In 2015, having recently left her job at the International Bar Association, Rebecca Lowe was transitioning to freelance journalism. Aiming to collect stories from the Middle East to help build her new career path, she set out on an 11,000km, 20-country solo cycle ride from London to Tehran, via Europe, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Oman, the UAE, and Iran. The journey lasted a year, and collect stories she did. While she didn't originally intend for the journey to lead to a book, when the opportunity arose, she took on the project and wrote The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East, which was shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year. This podcast episode focuses on both her incredible journey through the Middle East and the book that came out of it.

During the episode, Rebecca talks about how she approached the idea of risk vs. recklessness as a solo female traveler, what traveling through the Middle East as a woman was really like, the highs and lows of her journey, how she balanced out the seriousness of the problems facing the Middle East with a healthy sense of humor, and more.

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