of course that’s more like a delta with lots of little tributaries and all of that kind of stuff. But how was that? ’cause of course, again, Alexandria, you mentioned the library earlier, has a mythological status in people’s minds.

Luke: It wasn’t our favorite. It was noisy. It was busy. It was just an industrial sort of city that you’d expect. And there isn’t much left of the old things.

The library obviously isn’t there. The Alexandria Lighthouse isn’t there. One of the famous wonders of the world that isn’t there? So after a couple of days of being in Alexandria, we moved down to get out of the city, but it’s a real snapshot of proper modern Egypt I feel.

Jo: I did a story called The Dark Queen, which is based on the sunken city of Thonis Herakleion, which isn’t far off the coast.

Luke: Oh, wow.

Jo: I mean, that’s another thing, like a lot of this is underwater or under sand or buried or drowned, and I think that’s what’s so fascinating with that. But just coming back on modern Egypt.

Because let’s just say this is the Books and Travel show. We hope people are going to go travel places. So people might have in their minds. You’ve mentioned noisy several times.

Luke: Yeah. It is noisy.

Jo: Yeah, it is noisy. It is very, very full of people. Obviously Cairo. I remember coming in the road was just jam packed.

Luke: It really depends on who you are and what your travel experience is.

We are quite, my wife and I are quite experienced travelers and we were happy to wander around on our own and ward off people who offered us things. And you get a bit of people shouting, buy this, take this, have this, and that’s fine.

You just wave and get quite used to it. But if you are not, if that’s something that would affect you or you’ve got mobility issues or whatever, get a guide, get someone to drive you, that’s absolutely fine. And there are people that will do that.

You can book through a tour operator or even you could go to a hotel and ask them to book it for you. There are loads of people that will help you see things. We tend not to do that because we find it’s a lens through which you see the thing, isn’t it? If you’ve got a guide, and whilst that’s nice. And that’s great. ’cause they will tell you a lot, they rush you past some things and they make you look at others and they stop you here and take that photo and whatever.

So we tend to try and see it under our own steam, if at all possible.

Jo: I went with a small group tour, so at the time I was a solo traveler.

Yeah. I think as you said, it depends who you are, how experienced you are, but there are lots of trips to Egypt. What I would say is the small group tour is much better than the big coaches. I mean, you can turn up at the Valley of the Kings and there’s like massive coach parks stretching off into the distance.

I agree with you though. What I don’t like is people telling me what I should be interested in. You know what I mean?

Luke: Yeah, I think things have become a lot easier now with like ride hailing apps. Like they have Uber in Egypt. It’s a fantastic thing. Anywhere you wanna go, you call a taxi, you know it’s gonna be trusted. It’s all tracked by satellite and whatever. So perhaps if I’d have gone in when you were talking, what, two early two thousands? It would’ve been a lot more crazy trying to sort public transport and things like this.

Jo: Yeah. And we went on the train actually, from Cairo to Luxor. It was the overnight train and I will say like, I found the food to be wonderful. What did you think of the food and any tips for people there?

Luke: Yeah, I loved it. Breakfast was the best meal of the day. Even in the most basic hotel, they just bring trays and trays of sort of flatbreads and fava bean tahini type things, and fresh vegetables. And coffee. And coffee and, yeah. Oh, the coffee is

Jo: very thick for everyone listening. Yes, it, the coffee is very thick

Luke: and sweet. If you react badly to sugar, don’t have that, you know?

Jo: Come back to Luxor because II remember that very well because it was one of the hottest days I’ve ever been in. And it was, frankly, it was pretty awful. But it is that the Temple of Karnak, isn’t it? It was in Indiana Jones, the really famous columns. Amazing place. But for me it was just the hottest, hottest, hottest, hottest day. How was that for you?

Luke: We actually did a really good thing by going in January.

Jo: Brilliant.

Luke: Firstly, because England’s weather is rubbish in January. For anyone who’s never been to England in January don’t come. It’s a waste of time. In fact, in Luxor, we stayed in this really cool hostel and there were these Australian travelers there, a bit younger than us, mid twenties and they just had a month in Europe and they were really disappointed by how rainy and cold it was.

I said, well, didn’t you look that up? Like a Google search would’ve told you that.

Anyway, we went in January, so it was nice sort of 20 degrees Celsius. We knew we were gonna be out and about looking at things, spending days not in the shade. For that reason, chose that time.

Jo: That is very sensible. I think I must have been there in June, June-ish and it was like 42 degrees Celsius. But Luxor was amazing and just beautiful. And then I was on a felucca going up the Nile, which was also cool. Did you go on any boats?

Luke: No, unfortunately not. We didn’t get to do that at this time. We ran out of time when we got to Luxor, we didn’t make it to Abu Simbel either, which I’d have loved to have done, but that’s for another trip.

Jo: Oh yeah, that was very memorable. You actually have to fly there, even from Luxor because it’s so far into the desert. Okay. Anything else you want to tell us about Egypt or about any aspects of the book?

Luke: Well, one more bit of travel advice, which someone gave me a while ago, which I thought was genius, and I give this to everyone dependent wherever they’re going, but particularly in places like Egypt, and it sounds obvious when you think about it.

If you’ve got nice jewelry or an expensive watch or anything like this. Leave it in your hotel room. And that’s not because, I’m not saying that because someone’s going to take it from you, but when you are in a place like this, it’s so, you feel much more comfortable knowing that you haven’t got something expensive on you.

You can be much more free with yourself and with conversations. Not always having to watch over your bag or your stuff if you just don’t have it. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it in that way.

Jo: My first thought is, what about my phone, which is also my camera?

Luke: Yes, that’s true. That’s, that’s perhaps your one thing, your one thing that you have to take.

Jo: I mean, Egypt is obviously like many countries. It’s certainly got a very rich group of people, but it’s also got poor people. People will try and sell you stuff, particularly at the tourist locations. And as British people, you feel like you don’t wanna be rude.

Luke: You lose that quite quickly. I found within a couple of days. You just get on with it.

Jo: Absolutely. So this is the Books and Travel show.

Luke: Yes, yes. I’ve got three. The first one is not a book, but it’s an essay and it’s by a guy called Rolf Potts, who I’m sure you’ve heard of.

Jo: Mm-hmm. Vagabonding. Famous.

Luke: Yes. It’s not in that one, but it’s in his book. Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, and he talks about his first trip to Egypt and he talks about his anxiety not to see the pyramids because he fears that he’ll be disappointed by seeing something that he’s got so much expectation about.

And in fact, in the essay, which is probably a few thousand words, he doesn’t even mention the pyramids, but he talks about how vibrant and interesting Cairo is. He talks about how he’s meeting really interesting characters there and staying in this sort of funky backpacker hostel and all of these sorts of things.

And I like that. I like the idea that Egypt is so much more than the pyramids.

The second one is by a guy called Stel Pavlou, and it’s called Decipher, and that’s an archaeological thriller, similar to ours, which plays on a good amount of the same sort of mysticism to mine about hidden vaults underneath the Giza Plateau.

But they discover, and I love this, they discover a Hadron Collider underneath the Giza Plateau that’s been there for tens of thousands of years. It’s a great idea.

Jo: Okay. I haven’t read that. I’m always shocked when there are things I haven’t read that are thrillers about Egypt!

Luke: Yeah. There you go. And the third one is a guy that I think you know Sean McLachlan.

Jo: Yes. And,

Luke: and his Masked Man of Cairo Books. The Case of the Purloined Pyramid is the first one. It’s set in Cairo in 1919, I think this first one. The rest of the series goes into the 1920s, but it’s a particularly interesting time because it’s talking about Cairo evolving as opposed to what Cairo is like now and how Egypt’s fight for Independence showed on the streets and all of these things. It’s a really interesting book.

Jo: Slso just tell us a bit more about The Giza Protocol and also your thriller series.

Luke: Yes. So my thriller series follows the exploits of my heroine, uh, Eden Black, and she goes all around the world finding ancient relics, dodging ancient curses, and finding out about secret societies, these sorts of things.

If you love Indiana Jones or Clive Cussler, Tomb Raider, or any books or films in that sort of world, I think you’ll absolutely love them. The first one is The Ark Files and The Giza Protocol, which we’re talking about today, is number two, the second one in the series.

Jo: Fantastic. And yes, if you enjoy my ARKANE thrillers with Morgan Sierra and Ark of Blood is my third, but they can all be read as standalone. I think that’s the same for yours, isn’t it?

Luke: Yeah, yeah,

Jo: You can pretty much start anywhere and you’ll get the hang of it, but yes, both with the female main characters, which we love. Where can people find you and your books online?

Luke: Fantastic. So I talk about the adventure stories behind my stories on my podcast, The Adventure Story Podcast. You find that wherever podcasts are the Adventure Story podcast, and as I say, if archeological adventures are your thing, search online for the Giza Protocol by me, Luke Richton.

Jo: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Luke. That was great.

Luke: Thank you.

The post Ancient Mysteries and Modern Travels. Egypt With Luke Richardson appeared first on Books And Travel.

“The meaning of life is that it stops.” — Franz Kafka

I’ve always felt most grateful to be alive when I walk among the dead. That might sound strange, but bear with me!

Step through a lychgate into a church yard or descend a narrow stone stair into a catacomb or ossuary, and the pace and the noise of the world falls away. In these quiet spaces—graveyards beside ancient churches, sprawling Victorian cemeteries, underground chambers decorated with bones—I consider the shortness of life, memento mori, remember you will die, and it puts life into perspective. I can hear my own heartbeat more clearly, and the stories begin to rise.

In this episode, I’ll take you with me to a handful of places that have shaped some of my stories and travel memoir. If you’ve read my ARKANE thrillers or the Brooke & Daniel series, you’ll recognise many of the names.

But whether you’re here for research, reverence, or simple curiosity, I hope you’ll find something to spark your imagination and, perhaps, shift your perspective on these places that so many stay away from.

First, some definitions.

A graveyard is usually a burial ground attached to a church, whereas a cemetery is a stand-alone burial area, for example, found near a crematorium, or a public burial ground.

An ossuary, from the Latin ‘ossos’ for bone, is a container or chamber specifically to hold bones. It can be as small as a box, or as large as a chapel. In Europe, there are many ossuaries where the bones are used as decoration.

The Latin phrase memento mori—remember, you will die—has never felt morbid to me. It makes me grateful that I am alive on this day, to have the life I do, to love the people I love, and to be able to write and create. Life is indeed short, and I want to make the most of it.

I find myself drawn to these places not out of some macabre fascination but because they strip away illusion. In a world obsessed with preserving youth and denying mortality, there is something profoundly honest about these places that honour death.

The dates etched in stone. The names that no one remembers anymore, even this of the wealthy who thought they were important in life. The weathered gravestones, some leaning or sunken so deep they’re practically swallowed by the ground. All these make visible the brief span of our lives. This clarity energises me. I’m 50 as I write this, definitely middle-aged. If I am lucky to have decades left, how will I spend them? What stories will I tell? What experiences will I have? What challenges will I face?

This relationship with death might be unusual in the modern west, but for most generations, and for many cultures even right now, it is a completely normal part of life. As Franz Kafka said,

“The meaning of life is that it stops.”

Perhaps it is our modern sensibility to avoid discussing death that is the more unusual. I hope to change that a little today, so come with me on a journey of the dead.

It was a freezing winters day back in 2015 when we took the train from Prague to visit the Sedlec Ossuary, also known as the Bone Church. I’d already spent hours researching it online and used it in my ARKANE thriller, Crypt of Bone, so I knew what to expect, but even so, it really is a macabre place.

You enter a low arch and enter the ossuary, where candlelight glints off thousands of bones arranged in different ways. Alternating skulls and femurs are strung like garlands between larger decorated sections, a chandelier of pelvises, skulls and long bones hangs down, a coat of arms made from smaller bones and vertebrae is nailed to one wall.

It’s really quite a small place with human skeletal remains everywhere you look, estimated to be between 40,000 to 70,000 people.

Back in the 13th century, a monk brought back earth from the Holy Land and sprinkled it on the land here, which made people want to be buried at Sedlec. With the Black Death and many wars, thousands more were interred, and later the Gothic church was built and the bones moved to accommodate more dead.

In 1870, a local woodcarver, František Rint, organised the bones, arranging them into the artistic designs you can see today. He even signed his name in bone on one wall, with a flourish of femurs and rib bones. I’m not sure if they’re his own bones, but that would be fitting.

You can get to Sedlec on a day trip from Prague, either independently by train, or there are day trips through GetYourGuide.com and other providers.

Paris above ground is the city of light and romance; Paris below is the empire of death. You need a ticket and when you enter in your time slot, you walk down a spiral staircase into cool darkness, and then along tunnels lit with bulbs before finally entering the catacombs themselves, probably the most famous of ossuaries with over six million dead in the network of underground tunnels and ancient quarries.

In the late 18th century, Paris faced a public health crisis as overflowing cemeteries threatened to contaminate the water supply. The city authorities decided to move the remains beneath the city, resulting in today’s catacombs.

There are markers in each section to denote which cemetery the remains came from, and at the first entrance, there is a warning on the stone: ‘Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort.’ (“Stop! This is the empire of death.)

The bones are mostly neatly stacked and arranged, creating what feels like an infinite corridor of skulls and femurs, all illuminated by dim, flickering lights. There are some sections made into designs of shields and even a heart of skulls.

You need a ticket to enter The Paris Catacombs, situated near the Metro station of Denfert-Rochereau. There are lots of stairs and it’s quite a walk if you are not used to it. Book well in advance since they have limited time slots at www.catacombes.paris.fr

The exit, with its gothic-themed gift shop, pops you out at a different place and I found myself quite disorientated as I emerged into the sun once more.

If you enjoy a peaceful walk around a beautiful park with ornate tombs and memorials, Kensal Green Cemetery in London is definitely worth a visit. You don’t need a ticket and it’s free to access.

It was established in 1832, and is one of London’s Magnificent Seven cemeteries. These were conceived in the Victorian era as park-like burial grounds to alleviate overcrowded churchyards and combat health hazards.

But it’s a world away from what we might build as a public burial ground today, with beautiful memorials, tombs above ground similar to Père Lachaise in Paris, and statues of angels, broken columns, Egyptian obelisks, and other ‘memento mori’ markers. The Victorians understood that grief needs physical expression, tangible places to visit, stones to touch. When I walked there, I was inspired to use it as a setting in my crime thriller, Delirium.

There are also many famous historical people buried there from industrial engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to author of The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, and scientist Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference Engine, which led to the first computer.

You can find out more information at www.kensalgreencemetery.com and you can walk to it easier from Kensal Green train station, which has Overground and Underground lines.

Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark, London, is quite different from the formal Victorian cemeteries. It’s not even an official burial ground, and there are no graves, but in many ways, it is far more poignant to visit.

In the 1990s, during excavations for an extension of an Underground train line, archaeologists found 148 skeletons in an unconsecrated burial ground. These were the outcasts of society, the women known as ‘Winchester Geese,’ medieval sex workers licensed by the Bishop of Winchester, along with their illegitimate children, and other marginalised people. For centuries, it lay largely forgotten.

It’s now a memorial site with ribbons and mementos tied to the gates in remembrance of the Outcast Dead.

It’s compelling because it represents hidden history, the stories of ordinary people, often women, who lived miserable lives only a few blocks from the wealthy in their palaces and cathedrals. It features in the opening of my crime thriller, Deviance, which features some of the modern day outcasts in Southwark, which similar to medieval London has the wealth and power of the Shard, right next to some of the poor and outcast of society.

The entrance to the remembrance garden is on Redcross Way, a short walk from London Bridge or Southwark train stations. I recommend you visit the grandeur of Southwark Cathedral first and the ruins of Winchester Palace, before walking a few blocks to Crossbones. https://crossbones.org.uk/

I visited New Orleans in March 2017 after a train journey from Chicago, and I was in serious book research mode!

Back in 2001, I’d been invited to come to the city for Mardi Gras and said I would come another time, that the city would surely still be there — and then in 2005, the floods poured in and the city was transformed. Of course, much of the French Quarter remains and so my experience was not so different, but it was an example of taking a place for granted, of not seizing the day, and when I finally made, I was determined to make the most of the city.

Much of my experience is woven into my ARKANE thriller Valley of Dry Bones, which opens at St Louis No 1, when a storm opens up a previously undiscovered vault under the cemetery. I also weave in the St Louis Bible which is in the St Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, and the Voodoo Museum, which is a must-visit, as well as the Louisiana bayou. I love the juxtaposition of Catholicism and Voodoo in the city, and the history of the French and the Spanish missions.

Founded in 1789, St Louis No. 1 is the oldest surviving cemetery in the city, with its tombs above ground so as to survive the flooding.

The tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau is in there, covered in lipstick X’s and colourful beads left by seekers of luck. A few rows away stands actor Nicolas Cage’s pyramid tomb, empty at the time of writing this. Nic Cage is one of my favourite actors from the 90s action movies I love — Con Air and Face Off are two of the best. “Put the bunny back in the box!”

You have to enter on a guided tour, and there are some that focus on the voodoo side, while others have a wider focus. Find out more at cemeterytourneworleans.com

You can read more about my experiences through the eyes of my ARKANE agents in Valley of Dry Bones.

I haven’t been to these catacombs but Morgan and Jake head there in Crypt of Bone seeking the Codas Gigas, otherwise known as the Devil’s Bible. They’re on my list to visit, and they perhaps have more in common with the ancient Egyptians than the skeletal dead under Paris.

The catacombs lie beneath a Capuchin monastery in the Sicilian capital of Palermo, and instead of neatly stacked bones arranged in macabre decorations, there are fully clothed mummified bodies arranged along the walls and corridors. Monks in their robes, elegantly dressed aristocrats, military officers in uniform, and entire families displayed together, preserved through mummification.

From the 17th to 19th centuries thousands of people, wealthy enough to afford the process of mummification, were interred in these catacombs, able to be visited by their families and honoured after death.

The website palermocatacombs.com goes into detail on this process:

“Bodies were placed in a preparation room called the colatoio, where the internal organs were removed; in their place were added straw or bay leaves, in order to facilitate the process of dehydration.

The bodies were placed in a supine position on grids made of terracotta tubes, so their bodily fluids could drain away and their flesh dessicate. The colatoio, the optimal environment for mummification, with drier air and very low humidity, were then shut off for close to a year. After which, the corpses were exposed to the air, washed with vinegar and dressed, often in clothes of their own choosing, before being inserted in the wall niches.”

Some of the bodies are embalmed, including that of Rosalia Lombardo, a two-year-old girl who died in 1920, often called the Sleeping Beauty.

The catacombs are located just a short drive or bus ride from central Palermo. Be aware that photography is prohibited out of respect for the deceased.

You can find out more information at www.palermocatacombs.com

While not specifically a grave, I wanted to mention the cadaver tomb at Canterbury Cathedral. I always keep an eye out for these kinds of tombs, as they are so memento mori! Instead of a sculpture of the deceased as they were, full of life as if they were asleep in their finery, these tombs show the person as a cadaver, a clearly dead body.

Some are even on two levels, like bunk beds, with the alive-looking human on the top, and the almost naked corpse underneath.

There is a gorgeous example of a cadaver tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, which I visited at the end of my pilgrimage on The Pilgrims’ Way. It’s for Archbishop Henry Chichele, a 15th-century prelate who founded All Souls College, Oxford, and commissioned the tomb for himself long before he died in 1443, so he could consider his future when he preached.

On the top level he wears bright ceremonial robes, with the mitre on his head, his hands clasped in prayer. On the bottom level, he is a corpse in a loin-cloth, hair tonsured, bones showing through his skin.

These kinds of tombs appeared in late-medieval Europe as the Black Death and a lot of wars sharpened awareness of mortality. But of course, they were expensive and only for the rich, and Chichele’s is one of the finest.

A Latin inscription runs around the base:

“I was pauper-born, then to primate raised, now I am cut down and served up for worms.”

Memento mori, indeed.

You can read more about Canterbury Cathedral in my memoir, Pilgrimage, Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, and it also features in Tomb of Relics, when a relic from the shrine of Archbishop Thomas Becket, murdered in the cathedral in the 12th century, is stolen, and Morgan Sierra from the ARKANE secret British agency must find it.

I love beautiful architecture and the Great Synagogue of Budapest in Dohány Street is gorgeous with its Moorish-striped brickwork, twin onion domes, and a huge rose window that scatters coloured light across the nave.

But as with any Jewish sites in Europe, there is tragedy behind the beauty, and within the grounds of the synagogue is a mass grave. Twenty-four communal graves contain around 2,600 Jews who died of starvation, disease, or Arrow Cross Nazi bullets during 1944-45, when the synagogue marked the edge of the Budapest Ghetto.

Jewish law forbids burials beside a house of prayer, but there was no time—or safety—to reach the Kozma Street cemetery. The dead had to be interred where they fell.

At the courtyard’s far end stands Imre Varga’s haunting Tree of Life, a stainless-steel weeping willow whose 6,000 leaves each bear the name (or tattoo number) of a murdered Hungarian Jew—a living-metal kaddish against forgetting.

I wanted to talk about this site in particular because my father-in-law is Jewish and Hungarian and what was left of his family fled the country along with so many more refugees in the 50s. They ended up in New Zealand, where my husband, Jonathan was born, the child of two Jewish families who fled.

Our trip in 2012 was the first time Jonathan had ever been. We knew it would be a harrowing trip as Budapest has seen so many atrocities over the years — you can also visit the Shoes on the Danube, in memory of those shot and pushed into the river, and the House of Terror, where so many disappeared.

But the synagogue was particularly harrowing because three of the names on the mass grave matched his own, and if we had been there at that time, perhaps we too would have been interred beside them.

We visited in 2012 when a right wing extremist party was rising once more marching at night with flaming torches, and demanding lists of Jews be drawn up so they could be identified.

I wrote my thriller One Day in Budapest as part of my emotional response to the city and based around a modern right wing party bringing back such violence. The dedication in the front of the book reads,

“Dedicated to the memory of those buried in the mass grave of Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest.”

You can find out more at www.greatsynagogue.hu/alap.html

To close, I wanted to return to a more peaceful setting, a parish church graveyard similar to many in England, that I walked through on The Pilgrim’s Way. Here’s what I wrote in my memoir, Pilgrimage.

“One morning on the Pilgrims’ Way, I walked into Boxley, a village on the outskirts of Maidstone in Kent. The autumn sun was low in the sky and cast a golden light over the gravestones as I arrived at the church of St Mary and All Saints, a place of worship for nearly 800 years.

Under the canopy of the ornate lychgate (the roofed gate-way to the churchyard) were benches for the faithful to rest, and on one sat a selection of pumpkins and squash, in shades of yellow, orange and green. A handwritten sign urged, “Please help yourself.”

I wandered alone in the graveyard, one of my favourite things to do anywhere in the world. Most of the graves were so weathered that the text could no longer be read, a reminder that our names will also be forgotten one day.

Several headstones had sunk deep into the ground, leaning to one side as if they felt the pull of the dark be-neath. Wild cyclamens in shades of violet grew beneath a sycamore tree, late flowers of autumn marking new life from the bones of the buried dead.

One boundary wall was straddled by a huge beech tree, which must have started growing over it well before the World War II memorial that lay just on the other side. Our human-made barriers cannot hold nature for long.

I sat in the silence of that peaceful churchyard for a while before walking on. You might find a sparse line or two about that church in a guidebook, but it sticks in my mind as a far more special place.”

It might not be somewhere you go out of your way to visit, but many churchyards in England have the same kind of resonance. You can find more details at www.pilgrimswaychurches.org.uk/our-churches/boxley

Do your research.

Before visiting, read up on the history of each site. Knowing why an ossuary exists or who built a particular crypt, or what you might see at a place, makes the experience far richer. But don’t get obsessed with research. It’s good to have an attitude of serendipity where you keep an eye out and follow your curiosity as you explore.

Check opening times and tours.

Many of these places have specific visiting hours or guided tours or ticketed entry. You need to book well in advance for some of them.

Be respectful.

Remember these are human remains or places where people honour the dead. Photography might be allowed (or not) depending on the site, so check the rules and always be discreet.

Take it slowly.

Walk slowly and allow the atmosphere to work on your senses and your imagination. Often, the hush and the shadows convey as much as the monuments themselves. Put the guidebook away once you’re there, and personally, I hate audio guides or anything that tells me what’s important. I prefer to look around and find what I am drawn to.

Ask yourself questions and reflect.

Most of us rush through life without considering our inevitable end, and walking amongst those who are already dead, whose names we mostly don’t even know, helps put life in perspective. Memento mori, remember you will die, so what can do you to make the most of your life now?

I’ve mentioned many of my novels which feature the places in this article, but here are some more recommendations. Paul Koudounaris takes incredible photos and his books are a treasure trove of fascinating death culture. Try The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses.

Specifically for cemeteries, I recommend 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die by Loren Rhoads, who has been on the show talking about cemeteries, graveyards and ossuaries as well.

I also enjoyed Death: A Graveside Companion by Joanna Ebenstein, who also runs the wonderful site, MorbidAnatomy.org. I also love From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty.

You can find my books I mentioned as J.F. Penn at Amazon or your favourite online bookstore, or at my store, www.JFPennBooks.com. You can also find photos from my research trips on the blog at BooksAndTravel.page and on instagram.com/jfpennauthor.

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I would love to hear from you on this topic, or on anything that you find interesting from this episode or others. You can leave a comment, or email me [email protected]. Let me know about your thoughts on memento mori, any book recommendations, or your favourite graveyard, ossuary or cemetery. I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy travels – and I’ll see you next time.

The post Walking Amongst The Dead: Graveyards, Cemeteries, And Ossuaries With J.F. Penn appeared first on Books And Travel.

You can find Laura at LKWilde.com and her books on Amazon and other stores.

Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with LK Wilde. Welcome, Laura.

Laura: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Jo: It’s great to have you on. So little introduction. Laura is the award-winning author of historical fiction, romance, and uplifting feel-good fiction. Her novel Silver Darlings is set on the Northumberland Island of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, here in England, which we are talking about today. So just to get us started.

Laura: It’s quite a famous place considering how small it is. It is off the coast of Northumberland, which for those who don’t know, it’s probably about halfway between Newcastle and Edinburgh.

It’s really close to the Scottish border, and it’s a tidal island, so you can get across twice a day, there’s a road to drive across and it’s about eight or nine miles round, and there’s a population about 150. So you’ve got a very small village in one tiny corner of the island and then a big nature reserve. But it’s got quite an important historical significance considering when you look on a map, it’s a tiny little pinprick.

Jo: It is really small. And so you said the eight or nine miles, just so people know, you can easily walk around that?

Laura: You could. There’s not a path all the way around, so you’d have to do a bit of scrambling over rocks and things. But yes, you could definitely walk around it.

Jo: As you said, really near the borders. And when I was there, only briefly, which we’ll come back to, but on that one side you are looking towards the coast of England. On the other side, what do you see looking off the other side?

Laura: You can see the Farne Islands, which are a cluster of islands a bit further down the coast. And then a lot of sea.

Laura: Yes. And I think you can still almost get that a bit in the accent. It’s quite unique. The accent on the island is a real mixture of Newcastle and Northeast and Scottish and they have their own words and things. I wonder how much influence from Scandinavian is in there too.

Jo: That’s interesting. Do you speak that accent?

Laura: No. I had to get a narrator to record the audiobook for me because I’ve tried, and when I went to school there, everyone used to say “Aye” instead of “Yes” when you did the register. And for me, with my very obvious Southern accent, it was so embarrassing.

Jo: It’s great that you mention the accent because, for people listening who aren’t English or from the UK, it’s not that far. From where I am in Bath and you are in Cornwall, I mean, this is in our country and you can get there in a five or six hours train journey, I would think, and I was there and I also felt like an outsider with my accent. I didn’t really understand some of what people were saying, which really shocked me. I just wasn’t expecting that.

Laura: No, it’s so different. People used to talk about a “muckle bari gaji,” which would mean a very attractive young man, but it’s just a whole set of words I’d never heard of. There’s quite a lot of examples like that. It makes it a very unique place, I think.

Jo: I think that’s right. You said you went to school there, you lived there as a child. Tell us a bit about that.

Laura: So I moved there when I was 14 and I lived there till I was 18 and I was there with my younger sister and brother.

My memories are in two categories, either extremely positive or extremely negative. I think with the passage of time, you tend to forget the boring moments in your life.

But living there, there were no boring moments. It was either brilliant or terrible. And the good bits were amazing. The freedom of living somewhere like that. We’d come from a city, so there, we had our door open all the time. People would just come in and out as they wanted to.

We could go off in the morning and my mom was fine with us coming back late at night and my brother was seven. So for him especially to have that freedom was really incredible. It’s for a relatively short period in my life. It’s probably the most significant group of years, I would say. Because it’s such a unique experience to live somewhere like that.

Not just the remoteness, but everything that comes with island life.

Jo: Well let’s get into that. So the freedom you said and the safety of being there, and I guess the natural side of things, but as a teenager, between the ages of 14 and 18, what were some of those negatives?

Laura: Well, I think the main negative was when we weren’t on the island. There’s a primary school there and when we first arrived, all the national press came up because my brother was the only pupil in the school, and it was all in the papers that he was saving the island school.

But for me and my sister, we would be picked up on a Monday morning outside our house with our suitcases and we’d be taken to a hostel in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the nearest town, and we would be there until the taxi came on Friday afternoon to take us home. So we effectively had to leave home. And it wasn’t like being in a boarding school where you’d have all that support. There were two wardens, but they had their own flats. You didn’t really see them. And it was a building that had been built for 30 to 40 kids. But by the time we were there, there were only five of us.

So there were whole sections of this building that were shut off. And actually it was so bad that we were the last kids to be part of that setup. After us, they changed the system so kids would go to a local boarding school where they’d have all that support.

Jo: Well, I think, I mean, really what you’re talking about, it sounds like the middle of nowhere. And that’s what’s so interesting because it is, Northumberland really does have a lot of remote areas, but it feels like you said Berwick-on-Tweed, it’s not that far to Edinburgh from there. So you weren’t in the middle of nowhere. But let’s, coming back to the island itself. So you mentioned island life.

Laura: I think it means very different things depending on why you are there. Which group you fall into.

So there’s the religious community there and we were there because my dad was a church minister and he was sent there to – there was a church which had had no members anymore, and his job was to turn it into a visitor center. So we fell between these two groups where you had the religious community and then you had the everyday islanders who would do work in hospitality or fishing, or all sorts of other things. So I think within this one, very small community, people are living extremely different experiences.

And as a teenager it was, we were removed from some of the politics within the community. The best times were in the holidays when other kids, like grandchildren of islanders would come and stay or holiday makers, and suddenly you’d have friends and you’d have people to hang around with, but it also meant the times that they weren’t there, we were with people of all ages.

I think it gave us lots of skills in later life to be able to relate to people, not just our peers. Because we’d be going to these music groups with people in their sixties from all different backgrounds and things like that. So it is a very small community, but lots of different lifestyles within it.

Laura: I wanted to revisit it. First of all, I started off with a memoir and writing about my experiences of living there as a teenager, but so much happened to our family. We went there as a what I considered a very strong family unit, and left as a broken family.

My parents had separated, and so we all left separately, so I realized I couldn’t do anything with it. It was too personal. But I still wanted to capture that feeling of being a young person on the island. And then I started looking into the fishing heritage because the Celtic Christianity and everything is so famous and so many people go their own pilgrimage to experience that and the history.

But there’s this whole period where the entire island was focused on fishing and everyone on the island was part of that community, and it was far more cohesive as a community than I think it probably is or certainly was when I was living there.

And I really wanted to experience myself through these characters, what that side of it would’ve been like. And how all these, so I had people I knew in mind, like there was this lovely old fisherman called Eddie who was just a wonderful island character. And I had people like him in mind while I was telling this historical story. But I suppose it was a way as well of me revisiting this place that I loved so much that had been so important to me that I couldn’t tell through my own story, but I could inhabit these fictional characters and tell it through theirs.

Jo: Yeah, the personal side of memoir is tough and I understand that. It’s interesting and, obviously we don’t need to get into why your family broke up, but one of the nightmares that I feel as someone who is an urban city girl, I mean, I love being in nature, but I want to know I’m coming back to the city.

I like to be able to walk to a bookshop and some restaurants and coffee shops and all that. And when I was on the island just one night, I was like, this is fantastic, but oh my goodness. It’s so small and everyone would know your business and everybody would know everyone. And like you said, the positive is it’s safe and people look out for you, but the negative is really there’s no privacy. There’s no way of being different.

Laura: Yeah, definitely. That feeling of lack of privacy. And I think because we had such an open house as well, there were people, like even when my parents went away for a week and I was there on my own, people would wander in and out of my house, and you’re never – everybody knows everything that’s going on. And as a teenager, sometimes you want to let loose a bit, but you can’t really because there’ll be someone there watching you.

Jo: That’s interesting. Okay, so you mentioned the religious side of the community and the Celtic side. A lot of people won’t know the history, so maybe just —

Laura: So it’s a very famous site of Celtic Christianity. I think it was about 635 AD. King Oswald of Northumberland invited Aidan, St. Aidan now, and some other monks from the Scottish island of Iona to come and set up a monastery on the island.

And it became an incredibly important Christian site for spreading Christianity throughout the kingdom of Northumberland. And then after, so Aiden became Bishop of the island, and then after him, St. Cuthbert became the bishop.

And I think it was during St. Cuthbert’s time that the Lindisfarne Gospels were written, which are very famous illustrated, incredibly beautiful, unique pieces of artwork. And people came on pilgrimages and St. Cuthbert is still very much celebrated. The church that my dad was turning into visitor center was called St. Cuthbert’s.

And there’s St. Cuthbert’s Island, you may have seen it, when you are near St. Mary’s church, you go down to the beach and there’s an island off the island.

Jo: It’s got a little cross on, I think.

Laura: So sometimes people will go there and sit at tide out on that tiny island and just contemplate. So it was a really important site and then the Vikings came and destroyed everything that had been there. And then later, they set up a priory on the island so that you can still see the remains of that. Now you can walk around the ruins of the priory. So it still has that legacy of being extremely important in the spread of Christianity.

Jo: And the sacrifice of those monks who were raided, and it was one of the first documented Viking raids, was on the island.

Laura: Yeah, it’s pretty interesting history and it’s kind of the first place you would land. You come over and you hit Lindisfarne and you would see what was a rich pilgrimage center and the monks had money and obviously you’re going to go raid it. That’s what you’re going to do.

But yes, St. Cuthbert’s, the St Cuthbert’s way, which is part of the pilgrimage walk. Yeah. Fantastic walk from where he started in Melrose in Scotland. And for people who don’t know, his relic, part of his body is still in Durham Cathedral. Part of me thinks it should be on Lindisfarne, but it just wouldn’t cope with the number of visitors, I guess.

Jo: No, I think it would be logistically tricky.

Laura: I mean, it’s a miracle that they managed to get him and also the gospels out and down to Durham. Because the Vikings, it wasn’t just one raid. They kept coming back. So there was a lot lost – a lot of important historical things and money and property and all sorts. But to have saved St. Cuthbert and the gospels is quite remarkable.

Jo: Yeah. And you can go to a cave where supposedly his body rested overnight. And it’s interesting, of course, because we’re not Catholic anymore. This is not a Catholic country. And your dad would not have been Catholic. And the church now on Lindisfarne is not Catholic. And yet that’s where it all came from.

I find it quite funny sometimes, this discussion of relics and the body of St. Cuthbert and all of that when it’s like, that’s not quite what the religion is anymore. So how do you think that was dealt with, this sort of Catholic history and the modern?

Laura: I think it is. I think a lot of people coming there now come for a much broader spiritual feeling.

And the Catholic side is still, there is a Catholic, a small Catholic church on the island. And there are big services and pilgrimages at Easter, for example, but I think the Catholic side of it is far less dominant. It’s far more about the spirituality and Celtic Christianity almost as a brand is perhaps the wrong word, but I think in recent years, Celtic Christianity and spirituality has really become far more popular outside of its Catholic origins, I think.

And there is a feeling you get from – I think you mentioned ‘a thin place’ in Pilgrimage, didn’t you? And that would often be mentioned when I was living there.

This is a thin place and we would have people come and stay with us who were extremely rational people who would never go in for anything otherworldly who would have experiences there or feel certain strong feelings that they’d never experienced anywhere else before.

And whether it’s partly being cut off twice a day or whether it’s the history, I don’t know what it is, but there is something almost intangible, but you just feel it when you are there. It’s quite special.

Jo: So do you have any feelings of that thin place? Are there any experiences that you would look back on as that, or did you get that sense?

Laura: I think I got that through the natural beauty of it.

So although I was raised in a city, I was always far happier in the countryside and it was when I would go off exploring and I would go on the North Shore and just walk and this long sandy beach and that’s when I would feel that sense of something special.

Not when I was in a church or because actually often there were squabbles between the religious communities and there was a human side that wasn’t always that nice, but when I was out in nature and you get these huge, wide skies on the island, and that’s when I would feel it.

And it definitely does something to you, I think, especially if you are on your own, and I would go off – I mean, I wasn’t a very typical teenager living on an island. But I would just go off for hours walking on my own or on my bike, and you feel this thin place, I suppose.

Laura: I think back then it would’ve been far more straightforward for me than it would’ve been God.

I think now, I really don’t know. I don’t really subscribe to organized religion these days, but I still, normally still feel – I still experience that spiritual feeling when I am somewhere beautiful.

Or when I’m swimming in the sea, that’s a time I’ll get that kind of feeling that you can’t really name, but you feel surely there’s got to be a creator to have made somewhere so magical.

Jo: Yeah. And it’s funny, obviously my book Pilgrimage being about these pilgrimages and yet not being a Christian and yet also a lot of the feelings the same as you.

And one of the times I really felt it and I still get goosebumps even right now thinking about it when I crossed over to Lindisfarne, walking over the Sands and it really was one of the most spiritual moments I think, of my life.

There was a sound and I didn’t know what it was, and then I realized it was the seals singing and there’s a lot of seals in that channel. And of course it’s a bird sanctuary, so there were so many birds and you’re following.

And I had my back to the road. There is a road, but I had my back to the road and I was kind of trying to ignore it. But there, as you know, there are these white poles leading you across the sand to the island, and I just felt this, I think this timelessness of how many other feet have walked this, how many pilgrims, the monks. I mean there’s, well, at least 1800 years of history.

But before that, there would’ve always been islanders, people living on that island. And so that was kind of a moment that it really hit me.

Laura: I think what I love most about it is especially when the causeway’s open, the village will be packed. And the ruined priory will be packed. And there are people everywhere and you either you can walk to the castle and walk along, or you go down a little farm track and there’s nobody.

And my favorite place would be to go to the sand dunes and there’s little pools among the sand dunes as well. But when I was on my own, you’ve got these massive expanses of sand dunes and then you climb and you’ve got these huge stretches of beach and you’ve got the seals and you’ve got all the birds. There’s a bird hide that you can go and just spent hours watching.

You’ve got the coast all around, and then you’ve got these little pools and the nature reserve and the birds, and in a place where there’s quite a lot of people and chaos packed into one corner, just this wide expansion to walk and see seals, just sunbathing.

Or just spend a time sitting on a sand dune and just watching all the birds go around you is really special. And it’s something that never grew old. I think sometimes you can live in a beautiful place and you stop seeing it, but I think there, you never stop seeing it. You are always aware that just down the end of a path, you’re gonna have this open space where you can just breathe and experience a bit of peace, I suppose.

Jo: Yeah. And I think Northumberland also is one of the areas of dark sky. You know, the dark sky areas where you can actually see the stars without so much light pollution.

When I was walking out that way and on that beach, looking out to sort of Norway, there’s lots of rock cairns. When I went, people had built rocks up in piles.

And then as I was walking back I saw a murmuration of, I guess it was one of the swifts or something, and I always think when you see a murmuration, and for people listening, if you don’t know, it’s when all the birds kind of flock in patterns and they make patterns in the air. And when I’ve seen them and I’ve seen them, I saw them at Stonehenge as well.

And that was again, in one of those moments of like, that’s incredible. It was like, okay, there’s definitely something, again, that thin place, and you feel just part of nature and it puts life in perspective when you just stop for a moment and you notice that you are part of this, you know, a human in nature. And the morning I got up and I had my coffee in a little flask and watched the seals in the water.

And it’s so funny because I was only there for one night and I think about going back a lot and yet I’m kind of worried about going back because it was so perfect. That 24 hours or whatever it was that I was there.

Laura: Yes. I didn’t go back for a very long time. I went, so when did I leave? I left in 2000. I did go back while I was at uni to stay with some friends once, but for a couple of nights, and then I didn’t go back again till 2008 when I had my son as a baby.

But literally because so much happened there, it is quite a hard place to go back to. So I went back on the island, had a quick walk round and left again. And then it was last year I finally felt ready to properly go back again and I took – it was just me and my two sons and they were the ages me and my sister were when we moved there. And I took them up there and it was incredibly healing.

Going there reminded me of all the things I loved about it. And seeing it through their eyes. So I’ve got a picture of them standing on top of these really tall sand dunes, just with their arms in the air cheering and seeing how much they loved it and hearing them say, “wow, this must have been an amazing place to live.” And it was really – I’m so pleased I did it.

I mean, it was a beautiful, sunny day we went, we didn’t – we were meant to stay on the island and then there was a flood where we were staying, so we had to stay on the mainland. And I was quite pleased in a way, because we spent two days there, but we could retreat at the end of the day and I could just process all these things.

And on the second day I went and actually saw some people I’d known while I was there and just felt at peace in this place and showed the boys where we used to live and showed them where my brother went to school. So I’m really pleased I did go back. Me and my sister are talking about going back together at some point, but it’s a very long way from Cornwall.

Jo: It is. Yeah. Cornwall itself is very big compared to Lindisfarne! It is interesting, isn’t it? Revisiting these places that mean so much.

I also feel like the situation I was in, which was I was recovering – it was the end of the pandemic. I was still sick. I was in a lot of pain and it was a real struggle. And so I did feel like, and so often the end of a pilgrimage is, there’s a real letdown because the journey is kind of the point.

And yet when I crossed over, it just felt so magic. But let’s give some people some real practical tips because hopefully now everyone’s like, oh my goodness, I really wanna go to Lindisfarne.

Laura: You have to check the tide times.

There are lots of places online that you can check when it’s safe to cross and absolutely do not risk it. As teenagers, one of our sports – word would spread that a car was stuck on the causeway, and we’d go down on our bikes and laugh. You don’t want that happening to you if you go, so be really careful to only cross when the internet or the sign by the side of the road tells you it’s safe to cross.

There is a rescue tower. You can go up halfway if you do get stuck, but that is not for cars. Fun to go up and have a look, but you don’t want your car to be submerged and you’re waiting for the RNLI to come and get you.

So make sure to check the tide times. And it’s worth being there, I think over a tide. Because it’s such a different experience. So if the tides work out that you can spend a few hours there with the tide in, that’s definitely worth doing.

But be very careful crossing whether on foot or in a car.

Jo: Yeah. I didn’t know whether I would be able to walk across, because the other thing is the weather, right? I mean, I was there and it was beautiful. I just had the most perfect crossing with the sun.

Laura: Oh, I have a memory. There was a year where I think it was May, and we knew that it was beautiful May weather everywhere else, but it was just misty, and it was misty every single day in May. My birthday’s in May, which is probably why I also remember it so clearly, and it gets really depressing when you go out of your house and everywhere else the sun is shining, but it’s cold. You can only see a couple of meters in front of you. It’s mentally very challenging, I think. Because you feel so cut off from the rest of the world.

Jo: And you can’t see the coast. That’s the thing, I think that’s the mist is not just a light mist that disappears. It’s like you can’t actually see the land and that’s when you can get lost.

And there are stories obviously, of people trying to walk across and then just ending up missing the poles, that kind of thing. And in fact a lot of people, when I said I was walking across, they said, oh no, don’t do that. It’s too dangerous.

Laura: It’s quite – there’s some quick sand isn’t there? Or sinking sand.

You have to be careful to stick to the right route. You have to stick to the route, and if it’s nice weather, you can see the route all the way across and you’re like, why is everyone going on about this?

But of course, the mist, I think, so what I would say to people is, as you said as well, the tide moves every day. The tide times move every day. If people don’t know that it’s not the same time every single day, and so you really do have to be ready to cross and then come back. Also we should say it’s very small. You have to, if you want to stay, you have to book accommodation way in advance, right?

Laura: Yeah. And another thing about crossing actually just to not alarm people, but if you are there and it looks safe to cross. But the tide time says it’s not, just don’t risk it because it comes so quickly. It looks like the road is clear and then it’ll just wash right across.

Laura: But for staying there, you really have to book in advance. But for us it worked well staying – we stayed in Spittal, which is just outside Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s about 10 miles away, the last time I went and actually that worked well. But I think if you can, if you’ve never been before.

Jo: Yeah, definitely. I would say it’s well worth it.

And also if you just go across when everyone else does – when I walked off the sand, I only saw a couple of other people walking and I sat down to put my shoes on and then I walked along the road and around the corner and there’s like a coach park with hundreds of people streaming off the coaches, and I’m like there with my backpack and I’m like, whoa. Okay. So it can be quite a very touristy experience or a spiritual experience, I suppose.

Laura: So much of that is how you time it, I think.

Jo: Yes. When you’re there. Yeah, so I definitely think you have to do research. So what I did with the research was, because I wanted to walk across, I looked at the dates when I could walk across on the tide and book accommodation. And then I worked backwards from there to when I needed to start the pilgrimage.

Laura: That is very organized.

Jo: But I mean, I think it’s really important.

Seriously. I’ve never had better, I guess some would call it chowder, but tell us about – you’ve mentioned the fishing, I suppose, but the fish is really good, isn’t it?

Laura: Yeah. And there’s – well, I’m not sure, it probably depends on the time of year, but there always used to be plenty of places to get a fresh crab sandwich.

Jo: Oh yes. I had one of those too.

Laura: So that’s definitely worth trying. And there are hotels on the island where you can eat with plenty of fish on offer. And I’m assuming that they use – well, I worked in a hotel when I was there many years ago and they served a lot of lobster. Because lobster and crab are caught off the island. So, yeah, it’s definitely worth trying some of the local cuisine. And of course there’s the mead, the Lindisfarne mead.

Jo: Oh. Tell us more about the mead.

Laura: I think that comes from – that was a drink the monks had, I think, and it’s made from honey, but it’s very strong. So be careful. But you can sample it in the mead shop. It’s very strong alcohol and very sweet. So it’s not something I’d probably go for now because I don’t really like sweet things, but something I wouldn’t give to my teenage boys because they’d probably knock it back.

Jo: Yeah. Tourist mead. Absolutely. But definitely visit the ruins of the priory there and the church. It’s a wonderful time. Well, I think we could talk about this forever, but this is the Books and Travel podcast.

Guest: Well, the first, I know not everyone will be seeing this on video, but I thought I would show, my husband bought this for me, which is the Lindisfarne Gospels. It’s a British Library guide and this is just gorgeous. It’s got beautiful images of the Lindisfarne Gospel, so that’s a really good one.

Jo: And just on that, people can see, sometimes they can see the Lindisfarne Gospels at the British Library in London. But it’s all online as well. So if you’re like, oh, I’d like to see more detail, it is online. But that looks like a lovely book.

Laura: They are exceptional. It’s definitely worth having a look.

And then fiction wise, I’m absolutely obsessed with Ann Cleeves, who does the Vera and Shetland books, but her Vera series is all set in Northumberland. There is one on the island, I think it’s called The Rising Tide , but she manages to capture that open sky beauty of the county whilst also shining a light on what it’s like to live in one of the communities there and because often the seaside towns are quite poor. So I’d recommend any of her Vera series.

And then these aren’t strictly books, but if you go on the Islandshire Archives, there’s information there about the fishing history of the island, which is so interesting. And there’s articles by, I think she’s called Katrina Porteous, who’s done this study of fishing and how the whole community was involved.

And then my last recommendation would be the British Newspaper Archive where you can search a place going back hundreds of years and get a glimpse into what life was like there. And if you search Holy Island, there are reports of things like weddings where they have unique customs like jumping over a petting stone and they still do these today. Or the fishermen stand with their guns and the bride and groom walk through, and they shoot the guns in the air and that’s all reported.

I think if you’re going to visit anywhere probably in the UK and you want a slice of what real life is like, it’s worth going on the British newspaper archive. Just select a random year, like 1953 or something and see what’s happening and have a look.

[Note from Jo: I also have two books that feature Lindisfarne:

Laura: Silver Darlings is really about two young people who grow up on the island in the early 1900s, and for separate reasons, they’re both forced to leave the island and they follow the herring trade down the east coast of England to Lowestoft.

And they reach the time of the First World War and it’s about whether they can find each other and whether they can find their way back to the island. And it’s really about what does it mean to be home? What does home mean to you?

And they both have very different ideas about whether the island is or isn’t home and why. It’s a historical romance, but I love social history and ordinary lives and the herring girls and how women had a bit of independence when it was quite hard to do that.

Jo: I was going to finish, but I get obsessed with the idea of home because I also struggle with it. And you’ve talked about how much you love Lindisfarne, but you are now in Cornwall.

Laura: That’s a question I think about all the time, and I think I try and find the answer through my books. So my books are either set on Holy Island, in Norwich, where I was born, or in Cornwall or something. And I think through writing them, I’m trying to figure out where do I actually belong. I don’t really know.

I mean, Cornwall’s where I’ve lived the longest now, but I know I’ll never be Cornish because you have to be about five generations in to be Cornish. Norfolk’s where I was born, where a lot of my family are from, but I haven’t lived there for over 20 years.

And Holy Island is such a special place to me, but I don’t sound like I’m from there. I wasn’t born there. I almost don’t feel I have the right to call it home. So I suppose, I don’t know. I still haven’t figured out the answer to that.

Jo: Nor me, although I’ve decided I am English. So perhaps you’re English too.

Laura: Well, except my brother recently did a DNA test and it turns out we’re also quite Welsh, so just in case.

Jo: To be fair, I’m also Scottish and Irish, but yeah, there we go.

Laura: So LKWilde.com. You can find out all about me and then I’m on social media. The usual Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Just search LK Wilde and I will pop up everywhere.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Laura. That was great.

Laura: Thank you for having me.

The post Thin Places and Tidal Shores: Lindisfarne, Holy Island, With LK Wilde appeared first on Books And Travel.

Experience the rugged beauty, ancient legends, and captivating history of Scotland with Andy the Highlander. From standing stones and whirlpools to myths and famous battles, Andy shares stories that bring the Scottish landscape alive. Discover why Scotland is more than tartans and bagpipes in this fascinating discussion about culture, heritage, and a passion for storytelling.

In the introduction, I talk about my personal connection to Scotland (I am a quarter Scottish!), and how it inspired my monster horror, Catacomb, as well as featuring in Day of the Vikings, and the anatomical connection to Desecration.

Andy the Highlander is the bestselling author of Lochs and Legends, A Scotland Man’s Guide to the Heart of Scotland, as well as an actor and tour guide.

Show notes:

You can find Andy at Highlander Tours and Lochs and Legends in all the usual places, or here on Amazon.

Jo: Hello everyone. I am thriller author J.F. Penn, and this is the Books and Travel Podcast. And today I’m here with Andy the Highlander, the bestselling author of Lochs and Legends, A Scotland Man’s Guide to the Heart of Scotland, as well as an actor and tour guide. So welcome to the show, Andy.

Andy: Thank you for having me.

Oh, it’s great to have you here. So first up —

Andy: I became Andy the Highlander back in 2015. I was fortunate enough to film on the hit US TV drama Outlander. I was one of Jamie Fraser’s men back in 2015. I filmed about 35 days on the show, and I then did a video in my garden demonstrating how to wear the plaid, the Filmore—the Great Kilt—and it got 5.3 million views in the first 30 days.

So that’s really where this journey of Andy the Highlander began. At the time I started investing in the swords, 18th-century clothing. My wife Anna thought I had lost the plot, and we had no idea this was going to become a business, but also very much who I am. I’m now more Andy the Highlander than I am old Andy. I don’t even know who he is anymore, to be honest. So yeah, it’s been some journey.

Jo: Yeah, ’cause you have a tour guide company as well, right?

That’s right. I run Highlander Tours, and I’m one of the busiest tour guides in the country, taking people from all over the world around Scotland. So that’s a very incredible job. Scotland is my office, and you know what they say: if you find something you love, then you’ll never work another day in your life.

Jo: That is true. So I guess on this show, I’d like to do things that maybe people don’t know, that are a bit less obvious, and you definitely have some of those in this book. So many people listening—maybe a lot of Americans, for example—have family connection to Scotland, even if that’s generations ago and maybe they haven’t even visited, but —

Well, one of the more well-known ones is Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, but not far from there you’ve got Clava Cairns.

These are 4,000-year-old burial chambers and standing stones, and they actually line up with the low-setting winter solstice on the 21st of December, and the sun’s rays go inside the chamber. This technology that people had 4,000 years ago—it’s quite an incredible feat of engineering. Like looking at the pyramids and stuff like that, it’s like, how did they know how to do this so perfectly?

I think today we still don’t understand how they cut these stones so precisely. So that’s a magical place. Scotland is absolutely full of gems like that, and they carry deep historical significance.

Jo: Mm. Well, the Highlander series starts in standing stones, doesn’t it?

Andy: That’s right. So Outlander—Diana Gabaldon is from Flagstaff, Arizona originally. She lives in Scottsdale now, but she wrote the first books in the 1990s. It’s quite an interesting story actually.

Diana watched an episode of Doctor Who, and there was a young, handsome Highlander called Jamie McCrimmon in the show, played by English actor Frazer Hines, who’s a friend of mine. So Diana sees this young, handsome Highlander—a man in a kilt—and she thinks, “Oh my, I like that.”

So that’s what gave her the inspiration to go on and write Outlander. It’s historical fiction. Claire is a nurse during World War II and goes back to 1743, then touches these standing stones and goes back to the 18th century, and then they try and stop the Battle of Culloden happening. So it’s a fantastic story and, as we call it, the Outlander Effect. It’s a huge global audience.

Jo: Oh yeah, I’ve read several of the books. There’s some good romance in there. But on rocks as well—’cause my brother actually lives in Edinburgh and did a short film, STONE HUNTERS, about lifting these rocks, sort of as a Scottish tradition of going around lifting stones instead of lifting other weights. Is that something you—oh, it just came up as you were talking about stones there.

Andy: That’s quite interesting. So we say in Scotland, “Only leave your footsteps.

What we don’t want is people lifting and building the little cairns, but what you’re talking about is something different and it’s really cool. There’s a big weightlifting community in Scotland.

You’ve got the Dinnie Stones, for example, and this strongman Donald Dinnie carried these massive stones across the Potarch Bridge and back. I can’t remember the combined weight, but there’s a whole community in Scotland. I’ve actually got a friend—I think he calls himself “The Highland Granddad” or something on Instagram—but he goes around and sets up maybe four or five different-size stones, obviously starting with the lightest one and then finishing with the heaviest one. So I’m all for that. That’s pretty cool.

Jo: So obviously the book is Lochs and Legends, so let’s talk about legends first. You mentioned kelpies, which I think is a fascinating one. So yeah, tell us about—oh, here we go, Kelpies. There you go.

Andy: So yeah, the Kelpies are one of my favorite myths, favorite legends. These ones here are actually the world’s largest equine sculptures. They’re 30 meters high—approximately a hundred feet—and they were done by Scottish artist Andy Scott.

I was actually lucky enough to attend the 10-year anniversary last year. They represent two different things: it’s a mixture of Scotland’s industrial past—our Industrial Revolution here was 1760 to 1830—and the Clydesdale horses would pull the wagons and the barges along the canals. These big, heavy horses mixed with Flemish warhorses.

So it’s a mixture of an industrial past, but also our folklore. Kelpies were mythical, shape-shifting horse spirits that would lure you to the water’s edge and drown you. This was a very real way to keep your children away from the water’s edge.

Jo: It seems odd though to have horses and water drawing you into the water, right? Shouldn’t they be mermaids or something?

Andy: That’s right. Yeah.

Andy: You’ve got the Corryvreckan, which is a legendary whirlpool. My brother Ian used to do a lot of diving off the west coast of Scotland, so this whirlpool is between the Isle of Jura and Scarba, and it’s one of the most dangerous tidal whirlpools in the world.

But there are also dark tales of the Celtic warrior Fingal, and you’ve got Fingal’s Cave as well. In the book, you’ve obviously got the Kelpies, but there are so many other legends in there as well: the Blue Men of the Minch, stories about cannibals and body snatchers as well. Oh yeah, loads of that.

Jo: Well, let’s talk about the body snatchers, because if you go to Edinburgh, you’re gonna do the body snatcher thing, right? Or at least people like me want to do the body snatcher tour. Tell us about that.

Andy: Yeah, Edinburgh was once one of the foremost cities for anatomy, and people like Burke and Hare—as I’m sure you know—would initially sell fresh corpses to Robert Knox for his anatomy lectures, but that was too time-consuming and not profitable enough, so they thought, “Well, let’s just murder people instead.”

I’ve got a fascination with visiting these old cemeteries, places like the Canongate Kirkyard or Greyfriars Kirkyard. I’ve had a couple of chilling experiences there—goosebumps on my arms.

Jo: Well, I did one of those ghost tours around that area, and people take the equipment to try and sense things. So tell us what you felt there.

Andy: Well, I did a tour a few years ago, and I was standing in front of George Mackenzie’s mausoleum. He was the man responsible for the persecution of the Covenanters—those who rose up against the signing of the covenant after the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. I’m standing in front of his mausoleum, and a few photos were taken. The first one was completely normal, but the second one had this green glow behind my head, and I will never ever stand there again. I was told later that green is a healing energy, but no.

Andy: I think one of the most chilling places—one of the most special places—in Scotland is the town of Culross, which is actually, I think, the first chapter of the book. It’s spelt R-O-S-S, but it’s pronounced “Coo-russ.” This was featured in Outlander as Cranesmuir, but it dates back to the sixth century.

It was the birthplace of Saint Mungo, who’s the patron saint of Glasgow, and it was founded by Saint Serf. So in Culross you have the town hall, which dates back to 1626, and then a clock and the bell tower were added in 1783. But in Culross alone, during—for example—the witch trials, there were over 30 men and women tried for witchcraft in this town, and it’s said to be one of the most haunted towns in Scotland. I’ve got goosebumps right now talking about it again. I get goosebumps every single time I visit that place.

And in the book I mention one particular story I’ll tell you quickly. It was about 15 years ago now: a mum and dad and their little girl visit Culross Palace, which dates back to 1597. The mum and dad are in the laird’s bedroom, and the little girl sneaks under the rope and into the strong room. Back then they never had banks; they had strong rooms to keep the important documents and the money inside the coffers, inside the safes.

Anyway, the mum hears the little girl talking to someone. “Who are you talking to, sweetie?” “The man, Mummy.” Goosebumps again, right? She’s like, “What man?” I’ve got goosebumps all over. The mum looks in the strong room and there’s nobody there, and she says, “Come on, let’s go upstairs.” So they go upstairs into the Painted Chamber. As soon as they walk in, the little girl looks up at the wall to the painting of George Bruce with a funny collar, and she says, “That’s the man there, Mummy. That’s who I was talking to downstairs.”

So that’s the first part of the story. I visited about five years ago with an Australian couple, and it was the day before Halloween, the day before the palace closed for the season.

The staff had bay leaves stuck on the wall to ward off the evil spirits, ward off the witches. And the very second we walked up to the room and I said, “That’s George Bruce there, the man with a funny collar,” the bay leaves that the staff had pinned to the wall fell on the floor, and there was a little chair with a mannequin doll—white linen gown and a white linen hat. The hat flew across the room to the other side of the room. I’m standing looking at my clients, and the wife was like, “You guys did that?” I was like, “No, we didn’t.”

So I ran downstairs to tell my friend Linda, one of the employees of the palace. Things like that…and since then I’ve had numerous things happen to me in that place. So yeah, I definitely recommend if you get a chance, you have to visit there.

Jo: I haven’t been there. And well, I wondered—what do you think? I mean, obviously this is not a religious show or a particularly spiritual show, but I do wonder sometimes when these violent things happen—I mean, obviously I’m English, you’re Scottish, we’ve got some bloody history between our countries —

Yeah, I think I definitely believe in something.

They say when you visit these ancient places frequently, as I do—I visit old castles, old cemeteries, old graveyards late at night—they say these entities, these energies, follow you around.

I have loads of different people on tour. I’ve been given pyrite, I’ve been given black obsidian. I’ve got so many little things in my wardrobe to protect me. So many people are interested in the same thing. But I do have a fascination, and of course there might be an explanation, as you know, for something like that hat flying across the room. I mean, there’s no explanation for that—it might be a creaky floorboard, or you know, there’s something. There’s definitely something there, I think.

Jo: So in the book, you also mention a summer solstice at Callanish I—or maybe you pronounce that differently—and you said it was a spiritual feeling and a connection to the land, which sounds different to the stuff you’ve been talking about.

So Callanish standing stones are similar to Clava Cairns near Culloden, but they’re even older. They say they’re older than the pyramids of Egypt, so we’re talking 5,000 years old, and it’s just a very historical place. I was there on the summer solstice as the sun started to set, and it’s a kind of outer-body experience.

There were people playing music, there were drummers there playing the drums slowly—boom, boom, boom—as the sun set. I felt so privileged to be there in this ancient site. We’re not sure why they built these places, but it’s just fascinating to me. I absolutely love visiting places like that.

Jo: Well, what’s interesting—you mentioned there the drums, and of course in terms of sounds and music, people think about the bagpipes when they think of Scotland, and I wondered —

Andy: Well, they were classed as a weapon of war until fairly recently. Imagine you were the enemy, and in the distance you hear this drone of the bagpipe. It really stirs up the blood.

But whether they came from Scotland or not is widely debated—some say China, some claim other countries—but it’s our sense of nationalism here, isn’t it? The sound of the bagpipes gives me goosebumps every single time, and even if you’re not from here, I have a lot of clients who come on tour and they don’t know why either. It just hits them, and they start crying and get very emotional. Lovely.

Jo: Yeah, there’s definitely something about music that does that. I’ve been to the Edinburgh Tattoo, which is lots of pipes and bands and marching around, which is pretty good. But I wanted to come back to water. I mean, obviously the book is Lochs and Legends, so we’d better talk about some lochs. There are quite a few.

Andy: Yeah, on the front cover of the book you can see behind me—that’s actually Urquhart Castle, and the legends on Loch Ness date back to the sixth century.

This is when St. Columba settled at Glen Urquhart, not far from where the castle is, and it’s the first record of the Loch Ness Monster. The first written record is from the seventh century. It’s obviously on a fault line as well—a very deep fault line. There’s more water in Loch Ness than all of the lakes in England and Wales combined, including the Lake District. So who knows what’s in there, if there’s a Nessie or not.

But one of my favorites is probably Loch Lomond—the “Bonnie, Bonnie Banks” of Loch Lomond, like the song. My mom and dad, before they got married, spent a lot of time hill walking, and they joined the Youth Hostel Association. They didn’t have a lot of money back then, but Loch Lomond isn’t far from Glasgow at all.

In fact, we are actually doing the West Highland Way with some friends in May, which is 97 miles approximately, from Glasgow right up to Fort William. We’re going to camp the whole way. My mom and dad, as I say, spent time there. My sister got married in the beautiful little town of Luss, so that’s a very special place close to my heart.

Jo: And I guess staying with water—I mean, you mentioned the island of Jura. I’ve written about Iona.

Andy: The west coast of Scotland is just ruggedly beautiful. I’ve been lucky enough to see it from a boat. We used to have a lovely big Broom–type powerboat, 43 feet long. We could go anywhere. W

e’ve been to Ireland on it, we’ve been to Fingal’s Cave, we’ve been to Staffa, Rum, Iona, Jura—absolutely stunning beauty. Some of these places you can’t access with a vehicle, so they’re just beautiful. You can anchor the boat and take the small tender to these isolated, remote beaches—truly special, steeped in legends, steeped in history, with the most outstanding scenery. Islands like Islay, for example—it’s often mispronounced. People say “EYE-lee,” but it’s “ILL-uh.” That’s obviously one of the main whisky areas in Scotland as well. If you like peaty, smoky whiskies, that’s the island for you.

Jo Yes. We hadn’t even mentioned whisky, so you mentioned one there, but —

Andy: So remember, our whisky doesn’t have an “e” at the end of it—there’s no “e” in Scottish whisky. It’s very unique.

Every whisky is different, whether it’s a blended whisky or whether it’s a single malt. There are different regions of Scotland: you’ve got Highland whisky, Lowland whisky, you’ve got Campbeltown— which is a whole separate region—you’ve got Skye, you’ve got whisky from the Isle of Skye as well, Speyside. There are smoky, peaty whiskies from Islay, or a nice Highland whisky, or a Speyside—it’s more of a caramel, vanilla, maybe citrusy, fruity flavor. So people often ask me what my favorite whisky is, and there is no definitive answer for that. It just depends what mood I’m in at the time.

Jo: Yeah, I mean, I must say I’m not particularly a whisky person, but my husband is, so nice—he would enjoy those. In terms of—obviously you’ve mentioned the West Highland Way, and when…maybe just give people a sense of the size of things.

So a lot of people might fly into Edinburgh or Glasgow, and then you say ‘the Highlands,’ and they might think, ‘Oh, I could just do a day trip,’ or whatever. So maybe just talk a bit about that, about the scale and what’s up there, up in the Highlands.

Andy: Yeah, there are a lot of areas that are really unspoiled. The population of Scotland is only about 5.3 million people, so we’re a small country, but to give you an idea, many people will fly into Glasgow or Edinburgh. To get to the Highlands, you’re talking three or four hours.

If you are coming, I’d recommend you plan your routes and make sure you spend at least a decent amount of time in each area. I mean, Edinburgh is the capital city, but Glasgow is actually the biggest population.

As soon as you start heading towards the Highlands, you could arrive at one of these secluded Highland beaches, and it really looks like you could be anywhere in the world—you could be in the Caribbean until you dip your toes into the water. Then you know you’re not in the Caribbean. But sometimes you can arrive at these places and there’s nobody there.

You know, the Three Sisters mountains in Glencoe were formed about 480 million years ago when the two continents Avalonia and Laurentia collided. They say they used to be four times the height they are today, and the valley of Glencoe was carved during the Ice Age about 12,000 years ago.

You’ve got the legends up there, you’ve got the Massacre of Glencoe—the 13th of February, 1692—the MacDonalds and the Campbells. There’s just so much history and just beautiful scenery.

Jo: Yes, there’s still rivalry, isn’t there, in Scotland? Maybe talk a bit about—I made the mistake once: I flew into Glasgow, and I was in a taxi and I made the mistake of mentioning the wrong team.

Andy: I mean, there’s clan rivalry, particularly between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. So I always, of course, stay neutral on these subjects, but I have people coming from Canada or from the States, and they get in the car and they’re like, “Listen, we are Campbells, we’re sorry.”

And I’m like, “Listen, it’s more complicated than that. It wasn’t just the Campbells—that’s a very short, small part of the story.” So we’ve got that kind of banter. In fact, if you visit the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe, if you walk through the front door, there’s actually a sign at reception that says, “No Campbells or hawkers, no salesmen.” So take that with a pinch of salt.

Then of course you’ve got the soccer rivalry, the football rivalry. You’ve got teams like Celtic and Rangers, and that’s to do with religion, and it is deep-rooted. But then we have the banter of rugby games, for example—I used to play rugby for Scotland under-18, and I just love going to a Scotland–England game of rugby. It’s very different; it’s very different from football, right? If you go to a football game, they want to hate each other, they want to kill each other, but rugby—you can be together and have a dram of whisky; it’s a gentleman’s sport. So yeah, it’s that old rivalry.

Jo: Yeah, exactly. I mean, yes, we are watching on Netflix the Six Nations rugby thing, and of course Scotland and England always play each other. But let’s just come to Glasgow, because I feel like, again, Edinburgh—people go to Edinburgh and then they forget Glasgow. It was the European City of Culture a few years back, wasn’t it? And there’s lots of really interesting stuff in Glasgow.

Andy: Yeah, Glasgow is often overlooked, but there are so many things you can do there, and a lot of them are free as well. I actually like to do the Glasgow Mural Trail.

It’s a stunning art installation which starts at George Square—some of them have been knocked down since, and they update it quite often—but it takes you on a full tour of the city. It can take maybe four hours to do the whole thing. It takes you up past Strathclyde University, and there’s a big mural of a lady: she’s been crying, her nose is red, and she’s holding a little baby. That’s Mungo as a baby with his mother carrying him.

Then you walk up to Glasgow Cathedral, which dates back to the 12th century, so it predates the whole city by hundreds of years. Across the road, you’ve got the oldest house in Glasgow. You’ve then got the Glasgow Necropolis up on the hill with some beautiful old gravestones. You’ve got the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Glasgow Transport Museum—there are so many things to do. You’ve got Pollok House, Pollok Country Park, the Burrell Collection. It’s a very cool city.

Jo: Isn’t it Rennie Mackintosh as well? Maybe explain that to people.

Yeah, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The House for an Art Lover—that’s very beautiful if you like your Rennie Mackintosh. It was actually a friend of mine who lives in Kilmacolm who wrote a book about it. He was the guy in charge of designing The House for an Art Lover—Graham Roxburgh, his name is. One of the last times Lily, my co-writer, was in Scotland, I managed to get a little private tour with Graham, and he gave us both an autographed copy of his book. So really cool.

Oh, cool. Yeah, people—a lot of people will recognize the Rennie Mackintosh types of designs, you see them on lots of things.

One of my favorites has to be Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and that’s one of my old favorites—I reread that fairly often. There’s one that I see in many of the gift shops here called Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales—that’s a good one. That’s by Gordon Jarvie, I think his name is.

There’s another one called Beneath the Surface—that’s by Fiona Neill, and that’s a mystery set in the Highlands. I read that one recently as well. There are loads of great short stories you can get if you go around the bookshops, the Historic Environment Scotland sites, or the National Trust sites.

Jo: I’m sure people can find your book all over the place, but I do also want to say, what is your favorite movie, since that would seem appropriate?

Andy: Well, yes, I think it probably has to be Highlander. I don’t know if you know—they’re actually making a remake with Henry Cavill.

Jo: No! They are? Oh my goodness, I didn’t know that.

Andy: They are! It was my absolute favorite film growing up, with Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, so maybe I’ve kind of morphed this whole Andy the Highlander thing from watching Highlander. You know:

“From the dawn of time we came, moving silently down through the centuries, leading many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering, where the few who remain will battle to the last,”

you know? Absolutely brilliant. I always loved open spaces—mountains, rivers, waterfalls, beaches.

Jo: Yes, so that’s fantastic. And of course there can be only one Andy the Highlander! There you go.

Andy: So the book has just been released in North America. You’ll find it in Barnes & Noble, and you’ll find it at Walmart and Target online. You’ll find it on Amazon. I’ve also done an audiobook as well, which you can get on Amazon. That was a no-brainer. HarperCollins asked me if I would like to do the audiobook, and it had to be me—it couldn’t be anybody else, you know? Some of the comments I have: “We can really hear your voice telling the story,” first of all through the book, but they love hearing the voice in the audiobook.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Andy. That was great.

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

The post Lochs And Legends. Scotland With Andy The Highlander appeared first on Books And Travel.

What are the fascinating — and also dangerous — aspects of Death Valley National Park? How does visiting a stark desert landscape give us perspective about our place in the world?

Steve Hall is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker and a seasoned adventure hiker renowned for his extensive explorations of Death Valley National Park.

You can find Steve’s hiking videos of Death Valley and other places at YouTube.com/stevehallDV. The Death Valley National Park website has lots more info.

You can find pictures and notes, as well as book recommendations on Death Valley here.

You can find Death Valley, A Thriller, by J.F. Penn, here.

Jo: Hello travelers. I’m thriller author, J.F. Penn, and today I’m here with Steve Hall. Hi Steve.

Steve: Hi Jo. It’s great to be talking to you today.

Jo: Yes, just a little introduction. Steve is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker and a seasoned adventure hiker renowned for his extensive explorations of Death Valley National Park, which we’re talking about today. Let’s start with the basics.

Steve: Great questions. You know, it’s great to be talking with you about Death Valley National Park—of course, my favorite national park to visit. Death Valley is part of the Northern Mojave Desert, and it’s located right along the California–Nevada border.

It’s kind of situated in between Las Vegas to the east and the Sierra Nevada mountains off to the west. It is the largest national park in the lower 48 states. It actually has the great size of 3.4 million million acres, and it’s 140 miles in length, going from the bottom of the park all the way up to the top in the north. So it’s quite expansive.

Well, it kind of started for me back in 1997 when I was with a group of friends on the way to the Grand Canyon. As we finished up our trip there, we had a couple of extra days on our way home. So I noticed on a map all these kind of scary-sounding names within Death Valley—locations such as the Devil’s Golf Course, the Devil’s Cornfield, the Funeral Mountains, Badwater—kind of all scary, foreboding-sounding places. I told my friends, “Why don’t we stop there? We have a little extra time and see what Death Valley is all about.” And that’s what we did.

We drove through the park and actually had a kind of scary experience right when we first crossed the park boundaries. My very first memory of crossing into the park was seeing an injured motorcyclist on the dirt just off the road. I guess he had taken a turn too fast or something, but he flew off his bike and was injured, and paramedics were attending to him. So that was my introduction to the park—seeing somebody badly injured.

But on that first trip, I visited some of the famous tourist destinations such as Badwater, Artist Palette, Zabriskie Point, and Devil’s Golf Course. So that kind of gave me a little taster or teaser of the park. Those are the same kinds of destinations that first-time park visitors are sent to.

Let’s just get a bit into what it looks like because you mentioned a few things there, like the Devil’s Golf Course. I went to Badwater. I went to the Artist Palette in my day trip when I visited. You also mentioned the Grand Canyon. So I feel like even Americans or anyone in the world who knows a little bit about America has heard of the Grand Canyon, has seen pictures of the Grand Canyon. In their minds, when they say “National Park in America,” that’s kind of what people have in their mind, I think, because that’s the most famous one.

Steve: Well, anytime somebody thinks about American national parks—like what you mentioned—they might think about the big famous ones such as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone. Those have sights that are just so famous.

When you walk out to the Grand Canyon for the first time and look at that sweeping vista, it’s so overwhelming and it’s captured well in photographs. The same thing with Yosemite, with the majestic waterfalls and Half Dome. When it comes to Death Valley, people might think of a bleak, lifeless desert, so it might not be the first destination that comes to their mind when they’re thinking about visiting a US national park.

Steve: Well, that is a very interesting and neat place to check out and explore.

It’s along a place that’s known as Artist Drive, which is a one-way loop road that comes off of Badwater Road. Artist Palette itself has some very colorful hills. It is basically what the name implies. You drive up to it, you get out and take a look, and you’re surrounded by these colorful badlands. Some of the minerals and different forces have created a variety of colors on display. It really does have just about every color you can imagine.

You look out and there are all these little canyons going in different directions, and there are hills that you can scramble up. Of course, it’s a photographer’s dream. Artist Palette has been featured in, for instance, a music video by the group Oasis—their video “Who Feels Love?” was filmed partly in Death Valley, and Artist Palette was one of the locations that they chose. It’s a very famous spot.

Jo: Yeah, and really beautiful in different lights. I imagine you’ve obviously visited at different times of day. I feel like I was only there for about 10 minutes, but even then you can get all kinds of different shades in the rocks, as you said.

Talk about those salt flats down there, and I guess why it’s also called Death Valley, because the day I was there, it was winter—it was November—and it was still damn hot.

Steve: Yeah, so Badwater itself is probably Death Valley’s most famous destination.

Around the Badwater Basin, there are some 200 square miles of salt flats. What makes it very special is that it’s the lowest spot in North America at minus 282 feet—282 feet below sea level. Badwater actually got its name because there was a surveyor in past times who brought his mule out and was in the area and led his mule up to the Badwater pool, which is a spring-fed little pool of water on the ground. The mule rejected it and refused to drink the salty water. So that’s why it got the name Badwater.

Visiting it is a unique experience, especially for first-timers, because you can go out there and stand at that special spot, get your picture next to the sign, and you can also look up at the hillside nearby and see a sea level sign. You can visualize in your mind just how far underneath the ocean you would be if you were at sea level right there. There’s also an endemic snail that lives only at that location at Badwater, so that’s really special too.

And if you look across the salt flats, across the valley, you can see the Panamint Range. The highest summit there in the Panamints, as well as all of Death Valley, is Telescope Peak at 11,049 feet. That’s quite a contrast—standing at minus 282 and looking up at 11,049 feet.

Another aspect to Badwater is that sometimes during flooding, that salt basin fills with water. This happened just a year ago and forms Lake Manly, and then you’ll find, as it goes viral, people out there kayaking and floating on the lake.

Steve: Yes. In thinking about wildflowers in Death Valley, you need several distinct rain events.

If you just get one light period of rain—and keep in mind Death Valley is the hottest, driest, and lowest, meaning it gets less than two inches of annual rainfall—you’re not going to get a good wildflower season.

But if you get several periods of rain spread out among several months, then you’re going to get a good bloom. In fact, you could get a “super bloom.” I remember being there for the last big super bloom in 2016, and I think before that it was 2005. We just had vast fields of desert gold covering the landscape—an overwhelming amount of flowers, beauty beyond what you could imagine.

Jo: Yes. I mean, I only went for a day trip, so you only get a certain glimpse in a day. Of course, you’ve been hiking there for years.

But let’s get into why also, I guess, it’s so dangerous. There are tourist trips—it doesn’t have to be a dangerous place to visit—but —

Steve: There’s really a lot of dangers in Death Valley. In fact, I received an email from a hiker one time, and he mentioned that Death Valley is one of the most dangerous places on Earth to hike. I would definitely agree with that. It’s so important to be prepared and to know what you’re getting into out there.

The first thing that people often think about when it comes to dangers is the heat.

Sure enough, in the springtime, especially in the summer but also lingering into the fall, you have the extreme hot days. You have days when you shouldn’t even be out there hiking, but if the heat seems to be at a manageable level, it’s all about bringing enough water with you, enough sunscreen, knowing your body’s limitations, hiking early in the morning before it gets too hot—things like that.

Other dangers include flash floods. There are occasional flash floods that will sweep down canyons and wipe out park roads, which creates a whole different hazard. And then the wind can even be a hazard. There can be severe windstorms that come up. In fact, the wind can sometimes kick up really bad dust storms and sandstorms into the air. That’s caused by strong winds picking up the dust and sand off the ground and pushing it forward like a wall toward people.

I had a couple of experiences not too long ago where I was coming out of a hike to a place called The Crack. I looked off to my right, to the northwest, and saw what looked like a wall of dust coming toward me. It was scary. Fortunately, we were just getting back to my truck, so I said, “We better get there quickly and get in.” Right as we got to the truck, it swept over us. The wind came first, then all the dust, and we lost our visibility. I was glad we were inside, so our clothes and my eyes weren’t filled with dust.

Another experience: My parents own an RV or trailer, and they were parked at the Stovepipe Wells campground one day. My dad looked out the window of the trailer and could see a giant wall of dust and sand heading toward Stovepipe Wells. My parents got out and went to hide near the general store, and sure enough, the dust storm came through, rattled the trailer, and wreaked havoc on that whole area. He said afterward it took him a whole year to get all of the dust and sand out of the trailer and for it to work normally again—for the windows to be able to pop out and slide like they’re supposed to. It was quite a crazy situation.

Jo: Wow. You are reading my novel Death Valley, and I put in this big dust storm. When I wrote it, I read about these storms and I thought, “Is this really—could this really happen?” I know it’s terrible, but I’m grateful that you’ve said this is actually possible. And these storms, like you say, can just take everything out in their path, right?

Steve: Yeah, and in fact—obviously we can’t get into spoilers—but I love how you brought the storm into your novel. It reminded me that with climate change, scary things like that could actually happen. Climate change has already had a bad impact upon the park. Again, hopefully nothing like what I’ve been reading in your novel actually happens, but there certainly is the potential for that.

We’ve seen an increase in flash flooding that has caused road closure for many months at a time, with sections of the park closed off. We’ve also seen trees dying off, such as bristlecone pines, because they’re not getting the moisture and they’re getting too much heat. We’ve seen an increase in long, hot summers and higher temperatures going through the park, which makes it hard on wildlife that are already on the edge of survival, pushing them even further.

Well then, with all this danger, how come you have this film Last Chance Solo, where you went off on your own and solo? What draws you to this kind of solo adventure? We are definitely not recommending anyone do this, but you obviously love it. So talk a bit about solo adventure.

Steve: Yeah, so solo hiking and backpacking is not really my favorite thing to do. I have a core group of friends who I enjoy backpacking and hiking with out in Death Valley—such as Michelle, who’s one of my best friends—but not everyone is always available. A majority of my friends here at home, outside of the park, are not interested in the great challenges that are presented. So that’s what can lead me to go solo.

But going solo does create some difficult challenges. For one thing, you’re out there all alone, so if you get injured or hurt, it’s going to be more difficult to get out of there, to get help, and to make it through. Also, it can just be lonely out there, going for days on end hiking. It’s definitely not as fun.

You referenced my film Last Chance Solo, which was the very first feature film I ever attempted to do in Death Valley. It documents me doing six days of solo backpacking and hiking in the Last Chance Range. I believe when I started that out, I had to carry five and a half gallons of water because water sources are not always available in Death Valley. You’re not always going to find a spring or a source of water, so to do some of these routes, you’re going to need to do heavy water carries and bring them with you.

As far as why it can be difficult to get others to hike with you in Death Valley—well, it’s hard. There are very few trails in the park. You’re mostly creating your own routes as you go through peaks and canyons. There’s not a lot of established trails or routes. And of course, not a lot of people want to carry a lot of water. Then there’s terrain obstacles that you have to deal with—like rock climbs.

I had one friend named Curtis who, every five years, comes with me to the park to do hiking. But he tells me then, after he goes, “Well, you fooled me again. Maybe I’ll come back with you in another five years when I forget how difficult this is.”

Jo: Yes, I mean, I’ve done multi-day solo backpacking, but where I’ve stayed somewhere reasonable at night with shelter, and there’ve been shops on the way. That is not what happens in Death Valley. I mean, there is a little—it’s not a town, is it? Like you said, there’s a campground, there’s the visitor center, but it’s not like you can stop off and find water anywhere. You do have to go a ways.

So another thing about the visitor center when I got there was I noticed there’s a plaque saying this is a Dark Skies area. Tell us about that.

Steve: It’s quite amazing. Dark Sky International certified Death Valley National Park as the third official Dark Sky National Park in the United States. A lot of work went into helping that happen. Actually, they were given the Gold Tier, which is the highest standard, the highest rating you can get for a national park. So it truly is a Dark Sky Park.

How that comes about and what it’s all about is negating as much light pollution as possible. You think about light pollution coming in from nearby cities, such as Las Vegas—it’s the closest one to Death Valley. You can’t really do anything about that, but Death Valley is far enough away that city light doesn’t have much of an impact, especially the farther north you go.

That’s just where you start—how far away the park is from cities. Then you have to think about the artificial lighting that is on buildings, on signs, shining around the villages you referenced, which are Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells. A lot of work had to go into changing out all those lights that were just shining indiscriminately—brightening up the area. Instead, new lights were installed that used less electricity and were angled downward to light up a path so people could walk safely, or to light up signs or buildings but without blinding people’s eyes. That’s what made it a successful Dark Sky Park—putting all the effort into that and getting certified.

You mentioned the Dark Sky Festival, which actually took place last week. I was there in Death Valley for the Dark Sky Festival, actually working at the Farm Creek Visitor Center, and then I hosted a telescope in the evening at what was known as the Star Party, where we had 25 to 30 telescopes out. We took in—I think it was 2,300 visitors—over the course of two days, who could look through our telescopes and hear a ranger-guided program.

The Dark Sky Festival is a very special event. There’s so much going on. There were auditorium programs, there was an exploration fair with booths for learning about things related to the sky and the stars, with scientists sharing information and things you could learn from. There were astrophotography meetups. There’s an incredibly talented photographer named Stephanie Lamar that lives and works in Death Valley and actually does wedding, engagement, and family photos, but she volunteered her time to lead groups out to the Mesquite flats—or to the Mesquite sand dunes and Harmony Borax—to help them learn astrophotography.

Then there were talks going on by scientists out at park locations such as Ubehebe Crater, Badwater, Golden Canyon, various spots to teach people things. And then, of course, the grand finale was the Star Party, which I mentioned, where we had all the telescopes out. On Friday night, I shared the Andromeda Galaxy with everybody, and on Saturday night, the Orion Nebula. It was just a fantastic event, organized and put together by my friend Matt, who works there in the park.

Jo: Mm, amazing. If people haven’t been to any of these dark-sky locations—they are around the world—but as you said, how much you can see the stars compared to what you see if you’re in the city is just totally different, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve been in a place in Western Australia, and I’ll never forget it. It was like, this is a completely different experience to living in a city and looking up at the sky.

Steve: Yeah, it’s totally different. There’s just no comparison. Just seeing the awe and wonder on some of the visitors’ faces as they look up at the sky—at one point there was a ranger looking at some of the constellations with a laser pointer and even reading poetry out there under the stars. It is just a totally different experience compared to going out where I live here in Sonoma, in California, and trying to look up. When I go out to Death Valley, I feel like I can see ten to a hundred times more stars.

Steve: Yeah, you know, there’s this interesting story I came across. I do a lot of hiking and backpacking into undocumented areas of Death Valley to try to make discoveries. Of course, when I say “make discoveries,” I don’t mean I’m the first person to ever find these things, because we have Native Americans, miners, and who knows who else hiking off the grid, but I just try to go out into areas that people haven’t seen or heard of before and share things.

I went into this place called Trellis Canyon, which was just mentioned in passing in a guidebook, but there was only one sentence—no other information about it—just to see what was there. I hiked in there, went home, and published a report about my hike and shared photos, because I did have the largest website on Death Valley hiking in the world, which is now only available to park staff. That’s where I was sharing my hiking adventures at that time.

I started getting emails from people who identified themselves as a group of lawyers, doctors, adventure and thrill seekers who wanted more information about Trellis Canyon. As I gathered more details, I found out that this group believes there is a lost city of gold underneath the Panamint Mountains, and that the access point to get into the lost city of gold—where there’s supposedly tons of treasure, gold artifacts, as well as giant mummies preserved in underground caverns—they believe the entrance is through a cave in Trellis Canyon.

The interesting thing was they had spotted some “scorpions” on Google Earth above Trellis Canyon. Sure enough, I went on Google Earth, and I could see these two matching scorpions that were covering the landscape. As you’re following along on Google Earth, you see these two scorpions, and they do look out of place, admittedly. Anyway, the scorpions later disappeared from Google Earth, and this group felt that was a conspiracy to hide the entrance to the lost city of gold. Sure enough, I pushed the date back and it basically showed the satellite imagery had updated, and that’s why the scorpions were still visible but only at an earlier version of Google Earth.

So anyway, these people went out, backpacked, and some of them had never done it before. They tried to get into the lost city, but they never did find it. I do hear of them going back from time to time to continue searching for it.

Jo: I love it. I think that’s brilliant. Now, that might be a myth, but there is evidence, as you said, of mining, and also you mentioned the Native American people.

Steve: Well, yeah, that’s a good thing to talk about because when we look at human history, we can say it starts with the Timbisha Shoshone. They’ve inhabited the Death Valley region for some 1,000-plus years, so they’ve been there a long time. Then, of course, in modern times, miners came in and tourists came in, and the Timbisha Shoshone found themselves displaced. They seemed to have endured quite a bit of mistreatment and loss of the areas they wanted to live in for about 65 years. But then, in the year 2000, there was the Timbisha Homeland Act that was signed into law, and that gave them back a portion of their ancestral homeland and some of their rights. Hopefully things continue to move positively for them.

Then, of course, we might think about mining in Death Valley. That got started in the late 1850s, as far as records can show, and picked up in the successive decades. There was gold, there was silver, there was borax, talc, salt—those were some of the things that were mined in Death Valley. Some good examples of that: Keane Wonder Mine is a really neat place to visit—that’s where you might find that gold was mined. There’s Panamint City, which was famous for the silver that was mined there. There’s Harmony Borax, which is where what’s called “white gold” was mined, and white gold is borax.

That proved to be a very successful mining operation and brought a lot of Death Valley history with 20-mule-team wagons hauling out refined borax from 1883 to 1889 on a journey that went over 165 miles to get that borax hauled out of Death Valley. Modern tourism, of course, got started as people began taking an interest in the valley. It was established as a national monument in 1933, and then a national park in 1994.

Jo: Mm, yeah. I guess with the indigenous people there, there’s climate change, but you also want people to visit, you want people to appreciate the beauty, and also bring their tourist dollars. So where’s the balance?

Steve: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m glad you brought that up, because it’s so important for visitors to be aware as they come into Death Valley National Park. I think it kind of starts just as you come in, to make sure to pay your entrance fees to provide that financial support to the park and not try to dodge it.

Also, just becoming familiar with basic park regulations—which I like to call common-sense things—such as not driving off park roads. For instance, if somebody drives off a park road onto a playa or lake bed or the salt flats, that leaves tire tracks that won’t be worn away for decades, and it also damages the habitat, the life in that soil. So there’s that.

It’s just basic things like camping only where you’re supposed to, in designated sites, not leaving graffiti, not picking wildflowers, not collecting rocks or artifacts and taking them home, but leaving them in place for future visitors. Leaving no trace when you’re hiking or backpacking—so not leaving any garbage or anything behind. Also not feeding the wild animals or birds. We haven’t touched on those very much, but protecting them by leaving them to care for themselves naturally.

There’s something kind of important going on right now nationally where park employees in Death Valley, as well as other national parks, are being fired for no reason. There’s a downsizing effort underway, and this isn’t coming from within Death Valley but from higher sources. That’s something we really can’t have. In my opinion, we’re underfunded and understaffed in Death Valley, and it hurts the park now and in the long term to not have enough people to properly take care of it. That’s something people can hopefully counteract by writing letters and making phone calls. But yeah, we definitely need our park employees.

Jo: Hmm, absolutely.

Steve: Starting in about the year 2020, I shifted gears from doing written hiking reports on my website to actually filming my adventures because I found it more interesting. I have a couple of Death Valley series on my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com/steveHallDV.

I have my Death Valley Adventure films, which I’ve currently filmed six of. Those are basically three-plus-day backpacking adventures into locations that very few people have ever been to or seen—really super special places that park visitors don’t usually go to. Those often involve heavy water carries for those three days, because there’s often not water available. Those are quite exciting. It’s quite a privilege to be able to showcase some of these amazing spots that people don’t get to see.

Then I have my Death Valley Discovery series, which currently stands at 20 episodes, where I’m going out to places that I, park staff, other hikers, or friends discovered. Again, using the term “discovery” a little lightly, because we don’t claim to be the first people to ever walk through these areas, but we’re the first to publish reports and document them. So that’s what those two series of videos cover. I also hike in places such as the South Pacific and the Arctic on my channel.

Jo: Yeah, and it’s a fantastic resource, so go and check that out everyone. Well, thanks so much for your time, Steve. That was great.

Steve: Yeah, it was really nice talking with you. I really enjoyed talking with you about Death Valley, and I’ve enjoyed reading your novel, and I’m sure so many people are going to love that.

The post Desert Storms and Superblooms: Death Valley With Steve Hall appeared first on Books And Travel.

Welcome back to the Books and Travel Podcast! In this episode, I explore why I’m restarting the show, how travel has shaped my writing, and the deeper reasons we journey—both physically and through books.

From revisiting my first episode to discussing reinvention, curiosity, and the meaning of travel, this is a fresh start filled with inspiration for readers, writers, and adventurers alike.

You can find my books at JFPennBooks.com and see more of my photos on Instagram @jfpennauthor

Hello travelers, I’m Jo Frances Penn and yes, the podcast is back!

I’ve missed talking to other writers about travel and the places that inspire us and many of you have told me that you enjoy the show — so I’m excited to be back, and I already have lots of new guests lined up for interviews about fascinating places as well as the deeper side of travel, and of course, book recommendations!

As this is the first episode for a while, I’m doing a solo episode with some clips from other guests where I’ll go through why I originally started this podcast and why I’m now restarting the show, thoughts on why we travel, reinvention, curiosity, different perspectives on places, especially when we are outsiders, as well as finding beauty closer to home, and of course, memento mori.

I would love to know your thoughts on the show, or about a particular episode, and I would love to see photos of where you’re listening. Right, let’s get into it.

Six years ago, in February 2019, I released the first episode of this podcast in a solo show entitled Lake Malawi, Jerusalem, and Blue Water Sailing to Vanuatu. The Three Trips That Changed My Life — and I’m going to play the opening clip as it relates to why I am restarting the show again now.

When I think about what I want to do with my life for the next 10 years — I like to think about the 10 year span because if we commit to doing things for 10 years, amazing stuff happens that we may never have expected.

So when I think about my life, the main thing that stays the same is books and travel. These are the things I come back to again and again. The things I truly, truly love.

I’m also fascinated by the inner and outer journeys that both books and travel can bring — a change in perspective, an empathy. Perhaps an entirely new direction in your life because of something you’ve read or somewhere you’ve been or something you’ve experienced. If you know what I mean, then I hope that you are going to enjoy this podcast.

I’m also going to write two books from this material over time. I have been thinking about a travel memoir for many years, and also I’ve talked about what is a working title, The Shadow Book, which is very much about creating from the dark side of ourselves.

I’ve wanted to write these books for many years. They’ve been bubbling away, and yet I have not made time for those to emerge. So partly this podcast is me giving time to these books. I don’t know what the memoir is or what the Shadow book is at the moment, but I know that by creating this material this way, I will be able to tap into things that I have not tapped into before, and that in itself is quite exciting.

I’m also a little scared because it will mean being very transparent, being open about things I haven’t shared necessarily before. I might have written about in a fictionalised way, but you might never know what’s true and what’s not true. So I will be talking about those things on this show over time.”

Click here to listen or read the whole episode with pictures

It’s fascinating to revisit that first episode now because I feel like —

As this goes out, I am about to turn 50. I’ve been a professional full-time author since 2011, I’ve written almost fifty books and short stories across multiple genres as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn, and I finally feel like I have the creative confidence to step in a new direction.

The two books I mentioned that I wanted to write in that clip are now out in the world. Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways is my midlife travel memoir, written mostly over the pandemic years when I did multi-day walks that kept me sane and helped me find my way again in difficult times.

It was also my first Kickstarter campaign and my first beautiful hardback book with color photos of my travels. You can find several episodes about pilgrimage in the backlist including my thoughts from the Camino de Santiago and an excerpt from the audiobook, which I narrated.

My Shadow book came soon after, the full title is Writing the Shadow: Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words — as by writing the memoir, I was able to tap into the more personal side of my writing.

That process released a lot of blocks for me, so if you’re writing a memoir, then I hope you persist, as it’s one of the hardest and also one of the most rewarding genres to write.

Both of those books scared me in the writing process, and both of them contain vulnerabilities I haven’t shared anywhere else — they changed my writing, taking it into deeper waters, which is part of my aim with conversations in this show.

Which brings me back to the metaphor of the ocean which I use on the podcast logo and which characterises the content of the podcast and also the articles I post on BooksAndTravel.page. Here’s another snippet from that first episode which expands on this, From Lake Malawi, Jerusalem, and Blue Water Sailing to Vanuatu. The Three Trips That Changed My Life.

But I want to do two aspects in this show.

First of all, the dappled light of turquoise shallows, and I want you to picture that in your mind. You are safe. You are maybe just paddling. You’ve got your feet in, you’re in the sun, you’ve got a cocktail in your hand or a fruit juice or whatever you like to drink, and sparkling water, wine. You are enjoying the simple joys of a new place.

And so I will be talking about my travels and also interviewing authors around the places that inspire our writing, and we will talk about food and drink and the lighter side of travel, which, will help you explore.

We’ll also be looking at what books you might like to read about places, so that will be the lighter side of travel, but I also want to explore what I’m calling the dark midnight depths, and that to me is —

That edge of challenge and a pull to the deep, and some mystery, and the things that are a little bit darker around travel.

It’s not all sweetness and light. It’s not all cocktails and tapas. We go to travel and we go to books for that challenge, for a change, for deeper meaning.

So I want to explore, perhaps what is the most important exploration of all, which is the inner transformation, the inner journey.”

***

So why do we travel, whether it’s in person or in our minds through books and listening to people on podcasts like this, and in movies and films and photos and social media?

In an interview on the meaning of travel, philosopher Emily Thomas gave her thoughts:

It’s all about going to places that are new and unfamiliar and trying to figure out how to make sense of them, how to map them onto the world that you do know.

My best travel experiences have actually been ones where I have gone to some place where I haven’t understood anything around me, not the language, not what’s going on in the street, not the social cues, and I have very slowly, by reading and talking to people, let it come to put the pieces together and come to understand the place.”

***

It certainly drives me in terms of research around the books I want to write and the stories I want to tell. So much so that I want to write a book on curiosity at some point, so I hope that will spill out of this show in some way, as Pilgrimage and the Shadow book did last time.

In an interview on Curiosity, Wonder, and Serendipity, I talked to Steve Brock about Hidden Travel, and I asked him how can people tap into their curiosity?

“Well, it starts with knowing what it is that you actually love, and believe it or not, most human beings don’t know what it is that they really deeply, truly love. We are so keyed into distractions that we don’t really know what our deep passions are.

I talked to one person who has a friend she loves rollercoasters, and so she plans all of her trips around amusement parks around the world. And you think, okay, well that’s a nice little hobby. But the fun thing about that is that she has connected now with this entire community of rollercoaster aficionados, and she has found her tribe, if you will.

And so part of it has led to not just new places and destinations, but that curiosity has grown into relationships that she really treasures, and she has some great friends as a result of that.

One thing I think it’s important for people to remember is that curiosity is not the same for everybody, nor is any single person curious about everything. I may be curious about, for example, history type of things, as you are, you’re curious about cemeteries.

Know what it is that you’re curious about.

I may take a cooking class on a trip that I would never take at home, or I may explore a new type of physical activity like kayaking on a trip that I just wouldn’t do at home.

Use the freedom that you have there from the routine to not only spark that curiosity, but to pursue that curiosity.”

***

I certainly pursue my curiosity for the seeds of my stories and all my books as J.F. Penn have been inspired by my travels or places I’ve read about.

My ARKANE thrillers are truly international in scope from the burning ghats of Varanasi, India in the first scene in my first thriller, Stone of Fire, to Vienna, Nuremberg and Washington DC in Spear of Destiny, the most recent adventure.

My Mapwalker fantasy adventures were inspired by an antique map shop here in my city of Bath when I wondered what might happen if I could walk through the ancient map into a world off the edge of our own — might I find the places written off our maps somehow, and the people and the creatures that end up there?

My Brooke & Daniel crime thrillers are based in modern day London and resonate with the history of the city.

My standalone stories are all over the shop — from Death Valley set in California, to Seahenge on the Norfolk coast, to New Zealand for Risen Gods, and the biodynamic vineyards of Somerset for Blood Vintage.

Everywhere I go I find places and people and artifacts and myths that spark story, and part of this show is about talking to authors who also experience the same thing.

In Catnip for a Novelist, I talked to thriller and fantasy author Layton Green about how he uses his travels in book research.

I love talking to Layton as his Dominic Grey thrillers are similar to my ARKANE stories, and we’ve written about some of the same places, even though we are very different people.

“I will plan my books around where I want to travel, but of course if the narrative takes me elsewhere, I’ll follow the narrative. But usually they intertwine really closely and you can always work a place into the plot that you haven’t been before that you want to go.

But a lot of my novels, as I’m getting into the plot and writing the story, things will come up or places will come up that I want to visit and I’ll just decide, okay, it’s on. That’s gonna be where I’m going and that’s part of the story.

I’ve found that for me the best way is to take notes. As I travel, I take some pictures, but I never look at them for writing. I will take my little Moleskine notebook and my pen and definitely the best part of my job is, I’ll just go to a place and I’ll walk around and I’ll record my thoughts and impressions, and that I have found leads to my best writing.

I think a hallmark of my writing is that I try to stay as true as possible, especially when it comes to setting. And the only caveat to that is the old parable of the blind men touching an elephant, where they’ll each touch a different part of the elephant, so they’ll come away with a vastly different conception of what an elephant is. I think it’s a little bit like that with travel.

Take Zimbabwe for example. I’ve been very pleased to know that people from Zimbabwe have liked my book and the descriptions of it. But it’s probably written more for people that have not been to Zimbabwe or have only been a little bit. I’ve had plenty of books where I’ve had locals tell me that isn’t how this place is, and I’m thinking, actually it is.

It was just my perception of it.

***

I love that phrase — “what I wrote about was true in its own way.”

This applies to both fiction and memoir and anything that is fixed in time, because everything changes and we change, too. That’s part of why I love these conversations, because everyone has a different perspective and we get to dip in and just for a little while, try to experience something in a different way.

In a conversation with literary fiction author Roz Morris about Travels without Sense of Direction, she talks about how she didn’t even know how much place affected her stories until writing her memoir.

“I hadn’t realized how much actually until I wrote Not Quite Lost because I went back through a diary that I’d kept and —

I actually wrote the novels and I hadn’t realized how far those experiences and, and the impressions they’d given me. I hadn’t realized how far they’d stayed with me and so that’s quite a revelation.

I found that my novel Life Form Three, which is set in an unspecified time in the future. All the countryside has gone except there is one country estate that’s been preserved because it belonged to somebody and it has trees and valleys and hills and a ruined house in a wood, and there’s nowhere else left like that in the entire country. And that came from the travels I’d written about in that diary and had forgotten about, so environment really inspires me.

When you’re with horses, they make you very aware of the environment. I noticed the different colors of grass changing all the time and leaf buds and things like that. And a horse makes you very aware of it because a horse experiences the environment in a very different way. It can hear things you don’t even know are there. It notices smells and sounds that you don’t know are there. It makes you very aware of your environment.

And I thought one day as I was riding on an old path and I thought under this path are probably the footprints of other people and other people on horses maybe. And it just made me feel there was a huge story about buried things and things that had gone and it was the horse that made me realize that we have this connection to nature. And then I thought, what if you wrote about a place where all that had nearly gone, and horses are like a conduit back to it.”

***

I love that Roz talks there about being on a horse as a different way to experience a place. I’m allergic to horses, so I am never going to write from that perspective, but it’s good to consider how you can have an experience of travel without having to cross the world to some far off place.

You can always see places near you with new eyes, which we all learned about in the pandemic when we couldn’t go so far.

In an interview with Brianna Madia we talked about The Unexpected Road to an Unconventional Life and she talked about —

“I think that we get comfortable, and especially now with social media, we look online and we think that travel has to be a week holiday in a tropical place, or you have to be taking a selfie on an airplane in order to be traveling.

And there were so many beautiful places that I could have easily gotten to over the weekend, back back in Connecticut. And I’m embarrassed at how little I explored where I actually grew up. And I think a lot of people feel that way. You just tend to fall into this routine of like, oh, I’ve probably seen it all.

I think that that’s another reason that I’ve fallen so in love with the desert is I just know it’s such a classic example of a landscape where it’s impossible to have seen it all. You can always look and find something new and I wish I had applied that thinking to the place that I grew up because I believe there’s beautiful things everywhere.”

***

We all find different things beautiful, and —

— gothic architecture, graveyards, ossuaries, crypts, dark travel, ruins. I am basically like Wednesday from The Addams Family, except I don’t dress that way. I’m a vanilla goth.

But while some people think these interests are morbid, others see memento mori — remember you will die — as a way to live harder, to live more in the present, and to make the most of every day.

In my interview with Loren Rhoads about cemeteries and graveyards, we discussed being Life Obsessed, and talked about our favourite places to visit —

“I don’t think it’s morbid at all. Somebody will accuse me of being death obsessed and for me, it’s the opposite. I am life obsessed. I know we’ve just got a certain number of days, so why wouldn’t you spend it out in the sunshine? Listening to birdsong and looking at beautiful art. What have you got to do with your life that’s better than that?

I don’t know. I just don’t see cemeteries as morbid at all. I think it’s beautiful that we remember people. There are all these amazing stories in the cemetery that you can learn with a tour guide is the best way. But even just walking around and looking at the stones and reading the lovely old names and trying to make guesses about the iconography and their days of birth and death. It’s a way of connecting with the past that looking at architecture doesn’t do for me. Don’t let a day pass because you have a gift to bring to the world.”

***

I love that attitude of being life-obsessed, and part of what I love about life is traveling and reading, which brings me back to why I am rebooting this show, and why I already have interviews planned with different guests and also some solo episodes coming too.

I’m planning to release a new episode every second week, and you can also have a listen to the backlist. There are 92 episodes, most interviews around a book or a place or a mode of travel, or a philosophy, and others are solo shows where I talk about places I’ve lived and the places that have inspired my books.

Every episode is evergreen so you can listen at any time, there’s nothing time-sensitive. I hope that you can escape virtually and enjoy traveling away even in your mind, and of course, there are book recommendations in every episode. There’s a transcript and photos and links for each episode all linked at BooksAndTravel.page/listen

You can find my books and short stories at JFPennBooks.com and also on the usual stores. I also narrate some of my stories now, and most are available in audio format on all the major platforms.

I’d love to hear what you think about the show, as well as any questions or book recommendations or ideas for future episodes, and send me pictures of where you’re listening and you can also follow me on Instagram @jfpennauthor.

Happy travels — and I’ll see you next time!

The post Curiosity, Reinvention, And Inspiration: The Return Of Books and Travel appeared first on Books And Travel.

Why is resilience such an important part of pilgrimage? How can embracing the challenge of the way help in daily life? Why do we need to heed the call to pilgrimage before it’s too late?

I’m Jo Frances Penn and in this episode, I share some clips from podcast interviews I’ve done around my new book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. Thanks to Travel Writing World with Jeremy Bassetti, Into the Woods with Holly Worton, and Sacred Steps with Kevin Donahue, podcasts you will enjoy as listeners to this show.

As this goes out, Pilgrimage is available now in a special limited edition signed hardback, as well as a paperback, ebook, audiobook narrated by me, large print edition, and a workbook.

In this episode, I talk about: 

In this first clip from the Travel Writing World podcast with Jeremy Bassetti, I talk about the specific pilgrimages I walked and why they’re interesting, even if you’re not religious. 

Jeremy Bassetti: The book is called Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways.

Jo Frances Penn: So, I did the Pilgrims’ Way first, which is from Southwark Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral in the southeast of England. And that’s the route of The Canterbury Tales, which I’m sure people have heard of, medieval tales by Geoffrey Chaucer and it was about visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket who was martyred under Henry II.

And it was the pandemic and it was also the 850-year anniversary of the Becket martyrdom. So that kind of helped me decide to do that one. I couldn’t go and do the Camino during the pandemic because of course we couldn’t travel. And also, I’d highly recommend it as an easy route for a first multi-day solo.

Then the second one was the St Cuthbert’s Way from Melrose in Scotland to Lindisfarne, Holy Island on the northeast coast of England. And St. Cuthbert was a medieval monk and a bishop. And, I wrote about Lindisfarne in my thriller Day of the Vikings, so I really wanted to do that and that was a spectacular route. I highly recommend the Cuthbert’s.

Then finally there was the Camino, a goal I’ve had for several decades, and I did the Camino de Santiago Portuguese Coastal route from Porto in Portugal, up to Santiago De Compostela. I feel like the Camino is quite mythical for many people and certainly for me.

And when I had COVID the year before, in 2021, and I was really sick and I realized that maybe one day I would not be able to walk — obviously at some point none of us will be able to walk, right, we will be dead! — and I thought, well, if I don’t do this now, maybe I’ll never do it. And I have said I wanted to do it for many years and now I’ve got to do it.

So I committed and I’m so glad I did that route finally, and it really enabled me to finish the book, but yes, those were the three. 

Jeremy Bassetti: So I mean, these three pilgrimage routes that you mentioned here, that you went on, all have religious connotations, but you mentioned in the book that you are more secular-minded. 

Jo Frances Penn: Well, I am not a Christian, although I have a chapter in the book about my faith history. Many of us have this faith history by midlife, you know, an experience of finding God and losing him again or whatever that means to the individual. 

But I’m certainly spiritual. I consider myself spiritual and I mean, you talk about genius loci, the spirit of the place. And I absolutely have had moments of connection with whatever we want to call it, the universe or God if you want, in different places. And certainly did on these routes too. 

So while I am secular — as in I don’t adhere to a particular religion — I absolutely respect people of faith. I have a master’s degree in Theology, and pretty much all my fiction is based on religion and I love religious places. 

What is wonderful about these pilgrimage routes, these ancient ways, is that people have walked these particular routes in Europe for a thousand years, and that’s what gives them a lot of resonance.

It also means they’re packed full of amazing churches and cathedrals and beautiful architecture. And I love architecture. I’m a super fan of architecture. So I guess the pilgrimage aspect is both the walking from here to here, the historical side of it, and the beautiful places along the way.

My discussion with Jeremy continues into why walking is healing and why pilgrimage in particular can heal deeper wounds of the soul, how the gifts of pilgrimage come with hindsight, why we travel, and how to figure out what kind of travel book to write. 

You can listen to the rest of the episode on Travel Writing World on your favorite podcast app. Jeremy also has interviews with travel writers like Pico Iyer, Colin Thubron, and many more on his show, or check out his website TravelWritingWorld.com 

In this next section, I’m interviewed by Holly Worton on her Into The Woods Podcast, which is fantastic for solo adventures, pushing your comfort zone in the outdoors and in life, and generally has lots of interviews with people about all kinds of travel. 

In this clip, we talk about what I learned from pilgrimage including the aspect of memento mori, and then the three types of energy involved in a pilgrimage. 

***

Holly Worton:

Because I know you’d said that you walked them during very challenging times, which of course the entire world was going through

Jo Frances Penn: Yes, well, I think the biggest thing was resilience. And again, I mean, you talk about this with the solo adventures and or anything that pushes your comfort zone. 

So, for example, I’ve done a lot of walking holidays with tour companies like Exodus, and I’m reasonably fit. So the walking aspect is one thing, but doing it alone is difficult. And in fact, you recommended the NNAS navigation course. 

Holly: Yes, of course. 

Jo: I went on one of those. Because I was like, ‘I don’t know how to read a map.’ Well, I did in Girl Guides, but you know, it’s been a long time. So I re-skilled. 

And then it was facing up to the fears around being alone or getting lost, which I did — and getting sick. I didn’t get sick on the walks but of course, the fear of sickness while walking during the beginning of the pandemic, particularly when none of us had got it yet. We were very afraid, even though now we know there was hardly any round at that time, but it kind of emerged. 

Walking in pain was a challenge. So on the Camino, I had pretty bad blisters the second week and you have to get up every morning and you’re like, ‘I really don’t want to walk on these feet,’ but I’m going to do it anyway.

So yes, I think this gift of structure, the boundaries, the resilience of learning new things. Just the escape from daily life is also really important and that perspective that we talked about. And then the other thing that I always think about a lot is the memento mori idea of, “remember, you will die,” but in a positive way, as in life is short, so make the most of it.

I think it’s much more obvious on pilgrimage routes because for example, if you go to Southwark Cathedral in London, at the start of the Pilgrim’s Way, that has been a church for a thousand years, and then you get to Canterbury and again, it’s been there since medieval times. You walk through these places and you realize how many other people have been here or the people who built those sculptures.

And what’s interesting at Southwark and Canterbury, and you rarely see such things, but there are these two cadaver tombs. That’s what they’re called. The tombs have a cadaver on. Normally if you see a medieval tomb or any kind of tomb, there’s maybe a knight lying on the top in full armor or a noble person with all their robes, and they look like a living human lying down on a bed or something.

But both Southwark and Canterbury have these cadaver tombs where the figure on the top is a dead body. And this is very rare. In Canterbury it’s even more unusual because it’s like bunk beds. The Archbishop built this while he was alive, so he could look at it every time he preached.

On the bottom level is him as a cadaver naked except for a little shroud. Then on the bunk bed above is him dressed in his full archbishop’s finery. Obviously, it’s meant to teach you that it doesn’t matter what you are in life. One day you will just be this dead body and you will turn to dust.

And I find this invigorating and it helps me live every day better because I know I’m going to die. And it was weird on the Camino because it was the second or third day of my Camino when Queen Elizabeth II died. 

And so I walked the route, and that whole week the TVs were full of her life. So often we look at ourselves in the mirror and we might see a picture of us as younger people and be like, oh, you know, I’m getting old, or whatever. But there are pictures of the Queen her entire life, and they were all on TV, so you could actually see this woman’s life from child to middle age to death.

And it was that memento mori idea again that we remember as we walk and to make the most of these things while we’re alive. Because one day I will not be able to walk the Camino or another pilgrimage. So do the things you want to do while you still can — but in a positive way!

Holly Worton:

Jo Frances Penn: The first one is starting energy, which is turning it from a dream into a goal.

So it took me like 20 years to actually book the Camino, 25 years or whatever. So it’s the organization, it’s booking time off, it’s training, it’s getting past those fears and obstacles. It’s figuring out all the practical stuff because you think, oh yes, I’ll just be walking and I’ll have my spiritual moments, but there’s a hell of a lot of practical stuff to actually get it going. 

So starting energy is everything up to the night before and then pushing through energy is once you are actually on the route. It’s ‘I really want to give up because I’m in pain’ or I’m actually injured, or I’m really, really bored with wearing the same clothes and washing them every day and the same food, the same bread, you know, whatever.

Holly: It’s the other challenges along the way, like the Camino you mentioned being busy —

Jo: Yes, those last few days are busy and I was annoyed at other pilgrims, I was like, I am so annoyed that this pilgrim is playing music. Or I’m annoyed that there are literally a hundred pilgrims ahead of me. I can see them all on the path, and I do not like this. 

And that was a challenge in itself because whereas the Cuthbert’s, for example, I was alone on a hill in a storm. And that’s a completely different challenge. But that pushing through energy is, “I am going to finish. I can do this, I will get through this. I just need to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.”

So that’s the pushing through energy that gets you to the end. And then the finishing energy is that return, and the reflection and learning the lessons. Maybe it’s printing the pictures that you did or taking your journal and turning it into something else, facing the questions that you thought of while you were on the walk.

Because when you get home, what happens is you put your clothes in the wash. That’s like one of the first things that you do. You get all the crap out of your backpack and you give your partner a cuddle and you cuddle your pets and then you log onto your email and you start all the backlog of stuff you need to catch up on and paying bills, and it’s very easy to just get back and get on with life. 

But you need that finishing energy to review what happened because the gifts of pilgrimage take some time. 

It’s so weird because I thought I would write three guidebooks like you have your guidebooks, your reflective books, and yet this book, it just wouldn’t come. I couldn’t figure it out. 

And then when I finished my Camino, I finally understood what the pattern was and what I learned from all three routes. So the subtitle is Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. And I almost feel like I couldn’t have learned those lessons without all three of them.

And I say in the book, if you don’t feel that there are any gifts from your pilgrimage, then perhaps you haven’t walked enough. Maybe you need to go on another pilgrimage. I thought I could change my life with a weekend walk but no, it took longer than I expected.

***

You can listen to the rest of the episode on the Into The Woods Podcast on your favorite podcast app — and Holly and I talk about why pilgrimage is different to other long-distance walks, some of the interesting historical and spiritual aspects, how we both remember reading Paulo Coelho’s Pilgrimage book back in the 90s, how we both enjoy the feeling of insignificance, why we have to revisit the memories of our trips or they fade away, and much more. 

Holly’s show is one I personally listen to and I think you’ll enjoy the range of her interviews. She also has guidebooks to solo walking routes like The Ridgeway and more, and she has been on this podcast before in episode 42 about solo walking — In fact, my discussions with Holly about her adventures and her books helped inspire my own, so definitely check out her show.

In this final clip, I talk to Kevin Donahue on the Sacred Steps Podcast which is all about pilgrimage, and Kevin has had some fantastic guests on to talk about lots of different routes, and he’s also been on this show in episode 86 talking about his pilgrimages. We almost met in person as we crossed the sands to Lindisfarne just days apart, but we never quite made it, so it was lovely to talk again. You can listen as a podcast or watch the interview on YouTube.

In this segment, we talk about how pilgrimage reminds us we are animals, and how it gives a much-needed perspective on life.

***

Kevin:

Jo Frances Penn: There’s a book in the Bible that I really like, Ecclesiastes. It’s one of my favorite books in the Bible. And I have a Master’s in Theology even though I’m not a Christian anymore. But there’s a quote that I actually put into the book, “As for humans, God tests them so they might know they are animals.” 

And I just love that quote because that to me is something I need to remember. My animal body is what walks a pilgrimage. And my spiritual mind and my intellectual mind are part of my physical body. 

And I feel like so much sometimes, like you and I, we are not physically in the same space. We can see each other, but we’re connecting with our minds across this virtual space. And yet, pilgrimage is such a physical journey. 

And also I was going through the female experience of midlife, hormonal changes, which have a very animal effect. You are just completely out of control. You are like, what the hell is happening to me? And I have no control over this. 

And then like we mentioned, the tides and all these transient things and the idea of memento mori. So when I walked the Camino Portuguese, Queen Elizabeth II died in the UK and as I walked every day that week, her pictures were on all the TVs that you walked past in the cafes and stuff.

So they showed her whole life, the beautiful young woman who ascended the throne across the challenges of midlife to her old age, her husband dying, and her dying. And it was like, I’m not a queen, but I’m another woman. And I see this woman’s life and it will all end, and to me that is so important to remember for my spiritual side.

It’s a sense of being part of this wonderful world and this amazing universe, whether you believe God created it or not. The sense of being an animal walking across the face of the world and nothing else matters. Like that’s the thing. Nothing else matters. 

Now, of course, everything matters. Your family matters. My husband matters. My cats matter, my work matters. 

But when you are walking a pilgrimage and you have that simple life — and the gratitude. I am so grateful for this cold beer or this shade of this tree or the hot shower when I’m really sweaty and it’s gross and I just want a shower or the painkillers. I’m so grateful for the pharmaceutical industry, for my blister plasters and my painkillers, and my Albarino wine and like all those things.

It’s that perspective. That’s what it comes down to. Being able to hold onto that perspective when everything feels overwhelming and you’re just like, what is the point? 

And then you realize this is the point. The point is being an animal in the world.

*** 

I hope you found those clips interesting, and you can listen to the complete episodes on the podcast feeds for Travel Writing World with Jeremy Bassetti, Into the Woods with Holly Worton, and Sacred Steps with Kevin Donahue.

Pilgrimage is available now in a special limited edition signed hardback, as well as a paperback, ebook, audiobook narrated by me, large print edition, and a workbook.

Happy travels until next time. 

The post The Call To Pilgrimage, Resilience, And Embracing Challenge With J.F. Penn appeared first on Books And Travel.

In this episode, I share two chapters from my book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. You can buy the audiobook, as well as the special edition hardback, paperback and ebook, at www.JFPenn.com/pilgrimage

“Nothing ever is, everything is becoming… All things are passing and nothing abides.” —Heraclitus

On each of my three pilgrimages, I encountered places where I was aware of walking through history, where there was a sense of life being but a brief flash of light across the span of time. My passing on each route was momentary, but pilgrims have walked the same ways for hundreds of years and will continue to walk for generations to come.

The three historic cathedrals are must-visit locations — Southwark Cathedral and Canterbury Cathedral on the Pilgrims’ Way, and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela at the end of the Camino. Each has their splendours, and it’s worth allowing extra time to visit them. In the same way, the ruined abbey of Lindisfarne and its associated church are insights into history — but these are all obvious highlights.

Here are some other places where I felt a historical perspective.

The first day’s walk on the Pilgrims’ Way from Southwark Cathedral is through gritty, urban sprawl along a main road, dense with traffic. It might not look like much, but this is the Old Kent Road, originally built by the Romans, linking London to the coast near Dover, and later renamed Watling Street by the Anglo-Saxons.

At a busy corner with Peckham Park Road, under the overhanging porch of the Everlasting Arms Ministry, lies a gigantic thousand-square-foot mosaic mural. The History of Old Kent Road by Adam Kossowski has separate panels, each portraying an era of history. The foundation of the city by Romans in their togas surrounded by soldiers with military standards, then medieval London with Chaucer’s pilgrims heading for Canterbury and a quote from the poem. King Henry V rides in triumph along the road after the battle of Agincourt, followed by the rebellion of Jack Cade against the government. King Charles II reclaims the throne in the next panel, and then modern London emerges with its British ‘bobby’ policeman, Pearly Kings and Queens with their mother-of-pearl button suits, and the factories of the city with modern cars driving along.

The mural encapsulates two thousand years of history and yet most pass by without realising that the stones they drive over or walk along have witnessed such historical events.

The artist himself represents another aspect of modern history. Adam Kossowski was Polish and arrived in the UK as a refugee from the Soviet labour camps in 1943. As well as this mural, he created many other artistic works, including the History of the Carmelites of Aylesford, at the abbey, which also lies on the Pilgrims’ Way and where he was buried after his death in 1986.

The ruins of twelfth-century Lesnes Abbey (pronounced ‘lane’) lie on the Pilgrims’ Way in an ancient woodland in east London. Founded in 1178 by the Chief Justiciar to Henry II, it may have been part of a penance to atone for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century, the abbey fell into ruin and was eventually lost to farmland before being restored in modern times. The ruins now feature much-appreciated public toilets and a cafe along the Green Chain Walk that forms part of the Pilgrims’ Way.

There is a memorial of three triple archways that overlook the ruins, and an ancient mulberry tree with the skyscrapers of the city of London framed on the horizon.

The mulberry tree represents patience, as it will not bud until there is no danger of frost. Its red berries also represent sacrifice, as depicted by Shakespeare’s forbidden lovers Pyramis and Thisbe, who died under a mulberry bush, their blood staining the berries red.

Lesnes Abbey is a place of ancient nature and medieval faith against a backdrop of modern London. Well worth a visit.

There are unusual cadaver tombs in both Southwark and Canterbury Cathedral, at the beginning and the end of the Pilgrims’ Way. These are rare depictions of the deceased as corpses as opposed to the grand effigies usually sitting above the tombs of nobility.

The Southwark cadaver is the medieval tomb of Thomas Cure, who died in 1588, the same year as the Spanish Armada, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Its skeletal frame is weathered by time, its face disintegrated. It’s clearly a dead body, partially wrapped in a shroud, a simple representation of the inevitability of death.

The Canterbury cadaver tomb is on an entirely different scale in terms of grandeur. The tomb of Archbishop Henry Chichele, who died in 1443, has two levels, one showing the effigy of the deceased man in full ecclesiastical robes and, underneath, the cadaver stripped of all its finery, lying naked except for a shroud. It’s surrounded by an ornately decorated arch with figures from church history. A tour guide told me that the archbishop had the tomb built many years before his death so he could look at it every day and contemplate his end.

This natural sandstone cave lies within a National Trust reserve on the final day’s walk towards Lindisfarne, Holy Island. The cave has a wide mouth and is ringed by a wood of Scots pine. According to legend, the monks fleeing from a medieval Viking invasion stopped in the cave with the remains of St Cuthbert.

It doesn’t really matter if his body lay there over a thousand years ago. The cave is clearly a natural shelter from the dark and cold and wild weather, and humans certainly rested and slept here over millennia. There is fire damage and graffiti, both old and new, evidence of people making their mark across time.

On my approach to the cave, an adder with its distinctive zig-zag markings crossed the path in front of me. A protected species, the adder is the UK’s only venomous snake, but they are secretive creatures and rarely seen. I had never seen one in the wild before, and it was a precious moment.

As I sat on a rock in the rain eating my lunch, there was a sense of being part of an ancient environment. If I slept in the cave in the dark of night, perhaps I might hear the crackle of ancient flames and the whisper of the long-dead.

While walking an ancient route like the Camino de Santiago helps the pilgrim to reflect on mortality, it is almost impossible to comprehend a thousand years of pilgrims walking ahead and many more coming behind.

But while I walked in September 2022, I had a vivid reminder of memento mori — remember, you will die — as Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of ninety-six on the second day of my pilgrimage. Snippets of her life punctuated each following day of my Camino on TV in coffee bars and glimpses of newspapers, and I couldn’t help but read some of the UK media coverage online when resting at the end of the day.

It was strange to walk outside of my country during such a historically significant week. I remember seeing newly carved statues of the Queen and Prince Philip mounted outside the cathedral in Canterbury on my first pilgrimage in October 2020. The stone was paler than the other sculptures of historic monarchs. The features weren’t yet weathered — and of course, both were still alive then. There was a sense of standing next to living history, as another generation passed, and now they are both gone.

I am not an ardent royalist by any means, but the Queen was a constant across my life, as she was for many people in the UK and around the world. As I walked my Camino, the news was full of pictures of her as a young woman, then middle-aged going through the trials of life, then an old woman at her husband’s funeral, and in her final days, standing bent over and smiling as she welcomed the new Prime Minister. The span of an extraordinary life against the backdrop of history.

Her life passed by, as will mine and yours. Even a Queen cannot hold back the end.

I walked into Santiago de Compostela on the day of her funeral and, as I rested in my hotel that afternoon, I watched her coffin being lowered into the vault at Windsor Castle. It was a fitting end to my pilgrimage and underscored the sense that something must die for change to happen — new life will emerge from the ashes of the old.

Questions:

“All such sites are regarded as thin places, set apart from the world, moving to a different drum, and possessed of an innately special atmosphere because of their connection to another, higher dimension.” —Peter Stanford, Pilgrimage: Journeys of Meaning

The paths and final destinations of great pilgrimage routes have been imbued with so much meaning over centuries, they call both to those who believe and those who don’t follow a particular faith.

The depth of history and belief of the faithful over generations impart a deeper resonance to certain places where the veil is thin, and you are closer to God, or a sense of the divine. Your pilgrimage will have moments of spiritual meaning if you are open to them, although, of course, they may come at unexpected times.

Here are some moments where I glimpsed the divine while walking these ancient ways.

I was exhausted as I emerged from the Thames Path Walkway and passed through the gritty, urban sprawl of Erith in East London. I’d already walked around thirty-eight kilometres that day, and I still had several more to walk before I reached my hotel in Dartford. It was October, and dusk was fast approaching.

I took a wrong turn and found myself alongside a busy dual carriageway, the noise of so many cars jolting me back into the modern world. I considered getting a bus or even a taxi to carry me through the last few kilometres, but I had promised myself I would walk every step of my pilgrimage and this was only the first day.

As I trudged on through an industrial estate echoing with the rumble of cranes hauling heavy equipment, the screech of trucks, and the shouts of workers, I wondered what the hell I was doing there.

But then the path opened out onto a flood plain where horses grazed on common land, and the way ahead ran alongside the river once more. This was Erith Saltings, an ancient salt marsh, part of the Thames estuary that can’t be built upon as the tide may wash it away. The remains of an ancient fossilised forest dating back to Neolithic times over five thousand years ago lie partially submerged beneath the water, and on the opposite bank lies the Rainham Marshes Nature Reserve. Oyster catchers waded in the shallows, and a regal heron rested on a solitary spar emerging from the water.

But this is no pristine wilderness. The path runs alongside a recycling centre, with the stink of waste coming from huge sorting bins filled with all kinds of discarded human detritus.

I turned my back on the industrial centre and looked out over the salt marsh, as a flock of Canada geese flew overhead, calling to one another in the dusk. With the warbling trill of skylarks and the whistle of the wind off the river, I stood in a moment out of time. The ancient forest buried beneath the waters once echoed with birdsong, and, after human civilisation has passed away, the birds will sing on.

Whether it was the juxtaposition of such ugliness alongside natural beauty, or the timelessness of the fossilised forest with the ephemeral sound of birdsong — or just my exhaustion — I stepped into a thin place there.

After a time, a metallic crash jolted me back to the present. I turned to see an urban fox waiting by the side of the industrial centre, an inquisitive look on his face as I passed by.

My pack seemed lighter as I walked the rest of the way along the River Darent into Dartford, grateful that I had not skipped this part of the journey.

It was dark outside when I entered the cathedral, my final destination on the Pilgrims’ Way. With my mask in place, I walked to my solitary chair in the nave, directed by a similarly masked attendant who made sure all present followed pandemic rules. There were a few other people there, all separated by several metres, the space around us cold in the autumn evening.

The choir entered in a line, walking across the nave in robes of purple, all of them masked. They arranged themselves on the steps in front of the quire screen, physically distanced, before removing their face coverings.

They sang psalms in Latin, their voices soaring high into the vault above, harmonising together even as they stood so far apart. This cathedral was built for the glory of God and these men sang for Him too, but also surely for the sheer joy of human voices coming together in song at a time of so much separation.

Ancient stone, ancient words, ancient faith — and the transience of each note disappearing into silence once more.

I stayed for the service, but it was the practice before that truly moved me, and those minutes almost alone in the cathedral nave that freed my spirit. A fitting end to my Pilgrims’ Way.

I rose before the dawn on the final morning of my pilgrimage on the St Cuthbert’s Way. I stood at a farm gate looking east into the rising sun, next to a field of curious alpacas and chickens quietly clucking in their roost. As the darkness lifted, the castle on Lindisfarne stood in silhouette against bars of coral clouds, shot through with luminous yellow and pink as the sun rose above the horizon.

The end was so close now.

I was relieved because my muscles ached and I wanted to stop and rest and not walk another day, but I was also sad that the journey was almost over. I wanted to finish the path, but also to keep going. Yet there is nothing beyond Lindisfarne, only the North Sea, and I would reach the furthest point that day.

The clearing sky indicated that the weather would be fine for my crossing of the sands, but I still felt some trepidation. The tidal website warned it was only safe to cross with a guide, and there were tales of walkers lost to the sea in the fog, or cars stranded on the causeway as water reclaimed the land.

But I had prepared, and I knew it was safe to cross. All that remained was to step off onto the sands that the sea left behind.

As the sky turned pale blue, I returned to the farm to retrieve my pack, hefting it onto my shoulders for the last time.

It was only a few kilometres from the farm to the edge of the causeway. I walked with Dave and Keith, pilgrims I had met a few days back after getting lost on the boggy moor. On the way down, Keith and I discovered we had both studied theology and read many of the same books. Whereas I had turned my degree into the basis of my thrillers, he had spent a life of service as a social worker, supporting those with mental health issues. We disagreed on matters of faith, but there was a spark of intellectual connection. Pilgrimage encourages the discussion of such deeper matters and I fleetingly wished we could carry on our debate. But we were soon at the edge of South Low, where the tide had turned and the waters were receding.

Several enormous concrete blocks lay just before the causeway, anti-tank sea defences from World War II. There were signs warning of unexploded ordnance in the area as well as quicksand, and more warnings of what could happen if the tide cut you off. It was hard to imagine the military swarming over this area, now a National Nature Reserve, protected for the biodiversity of life within its shifting sands and tidal waters.

A series of marker poles stretched across the sand to Lindisfarne, interspersed by two wooden refuges on stilts for those who could not beat the tide. The sky was pale blue and clouds scudded high above, and I could see all the way to Holy Island. It was safe to cross.

I rolled my walking trousers up above my knees. Walking barefoot was the traditional way to cross, but I had blisters and raw patches on my feet, so I wore my walking shoes with waterproof socks. I grasped my poles to steady myself — then stepped off the causeway onto the sand.

I wanted to walk the final stretch alone, so after taking photos with Keith and Dave, I let them stride ahead.

The sand was initially firm underfoot as I followed the path of tall wooden poles towards Holy Island. I skirted around deeper pools of water, stepping over the wiggly casts of lugworms and the footprints of wader birds. Gulls flew overhead, their calls piercing the air.

There were patches of grass in places and channels of deeper water to navigate, with sections of sucking mud which I clambered through, using my walking poles to gain a more even footing. I almost lost one shoe in the mud, and it was certainly a more challenging walk than I expected. Less a stroll across firm sand, and more an adventure to reach the final destination.

The lower parts of the wooden guide poles were covered with barnacles and bladder wrack seaweed, surrounded by winkle shells and long strands of sea grass. Crabs scuttled in the shallow water, trying to sink away from the light. The upper parts of the poles that lay above the tide were stark white, reflecting the morning sun, and I could imagine pilgrims spotting them with relief on a foggy crossing.

I stopped halfway across and turned my back on the causeway, looking south across the water to Bamburgh Castle in the distance. A mournful sound pierced the air, a low moan like a chill wind sweeping through ruins. The call of grey seals out on the sand flats, singing as they have for generations of pilgrims. I was just one more in a long line stretching back through history, and my footsteps would wash away with the tide like all who walked here before me.

The crossing took about ninety minutes, with time enough to navigate slowly around the mud and deeper water channels. I finally clambered up the bank on the other side and sat on a bench, looking back at the mainland as I changed into dry shoes.

As with my arrival at Canterbury Cathedral a year ago, there was no fanfare, no one cheering the finish line of my pilgrimage. Only a quiet sense of satisfaction that I had accomplished what I set out to do.

After one last look back at the crossing, I walked into Lindisfarne village. After days of solitude, it was a shock to find hundreds of day-trippers pouring out of coaches and cars, streaming over the causeway while it was open during the narrow tidal window. Throngs of tourists rammed into ice cream shops, artists’ studios, and cafes, spilling out into the narrow streets.

While I ate a local crab sandwich in front of the Lindisfarne Mead shop, I wondered what St Cuthbert would have made of the modern Holy Island. There was a frenetic energy about the place as day-trippers rushed to see everything before hurrying back to escape the incoming tide. Some people glanced sideways at me, in a very judgmental English way, as if they didn’t appreciate my muddy pack and dishevelled appearance. It was strange to re-enter the real world again.

I hoisted my pack back on and walked to the ruined abbey while it was still open and then visited the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. A full-sized statue of monks carrying the coffin of St Cuthbert stood inside, and I felt more of a connection with those medieval walkers than the modern religious tourists filling the aisles.

As the island emptied, I walked east to Lindisfarne Castle along the shore. Tourists ran in the opposite direction to catch their buses and I was grateful I’d booked a night on the island when it became quiet once more.

I walked until I reached the coast, where cairns of balanced stones stood overlooking the rough waters of the North Sea. The lands beyond were those of Norway and Denmark, and this was the way the Vikings arrived in the eighth century, bringing violence to the abbey and causing the monks to scatter.

I wrote about Lindisfarne in my novella Day of the Vikings, a modern-day thriller set against the history of invasion and a supernatural power called down from the ancients. Now finally there in person, I sensed a different power. One that emanated from the island and the tide. There was a part of me that wanted to stay there, to sink into island life, and allow the tide to cut off my access to the wider world.

As I walked back from the castle, a murmuration of starlings swooped above the wetlands. As they soared in unison, forming and reforming different shapes in the twilight, I remembered seeing the same thing at Stonehenge a decade ago. Another place where the veil is thin, a glimpse into a timeless realm where I am just another pilgrim in another sunset.

Questions:

Pilgrimage is available now: www.JFPenn.com/pilgrimage

The post Pilgrimage: The Perspective Of History And Glimpses Of The Divine appeared first on Books And Travel.

In this wide-ranging interview, Emily Thomas talks about the importance of perspective and time in travel writing, how sublime moments of pleasurable terror make travel so interesting, how to overcome fears both real and imaginary, as well as the ethics of doom tourism, and how VR (virtual reality) might change how we travel in future.

Dr. Emily Thomas is an associate professor in philosophy at Durham University in England. She’s also the author of several books, including The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad.

You can find Emily at www.EmilyThomasWrites.co.uk and on Twitter @emilytwrites

Shareable and header image generated by Jo Frances Penn on Midjourney.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

My best travel experiences have actually been ones where I have gone to some place where I haven’t understood anything around me. Not not the language, not what’s going on in the street, not the social cues and I have very slowly, by reading and talking to people, come to put the pieces together and come to understand the place.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

When you have a sublime feeling, it’s a kind of pleasurable terror. So it’s the kind of enjoyable fear that you get from standing close to a waterfall, but not too close. You can feel the spray on your face, but you’re not actually afraid of falling over.

And I had definitely had a lot of those kinds of moments whilst traveling that often because I’ve done almost all my traveling by myself, just rocking up in a new place that I find really terrifying. And also really exciting on the other. I think the first time I really powerfully experienced that. I was 18. And I spent a couple of months wandering around China, the very first time I arrived in a big new city, and I stepped out of the hotel room, just not understanding anything that was going on around me it was really scary, but also exhilarating.

Jo Frances Penn

You talk there about terror, you’re using the word fear in the book.

Emily Thomas

But I think there are other fears are more exciting. And in a pleasurable way. I might have a fear that if I walk into a city I don’t know very well. I’m going to get lost. Well, actually, really, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You know, I get lost it and I ended up asking for directions in a coffee shop or something. The feeling of oh, maybe I could be lost. That’s quite nice.

Have I personally been in some scrapes? I have. What especially springs to mind when people ask me that question. I was once in a taxi in Zimbabwe that caught fire, and the driver refused to pull over. It was just there was smoke, I mean, we could see flames on the bonnet. And he was like, no, it’ll be fine, like we don’t have to stop the car.

Jo Frances Penn

But if it’s in a foreign country, it feels like things will just be more difficult, even like asking someone where the bathroom is, like when I traveled in India, that can be a moment of fear.

Emily Thomas

And I personally get scared by the unknown. So the idea of landing in a new place that I find quite scary, I find it scary, because I have no idea what to expect when I’m there. But if I actually really go back and start thinking, Okay, this is where I want to go. And okay, and this is how taxis or whatever it might work here. The more knowledge that I have about the place that I find that the fear goes away. It’s like horror movies, right? You know, the unseen monster or ghost is always much scarier than when you actually see the ridiculous special effects that the producer has drummed up for your movie entertainment delight,

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

And even if I’m doing more free-range travel, I will have a first night’s accommodation booked. And also as a solo woman traveler, I will make sure the plane arrives at a time of day that is appropriate.

I had a terrible experience arriving at 2 am in Tel Aviv, Israel, back in the early 90s. And the war with Iraq was going on. And it was honestly one of the scariest times. I was in a new city. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I was before the internet, etc.

So you’ve just arrived in Malawi in Africa, which I have talked about on the show in episode 1 because I went to school there.

Emily Thomas

And now it’s a case of really trying to understand how basic things work. So things I was not expecting include there are many power cuts every day. And so it is not a good idea, for example, if you are working as I am to let your laptop go very low on battery, because otherwise when the next power cut comes you might run out of battery quite quickly. So really, really basic things about how to live here is what I’m now trying to get to grips with.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

I’ve had to download the correct apps and figure out how it works. And part of the issue is that people want to avoid the government taking a slice out of certain payment apps. So they always want you to use their particular payment app, but the government takes less money. It has been a learning curve. And I definitely find post-COVID people want to handle objects less, including notes and coins. That is a big deal. And so electronic payments are hugely on the rise.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

But travel books, even though they are within the nonfiction genre, actually, they are using many, many devices from fiction. They are using metaphor or hyperbole, that kind of thing. Travel books often have a plot, where they will start you off at one point in time and then the author backtracks a little bit to kind of give a bit more context. And then we move forwards in time again.

And all these devices borrow from fiction, they obviously serve to make the travel book much more readable, but they also begin blurring the line. And I think one of the important consequences of that is that we get more and more of the author’s own perspective, as they are experiencing the place and writing the book.

If we were to have this list of facts, temperature and longitude, that there’s very little of the author in that, that when we begin to have the author saying, ‘Oh, I saw a hippopotamus in person for the first time and its skin was like this, and its teeth were like this,’ that we’re really starting to get the author’s window on to the world. And then that becomes quite non-factual. And that’s part of writing a good story. But it’s also part of what makes travel writing a bit unusual as a nonfiction genre.

Jo Frances Penn

And of course, we understand that writing is also editing. So you don’t put in a lot of the stuff that happened because it doesn’t fit whatever overarching narrative you have.

I have a particular place in mind, which is Venice. [Note from Jo: Check out my solo episode: Myth and Reality: Beauty and Decay in Venice.]

I’ve been to Venice three times. And the third time was by far the best. But when I went the first time, I feel like all the writing I’ve ever read on Venice, it was just completely wrong. In my experience, I got there, it was flooded. I’ve never read a book about the flooding, and how much it stank of the sewers, and how overcrowded it was, and those huge tourist ships, and it really impacted my experience.

Emily Thomas

When you arrive, you may well have a very different outlook on that. And you’re certainly right. Venice is one of those places that has been so heavily romanticized that in a way, it’s difficult to see how the reality can live up to those romantic images of it.

And I mean it historically, if we go back before the 17th century into medieval travel, travel writing was absolutely chock full of lies, you know, people describe going to the Middle East and encountering dragons or great whales that come off out of the sea, and they’re sort of wandering around on the local coasts. And the Mandeville Travels describes meeting people with the heads of dogs. A lot of this is coming from the idea that whatever is unknown, we can somehow fill in the gaps. And there’s less of that today, partly because the world is more known, but it’s not entirely gone, and our brains are still filling in gaps.

Jo Frances Penn

And they see Africa — which of course, is not monolithic, it’s very diverse — but many show Africa in a way that perhaps it was 40 years ago, but so much has changed in the last decade in terms of what’s happening in Africa.

Emily Thomas

When we are all reading travel books, we must bear in mind the date that they were published, that’s going to have a big impact on how we approach them. Of course, I’m a historian of philosophy, so I’m going to stress the importance of dates.

With regards to changing stereotypes or leaving us to question them, I think that good writers should be conscious of stereotypes as they are writing and flag them up. That seems like something that the best travel writers do, actually, they approach people as individuals, and if there are stereotypes, they are mentioning them in order to deconstruct them.

Jo Frances Penn

And so when we are commenting on other places as we travel, I also worry in this time when we need more diverse voices, can you and I as white English women write about Malawi? And how does that compare to a Malawian author writing about Malawi?

Emily Thomas

You can only ever write from your perspective. All writing is written from a perspective, and that’s the same whether it’s me writing about Malawi, or someone from Blantyre going to the UK and writing about England.

So if I were to go to the US and write about how staggered I am by the sheer number of soda fridges, I should be overt about that, of course, be honest, I find this astonishing, because I’m from the UK, if I was from somewhere else, maybe I wouldn’t.

Jo Frances Penn

Let’s talk about maps, because I love that you start actually start the book with chapters on that.

I love maps, I’ve got a map of the world here in front of me on my wall. It is something that I find really important, and I’ve even written a fantasy trilogy about walking through maps.

Emily Thomas

And what I find fascinating about maps, or one of the many things I find fascinating about them, is that I always assumed that a map was a static thing. You know, it’s something that you hold in your hand and you look at it much like a teapot, and that’s the end of it.

But there are some philosophers who’ve argued that actually maps are much closer to processes. And in defense of this view, they asked us to consider things like Google Maps. So Google Maps are being continually updated, as are all these online mapping software. And then the question is, does that mean that there’s a new map that’s coming into existence? Like once every second or so? Or is it rather, it’s the same map that’s continually changing?

And when you begin to think of maps, like that, I can then begin to think of other maps, perhaps written on paper, but also continually being updated. So famously during the Second World War in London, there are some maps in the British Museum that were updated as buildings were bombed. So as buildings were removed, people would change the map to reflect the new reality.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

In historical maps, perhaps that was Jerusalem, or Athens, and today, if you look at world maps produced in Europe, Europe is usually at the center of the map. If you look at world maps produced by China, or the US, those countries will be at the center of the map. And that’s telling you a lot about how the map maker sees the world. And what maps do and don’t represent, and also tells you a lot about the social power that the map maker is outlining. So whether they are including castles or churches or huts belonging to peasants or not, that tells you about what they’re trying to do.

There are some really striking examples of maps being used to persuade people about where the lines of power lie in the world. So for example, historically, you can see lots of maps of the same place with borders drawn differently, and that’s because the map maker is trying to convince you that here is where the border is, my country is really at this is an even today, depending on where you are in the world. If you access Google Maps, the borders will shift depending on your local country’s attitude towards disputed territories —

Jo Frances Penn

But it’s kind of disturbing, in a way, isn’t it? The way that borders shift? I mean, again, on the map I’m looking at there is absolutely no way it reflects the actual size of the countries. The African continent has often made much smaller, hasn’t it? 

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Where it gets ethically tricky is when we are traveling to places and the very act of traveling is contributing to the doom of the place in question. That’s a really classic example is glaciers or underwater coral reefs. So when we visit a glacier, in addition to the CO2 that we may spend getting there, trampling all over the glacier can be harmful to it in various ways. If the ice is degrading anyway, then people walking all over it can hasten that.

The same with visiting coral reefs, you know, there are many articles on the internet ’10 places you should visit before they die off due to climate change.’ And lots of coral reefs are on the list. But again, the very act of visiting the reefs can damage them, and then it starts to feel unethical to visit these doomed places.

Jo Frances Penn

But I absolutely think that VR scuba diving is what I want to do. I haven’t dived for about a decade, like I’m really not that interested anymore in all the gear and all the boat sickness and all of that. So, to me, a brilliant thing would be virtual reality scuba diving to go see the coral reefs.

Emily Thomas

I think lots and lots of people are going to turn to VR for travel, I really do, and I think as VR improves, the more that that will happen. And I find that quite exciting, in part because we can travel to real world places that have been reproduced in VR, but also because we can travel to imaginary worlds that are going to be created for our enjoyment. And I’m looking forward to that as well. I think that will be that will be great.

Honestly, that said, for me, part of the value of travel lies in the difficulty and the fear and the inconvenience. And I don’t see myself wanting to give that up. I think rather I want to do both.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

I have also been to the pyramids a little bit later than you, before the light show but post the tourism era. And what I was astonished by was the way that if you stood in precisely the right spot, you could take a photograph just with the pyramids against the background of sand. But if you turned in any other direction, the tourist carnival, the shops. It’s a strange experience.

Jo Frances Penn

But then we come back to truth with a little t as in, if I make a VR experience of the Cairo souk, for example, I could walk through and record it with a special camera. And that is my experience.

Emily Thomas

So yeah, it will always be indirect in that sense that there are some VR experiences you can have now where I understand you literally pay a guide to wear a VR helmet or transmit things back to you. And then by telephone, you tell them, could you turn left here, I want to look more at this. So that seems like more that you’d have more control over what you’re seeing, at least in that way.

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

From a philosophy and travel perspective, my book is in fact, the only book on the philosophy of travel. But if you want to take a related but different angle, that Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. He explores the way that various artists and novelists have thought about travel. And that’s also a great read,

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

Jo Frances Penn

Emily Thomas

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