When Tom Sykes was rushed through the clogged streets of Manila in an ambulance, he knew it wasn't the exotic surroundings of the Philippines that had sent his system into panic mode. A seasoned expat, travel writer, journalist and author, he was accustomed to the physical and psychological challenges of travel. No, the root of his debilitating anxiety was looking much deeper. He set out to find it.

In "The Years of Travelling Anxiously: A Travel Writer’s Search for Peace of Mind" Tom Sykes has authored neither a macho memoir nor a self-help text. It's a frank and thoughtful meditation on where this fear that so many travelers feel truly comes from. Intrepid Times will be supporting the launch of this book by publishing a series of interviews conducted by Tom with notable travelers and writers every Monday in March, starting next week.

Dr Tom Sykes is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Global Journalism at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of six books, including the travelogues The Realm of the Punisher (2018) and Coast of Teeth (2023), and the novel Tangled Saviours (2023). His books have been praised in the Times Literary Supplement, the London Magazine, and his expertise has been sought by the New York Times, the BBC World Service and the universities of Oxford, Sydney, the Philippines and Hawai’i.

In his late thirties, burned out from 18 years in the corporate world, Phil Thomas was given a chance to walk away and start again. He had always dreamed of being a travel writer. Now, he was going to make it happen.

Phil knew it would take time. He was methodical. He refined his pitching style. He carefully built up a portfolio before putting himself forward for major, well-paying publications.

Not long ago, he received his first clippings in the BBC and Travel & Leisure, the latter going on to win the International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association 2025 Excellence in Journalism "Best in Show" award:

https://www.travelandleisure.com/lofoten-islands-norway-summer-11772065

https://www.bbc.co.uk/travel/article/20250801-are-the-worlds-most-beautiful-islands-in-danger

In today's episode of the Travel Writing Podcast, Phil talks about how he got there, step by step.

(If you notice this episode is a lot more polished than our usual haphazard productions, that's because it was edited by the wonderful Shebs Alom, @shebsthewanderer, big thanks for helping to lift our game here!)

Meera Dattani's family story is rich in voyages and the intermingling of cultures between India, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. It is perhaps no surprise then that, in a freelance travel writing career now entering its third decade, Meera is known for incisive cultural observation and a sense of moral purpose behind her writing.

As the executive editor of Adventure.com, Meera has a potent platform from which to shape the conversation in a volatile time for media of all kinds. On the Travel Writing Podcast, we talked about Meera's background and how that influenced her worldview, her advice for freelance writers looking to break into travel, and how her dual role as a freelance travel writer and an executive editor shapes her approach to both positions.

As a 20-something travel scrabbling together an existence in the youth hostels of Istanbul and Berlin, Charly Wilder began writing. A cold email led to a blogging role at the New York Times, which soon developed into dozens of features, including contributions to their highly successful '36 Hours In' series.

Charly's stories resist the cliches of travel writing and challenge assumptions - about whether a truly transformative travel experience can be engineered, about travel in the footsteps of your ancestors, or literary heroes.

Two years ago, Charly took a job as Executive Editor at Roads & Kingdoms. The platform had ceased publishing new travel stories following the death of Anthony Bourdain, their champion, partner, and benefactor. Under Charly's guidance, their engine is revving up again, and they've just launched a new membership and a 144-page print magazine.

On the Travel Writing Podcast, Charly talks about her travel writing journey, what makes the travel stories Roads & Kingdoms publishes so unusual, and what they are looking for in new travel writing.

Welcome to a new series from the Travel Writing Podcast where we invite select authors from Intrepid Times to read their articles. This series will supplement our regular interviews, which will continue with gusto. Today, B.A Van Sise, internationally known writer, photographer and author, reads his story, "The Saints and All Their Bones," titled on Intrepid Times as "As the Pope Was Dying, I Browsed Human Bones in the Vatican’s Gift Shops" and available to read here: https://intrepidtimes.com/2026/01/pope-dying-vatican-city-human-bones/

Hilary Bradt MBE is one of the living legends of the travel writing world. In 1974, she co-founded Bradt Guides, which thrives today as one of the best-loved brands in travel writing and independent publishing with over 200 titles in print.

An award-winning writer and an expert on Madagascar, Hilary has been appointed Officier de l’Ordre de Madagascar – the Malagasy equivalent of an OBE, in recognition of four decades’ pioneering promotion of the country’s tourism potential. She has also been appointed Member of the British Empire; an honour she received with characteristic humility ("I wondered what I’d done to upset Gordon Brown" she wrote near the time).

Hilary generously joined the Travel Writing Podcast to share her journey from the early days stapling together the first copies of her first guidebook to how Bradt is adapting to the changing needs of readers in the digital world.

We discussed Hilary's article in the recent British Guild of Travel Writers' anthology, Around the World in 65 Years, where Hilary takes a thought-provoking perspective on what ethical travel really means. We spoke about Bradt Guides' new Journey Books imprint, and why she still believes in the enduring power of print.

It's been a while since I've published a solo episode of the Travel Writing Podcast, so what better time than now? In a year that has seen huge growth and recognition for Intrepid Times and our writers, we've also witnessed yet more attacks on the importance and validity of both travel and writing. So let's take this time, when normal life seems to suspend itself in so much of the world, and ask ourselves a few tough questions.

A huge thank you to all our wonderful podcast guests, and I'm so sorry that just a couple of names rattled off my tongue as I blitzed through that segment. And thank you to everyone who is here, listening, reading, and writing. What you are doing matters, even when it doesn't feel like it.

References in this episode:

What's the Point of Travel, Anyway? https://intrepidtimes.com/2023/07/whats-the-point-of-travel-anyway/

Letters to Yesenin by Jim Harrison https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/letters-to-yesenin-by-jim-harrison/

It's one thing to move to a foreign country, learn something of the language, and challenge your own understanding of how life should be. It's quite another to write about it. The "expat in Japan" memoir is such a common trope that it's rare for a book to break out. But Sam's did, emphatically. Replete with witty banter about the overlooked rural Japanese experience, For Fukui Sake sold over 11,000 copies and has garnered more than 1,000 reviews on Amazon, most of them emphatically positive. Sam followed this up with Dormice & Moonshine about this time in Slovenia, and has launched the Travel Memoir Review to celebrate the achievements of his fellow travel writers and help readers make more informed choices.

Sam joined the travel writing podcast to talk about what makes a good (and marketable) travel memoir, why he chose to self-publish his first book, the enduring relevance of travel writing in the time of AI, and how to get involved with the Travel Memoir Review.

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.