When a volunteering offer took Jonty Crane and his wife to Timor-Leste, one of the least visited countries in the world, they had no idea what to expect. What they found was a country, largely undiscovered, still crawling its way out of a traumatic history, that offered friendly locals, beautiful scenery, and hikes through untouched landscapes. They also were confronted by chaos, multiple bouts of severe illness (including typhoid), and the reality of life in a land where the black flag of death seems to stalk every street.

Joining us from his new home in Fiji, where is engaged in another volunteering project arranged by Volunteer Service Abroad - which can be thought of as a New Zealand equivalent to the Peace Corps or the UK's Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO), Jonty talked about his time in Timor-Leste (formerly known as East Timor) and how he came to write several guide books about the country including Exploring Timor-Leste: A comprehensive travel guide to one of the least visited countries in the world. He also shared how volunteering can unlock authentic, real world travel in places tourists seldom get to see.

Simply trying to get your head around Natascha Scott-Stokes' incredible biography can make your head spin. In 1989, she became the first woman to navigate the length of the Amazon alone. Legendary Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy called the resulting book, An Amazon and a Donkey, "a genuine adventure story," - if anyone would know one, it would be Dervla.

Just a few years later, Scott-Stokes cycled across Eastern Europe as the collapse of the Berlin Wall was still echoing in the fields of Poland. She wrote about that in her book The Amber Trail: A journey of discovery by bicycle, from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean. She also wrote a book about Guatemala and a biography of Margaret Fountaine.

More recently, Natascha Scott-Stokes authored a conflicted love-letter to Chile, Tales from the Sharp End, published by the University of New Mexico Press. Part history, part travelogue, part memoir, the stories invite you into the lives of those who inhabit Chile's cities and its hinterland, rich, evocative, and full of that intimate access only the best travel writing brings.

Hear Natascha Scott-Stokes talk about her extraordinary life and captivating work on the Travel Writing Podcast.

Tim van Es's story of a humble tea seller who changes three lives in Mumbai became an Amazon bestseller and has won praise for its depiction of everyday life in India and the characters who pass through its pages. In the second and final part of our interview series with Tim, we explore how we went about writing the novel, the inspiration behind the characters, and we complete the story of his journey from corporate burnout to bestselling novelist. Quite a lifestyle change indeed!

Many sit in cubicles every day and dream of abandoning the office, the politics, the metrics, and the madness and embarking on a life of creative freedom and fulfilment. Few actually make the transition. Once you're in the corporate world, it's hard to leave. The paycheck leads to a lifestyle that is not easy to walk away from, and your whole identity and sense of self get enmeshed with everything that comes with it.

Tim van Es was riding high as an executive at Unilever - at least on paper. He was traveling the world and getting promotion after promotion. But under the surface, things were less than idyllic. In a special two-part series on the Travel Writing Podcast, Tim shares how he made the leap out of the corporate world and reinvented himself as a full-time writer. In part one, published today, he talks about his life, his travels, and the series of events which led to the moment of definitive change. In part two, coming next week, he talks in depth about the resulting book, The Chaiwallah, an Amazon bestseller promoted by Bookbub this week.

What happens when the mainstream publishing community isn't putting out the kind of sincere, literary travel stories you crave? For Mike Robertson, the answer was simple: Start your own publishing house.

Sun Rider Press has published books on pilgrimages in Tibet, bike rides across India, wayward adventures, and self-discovery along the English Channel, and more besides. Their print runs are small; their distribution channels simple. No Amazon. No chain retailers. Just a signed copy of the book mailed to you personally by the publishers themselves.

In the midst of a publishing identity crisis fueled by collapsing margins, bullying online retailers, and the perils of AI, could this example of passionate micro-publishing be the answer? Mike Robertson joins the Travel Writing Podcast to speak about his journey.

If you travel when you're young and fall in love with the thrill and freedom of the road, a choice eventually arises. Do you abandon the traditional milestones of success and accomplishment and let the road be your life? Or do you do the 'grown-up' thing, move home, get a good corporate job, climb the ladder, and 'achieve'?

Matt Wilson looked this choice squarely in the eye and said, "Why Not Both?" From a successful career as the founder of 'Under 30 CEO' in New York, he embraced the digital nomad freedom with a base in Puerto Rico. Years of travel followed, but business was not left behind. Matt fused his passion for travel with his entrepreneurial skills to create 'Under 30 Experiences,' a Millennial-oriented travel company. He authored the Millennial Travel Guidebook and made the Financial Times 1000 list of America's Fastest-Growing Companies.

Matt is now a father, and we spoke about how fatherhood changed his approach to travel, business, and work-life balance. (And, although she was so well-behaved you won't hear on the audio, my baby daughter joined us for the last 10 or so minutes of the episode, and you'll hear Matt's reaction as she enters the screen).

Listen to Matt speak about success, business, travel, and parenthood on the Travel Writing Podcast here or find us on Spotify or iTunes.

Sixty-five years ago, overseas travel was a rare thing even for relatively well-off people in Britain. Currency controls meant it was illegal to take more than £50 abroad. Strict pricing controls on European airlines kept fares stubbornly high. The role of a travel writer was to persuade people to overcome these obstacles, brave the “metal tubes in the sky,” and set out to places where no one they knew had ever been before.

Travel has changed a lot over the past seven decades, and travel writing has changed with it. Charting and championing the evolution of this art form has been the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW). I became a member earlier this year, and have been impressed by the energy and supportiveness of this venerable institution. As the Guild looks back, they have anthologised the contributions of their members over the years. Giants of the industry reflect on their long careers, such as John Carter and Hilary Bradt, while contemporary writers – many familiar guests on the Travel Writing Podcast such as Ash Bhardwaj and Daniel Stables – bring fresh contributions.

Daniel James Clarke is a British travel writer based in Portugal who has authored numerous guidebooks and articles on the country. He is also Vice President and Head of Sustainability at the BGTW. Daniel joins the Travel Writing Podcast to talk about the changing purpose and enduring value of travel writing, and to discuss their new anthology in which he played a role, Around the World in 65 Years: 101 Stories & Experiences from the Road Less Travelled, edited by Mary Anne Evans, published by Bradt Travel Guides and available from November 4, 2025. Listen here or find the Travel Writing Podcast on Spotify or iTunes.

The three words are scrawled everywhere; on walls, banners, and even on the side of Barcelona's rubbish bins. It's easy to dismiss them as the word of isolated cranks. But it isn't. The message increasingly reflects popular sentiment, and not just in the tourist hotspots in Spain. And with short-term rentals like Airbnb driving locals out of their apartments, while the digital nomad ghettos as distant as Chiang Mai and Medellin, cause skyrocketing prices out of the reach of residents, it's impossible for a sincere traveler not to ask the question: Are we part of the problem?

Daniel Maurer wrestles with the big questions, such as this, in his new book The Future of Travel, part of an intriguing 'Futures' series by Melville House. Daniel is an award-winning food, culture, and travel journalist who has written for outlets such as The New York Times, New York magazine, Thrillist, The Art Newspaper, Eater, The Daily Beast, Atlas Obscura, and others. He won two James Beard Media Awards while chief editor of Grub Street.

Daniel joined the Travel Writing Podcast to speak about overtourism and traveler's guilt, and how we can keep traveling without causing harm to the places we visit.

When the entire world shut down in early 2020, Brad Fox was not at home in New York. He was instead in the high jungles of Peru, embedded with a family of Quechua-speaking traditional healers, known as curanderos. "I have never felt so sober in my life," Brad said of his many months stranded there, which involved getting to know the local pharmacopoeia, some of which had profound psychedelic effects.

During his time of isolation, Brad Fox wrote "The Bathysphere Book", which was named Winner of the 2024 National Book Foundation's Science + Literature Award and A Washington Post top 10 best book of 2023. The book shimmers with a logic-bending mystique, and it's hardly surprising why. For his next book, Brad returned, literally and in theme, to the Peruvian jungle and told the story of his time there. The resulting book is "Another Bone-Swapping Event," it's out in November through Astral Press in the US and Icon Books in the UK.

In our episode of the Travel Writing Podcast, Brad Fox talks about his time in Peru. He traces the journey of his two most recent non-fiction books, and brings us into the strange yet piercingly clear world of tradition, ayahuasca, and healing, he inhabited far from the high rises and emails of modern life. We also talk about Brad Fox's earlier travels, including years spent as an aid contractor in Serbia, and a mysterious diving expedition in central Budapest. L

One day, the writer and professor Kurt Caswell received a cryptic mission from an editor. Laika, the Russian dog who would become the first living creature sent into orbit, had a window in her spacecraft. "I want you to think on this," the editor said, "and write a book about it." The resulting book, Laika's Window, won a Foreword Indie Silver Medal for science writing.

Kurt's connection with Intrepid Times began with the story, Driving the Dalton Highway, a fascinating meditation on the experience of driving and being driven, which we discuss in the podcast. We also talk about Kurt's work as a professor of creative writing at Texas Tech University, and his life in travel and writing across Iceland, Russia, the United States, and far beyond.

Kurt's most recent book is Iceland Summer: Travels along the Ring Road (2023), the first in a series about travel on islands. You can learn more about Kurt and his books at his website, kurtcaswell.com