Europe By Rail is a beautifully-published guidebook that covers 50 key rail routes across Europe, blending practical advice with narrative storytelling, and a focus on slow travel by local trains.

This wonderful resource has been inspiring travel dreams for over 30 years. The 18th edition was published in October 2024. It’s one of my favourite guidebooks, and I’m happy to be able to share it with you today.

Co-author Nicky Gardner joined me to talk about spontaneity versus pre-planning, the pros and cons of rail passes, and the return of night trains.

In his mid-twenties, city-bound and restless, Louis D. Hall decided to make an uncharted journey on horseback.

He found his horse, Sasha, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains and headed west for ‘the end of the land’.

In Green is a classic adventure story and a wonderful travel writing debut. I think you’ll enjoy it.

We spoke about crossing the Ligurian Alps, the mysteries of the horse, and the kindness of strangers.

If you grew up in the 80s like I did, you know Andrew McCarthy from Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire.

But Andrew is more than an actor and director. He’s also an award-winning travel writer.

His writing is introspective, vulnerable and self-deprecating. He weaves memoir with vivid descriptions of people and place, and grapples with questions like how to balance a solitary nature with the desire for intimacy.

I reached out to ask him about walking across Spain, a journey he made twice: first alone, and then with his teenaged son.

I thought he might give me some insights and inspiration as I prepare for a long farewell-to-Europe hike.

We spoke about Andrew's Brat pack years, walking the Camino with his son, and how a hike can change your life.

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Germany’s post-war recovery was an economic miracle.

The country was on the rise in a good way. And then it all started going wrong.

The signs of trouble were visible long before the covid pandemic pushed us over the brink.

Journalists Will Wilkes and Chris Reiter have spent decades reporting on Germany’s problems, and they lay it all out in their new book Broken Republik.

We spoke about Germany’s worrying lack of national identity, its reliance on structure to manage interpersonal relations, and why it has Europe’s worst social mobility.

Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining the Member’s Club.

Digital platforms promised us personalization but their algorithms homogenized culture to a bland lowest common denominator instead.

They don’t just influence what we consume, they also determine what is produced as artists shape their output to fit what gets seen and what gets shared.

My guest today traced this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrated the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. And he has a few ideas for escaping it that might surprise you.

Kyle Chayka joined me to talk about how digital algorithms work, why they flatten culture and how to take back control of our own taste.

In 1879 a forgotten Irish adventurer called Frederick Carter marched four tamed Asian elephants from the coast of East Africa to the edge of the Congo. 

He was sent to establish a training school for African elephants so they could be used to transport cargo in place of vast armies of porters.

It’s a tale of ineptitude, hypocrisy and greed filled with powerful chiefs, ivory dealers, Catholic nuns and dissolute colonial officials set against the beautifully described landscapes of Tanzania, the Congo, Brussels, Iraq and India.

Sophy Roberts joined me to talk about Frederick Carter’s forgotten journey, Leopold II’s Congo land grab, and oral memory keepers as custodians of the past.

Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia the year Germany annexed the Sudetenland. His childhood was overshadowed by Nazi occupation. He lived under the postwar communist regime, and watched Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.

His work is permeated by feelings of tragedy but the man himself is surprisingly optimistic, seizing on the present moment while appreciating the beauty of life.

Biographer Melissa Harris joined me to talk about Koudelka’s wandering life, his remarkable network of friends, and his interest in capturing the end of things.

Clair Wills was in her twenties when she learned she had a cousin she'd never met.

It wasn’t as though their families drifted apart. She’d never been told of this person’s existence. It was shrouded in shame and secrecy, and she wanted to understand why. Her memoir Missing Persons may change how you think about your own family, and your family secrets.

We spoke about Ireland’s mother and baby homes, the stigma of illegitimacy, and how secrecy can shape a family and a society.

What would you do if someone you knew your entire life — your mother — suddenly revealed that she’d been a spy? Deborah Lawrenson turned her story into a novel. 

The tangled web of espionage she weaves in The Secretary is fiction, but the background to the story is authentic, drawn in part from a seemingly innocent diary her mother wrote in 1958 while working at the British Embassy in Moscow. It’s an exciting high stakes thriller with insightful social commentary and a vivid sense of place. Exactly the sort of novel she excels at.

We spoke about Cold War Moscow, growing up as an embassy child, and the shock of discovering her mother’s cloak-and-dagger past.

I’ve been writing about travel, culture and the world’s marginal places for more than two decades — serious desert expeditions, long solo journeys through Central America and East Asia, my expat life in multiple countries, and strange geographical and cultural corners of Europe.

I broke into publishing with no contacts by using martial arts cunning to slip past the gatekeepers.

Two published books later — and more magazine features than I can count — I host Personal Landscapes, long form podcast conversations with writers like Paul Theroux, Simon Winchester, Nicholas Shakespeare and Dervla Murphy.

This is my world: travel, books and the craft behind both.

What you’ll find here: free biweekly podcast episodes — deep conversations with literary giants — in the Podcast tab. Join my Club for $7/month and you’ll get weekly essays, book reviews, bonus videos, podcast extras, and quarterly Q&As with details I don’t share anywhere else.

Need help with your own writing? My Shop has a $49 course called ‘Writing Your Travel Life,’ and reports like ‘The Anti-Influencer Guide to Travel’ and ‘16 Keys to Creating Your Travel Life’ for $15 — the same secrets I used, with no fluff and no filler.

I started Personal Landscapes because I love classic travel literature, and I wanted to talk to the writers who inspired me when I was starting out. These aren’t surface chats; they’re in-depth conversations.

I’m busy writing a new book, too, and this supports my work. I hope you’ll join me.

Start with the latest episode — free in the Podcast tab. Love the depth? Join my Personal Landscapes Club for $7/month — the first essay’s on me. Want my secrets? Visit the Shop.

You’re a traveler. Pick your own path.

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