The moment I decided to stop travelling, put down roots, and buy a house (on the pretext that I needed somewhere to store my bikes and camping gear), some deeply buried part of my brain started looking for ways to make it feel like I was actually still travelling. I’m certainly not the first. And […]
When, on January 1st, I and many others committed to not flying for a year, none of us imagined 2020 would see 90% of air traffic disappear and the biggest reduction in aviation emissions since the invention of flight. Perhaps predictably, smug people on Twitter soon began making sarcastic jokes about how everyone might as […]
I very much enjoyed chatting with Dave Cornthwaite a couple of weeks ago while recording a new episode for his Self Propelled Podcast. We travelled a meandering path of conversation on the theme of living life on one’s own terms, from my early bicycle-mounted adventures, to finding creative expression through books and films, to sharing […]
This article is based on a lecture I gave for the Royal Geographical Society at the 2019 Explore expedition planning conference. If you’ve arrived here expecting an ‘ultimate guide’ or ‘blueprint’ with three easy steps to finding funding for your expedition, then I am afraid I must disappoint you. Not only is your expedition unique, […]
In December last year, just before my #FlightFree2020 began, I took a hike across northern Iraq, where my long-time collaborator in adventure Leon McCarron has been working with the Abraham Path Initiative on a nascent trail project in the region. We’re talking about landscapes that were once part of ancient Mesopotamia, so the route traverses […]
I recently penned this 1,500-word piece for Horizon Guides, whose founder Matt I’ve known for many years. Their mission is to expand our understanding of the world through guides, journals and curated travel experience – a mission that has much in common with my own. There is no particular blueprint for creating a long-distance hiking […]
There’s an elephant in the room with my #FlightFree2020 pledge. My work is tied inextricably to the international travel industry, which in turn relies heavily on flying. In other words, if I continue to do my job well, I will increase overall aviation emissions – whether or not I myself take any flights – as […]
Originally published at homeofmillican.com. In an obscure corner of Armenia, in the town of Dilijan, just shy of the central square, a rickety wooden staircase leads up from the street, through the trees, and into the unknown. If you climb these stairs and follow the red-and-white symbols, you’ll rise far above town along pathways etched […]
My Flight Free 2020 pledge hasn’t come out of nowhere. Call it a rekindling of a long-forgotten conviction that the example I set might actually matter. Because we are all participants, now, in this huge and never-ending conversation we call global society. Our impact is measured in terms of the number of people paying attention […]
Today, on this day of New Year’s Resolutions, I pledge to join the Flight Free UK campaign. Between now and the 1st of January 2021, I will not take a single flight. I’ve joined the campaign because, as a long-time advocate of adventurous travel and exploration, I can no longer ignore my own hypocrisy. I […]