An occasional blog on topics related to my work. For a behind-the-scenes look, subscribe to my Patreon page.
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A quick heads-up that the new Bradt Travel Guide to Armenia, whose 5th edition I’ve co-authored, has arrived in the warehouse and will be shipping from today! Click here to order direct from the publisher at a 10% discount over the cover price. But how did I suddenly manage to add ‘guidebook author’ to my growing roll-call of professional activities? Well, it’s a long story, but here’s the medium-length version… Last November I received an email from a lady called Rachel, who’d been in the audience for my talk at the Royal Geographical Society in February earlier that year. It…
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Applications Now Open For 2019’s Fundraising Treks In Armenia & Georgia
A very quick heads-up that places on the Transcaucasian Trail group fundraising hikes in 2019 are now available. Click here for the dates and details and, if the fancy takes you, to register your participation. I’ve been helping design and promote these treks for the last couple of years, and they’ve proved to be a fantastic way of raising flexible funding for the local teams who are designing and building the trail here in the Caucasus (as well as the ongoing scouting and mapping work on which I still seem to spend most of my spare time). The actual trail…
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This Weekend: 50% Off Pre-Orders Of The New Bradt Guide To Armenia
Much of my energy this year has been devoted to a massive overhaul of the Bradt Travel Guide to Armenia. This weekend Bradt are offering a 50% discount on pre-orders of the book if you order direct through their website, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up! Click here to check out the deal. The discount actually covers more than two hundred publications from their catalogue (in both print and ebook formats), so if you’re planning your travels in 2019 and want to stock up on research material from what Wanderlust Magazine readers voted the UK’s Top Guidebook Series,…
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10 Illustrated Tips For Improving Your Expedition Photography No End
Last weekend I flew to London for the annual Explore expedition planning conference at the Royal Geographical Society (the one chance I get to catch up with a lot of people I wish I saw more often). On the Sunday I joined the expedition photography workshop to share my thoughts on the storytelling medium of the still image, and figured it was worth reproducing that advice here. The word ‘storytelling’ is key, because the typical focus for attendees of this conference is a journey of some description, and what they want to communicate through their photography is the story of that journey.…
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5 Ancient Monasteries In Armenia’s Dilijan National Park (& How To Hike To Them)
The experience of exploring Armenia on foot is characterised by three things: an abundance of breath-taking landscapes, being invited in by locals to drink homemade oghi (vodka), and stumbling upon at least one ancient church or monastery per day. Dilijan National Park – part of the forested northeastern province of Tavush – is no exception to this rule. As well as a prominent and formidable range of Yosemite-esque cliffs running through its northern reaches, and ancient swathes of oriental beech trees blanketing its southern slopes, no fewer than five important cultural-religious historical sites are tucked away in the valleys of the…
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Will You Help Crowdfund Dilijan National Park’s Beautiful New Hiking Map?
Today I’m helping launch a crowdfunding campaign to produce the Republic of Armenia’s first ever 1:25,000-scale topographical hiking map. Will you chip in in exchange for a copy? Click here to visit the IndieGoGo page and make your pledge → And here’s my behind-the-scenes story of how I got involved in the whole thing: A little over three years ago, in Armenia, I met a bearded, map-obsessed Italian called Alessandro. Until then, I’d thought my own obsession with maps was borderline problematic (most explorer-adventurers do). His, however, raised the bar to dizzying heights. At the time, I’d just had this…
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How To Get Involved With The Transcaucasian Trail
This Transcaucasian Trail thing has really snowballed. It’s got to the point where my life as a “self-unemployed creative nomad fuelled by travel and adventure” seems like a distant memory. Weekly blogs? Monthly newsletters? Hah! – you’re kidding, right? During a much-needed bikepacking escape over the winter, and on the advice of a good friend, I resolved this year to “protect my space” within the project. Rather than ending up being a CEO-type figure, I decided to focus on what truly enthuses me: exploring and designing the experience of hiking the trail, and creating and communicating opportunities for other people to…
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What The Transcaucasian Expedition Achieved This Year – And What’s Coming Next
I’m exhausted. Drained. Overwhelmed. If I knew back in April what I know now, this expedition would have looked very different. This is, of course, exactly what I signed up for… Continue reading at transcaucasian.com »
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A Day In The Life Of A Trail Scout On The Transcaucasian Expedition
4:45am – Faint, but unmistakeable: the pre-dawn light is growing. Birdsong confirms this. Against my instincts, which tell me to get out of my sleeping bag and burst from the tent to soak up the sunrise, I roll over and go back to sleep. Continue reading at transcaucasian.com »
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9 Reasons To Make Yerevan Your Next Digital Nomading Basecamp
Given the title of this article, you might be expecting to read a list post designed as clickbait for bored tech startup founders in co-working spaces in Chiang Mai, probably written by an underpaid copywriter who’s never been to Yerevan and has dashed off this piece after an hour or two of Googling. Not quite. I’ve been living in Yerevan long enough to become a citizen of Armenia and to feel more at home here than the place I was born. I’m writing this because I’ve been watching this city develop over the best part of a decade, and I’ve…