The Travel Writing Podcast

A traveller on the Hippy Trail in the 1970s, Alex McKay became bewitched by mysterious tales of Tibet’s holiest mountain, Mount Kailash. What began as a backpacker’s fixation eventually became …

When spinal degeneration left Debbie North using a wheelchair, cut off from the British outdoors she loved, she channelled her rage and frustration into writing. A 2011 blog post gained …

The economics of being a full-time travel writer are tough. Even the biggest publications seldom pay their writers enough to cover all the expenses of a thoroughly researched trip. To …

In 2021, a budding travel writer called Anna Richards submitted a couple of stories to Intrepid Times; she wrote about penguins in Chile, and as well as a frightening mugging. …

Writer’s block is the demon writers point to as the reason they can’t get words on a page. But what if writer’s block doesn’t actually exist? What if the reason …

Every day when submissions are open, dozens of travel stories or pitches land in the Intrepid Times inbox. While the quality of course varies, most of these submissions are from …

Paul Theroux called Thomas Swick ‘the ideal travel writer,’ but he’s the first to admit he hasn’t always been the ideal traveler. He moved to Poland in the late 1970s …

Dubai is associated variously with dizzying luxury, superficial excess, and, recently, geopolitical disruption. According to Paris Norriss, who has lived in the city for a decade and stars in the …

Some view travel as a competitive sport, tallying up countries like points on a board. James Merriman began his travel life like this, relentlessly collecting passport stamps for years. He …