In May 2019, world traveller, the Barefoot Backer, undertook an epic 57-day, 952-mile trek from the furthest Easterly point of Great Britain to the furthest Westerly point. Few people had walked the route before, but it wasn’t the only challenge BB, a somewhat inexperienced trekker, faced. As his name would suggest, BB’s goal was to walk as much of the route barefoot whilst at the same time dealing with his dyspraxia, a condition which affects physical coordination and spacial awareness...

TO WIN A ONE-YEAR POWER PLAN THROUGH HELPYOUFIND.ME, SHARE VIA MY SOCIAL LINKS BELOW A TIP FOR TRAVELLING SOLO SAFELY. In this episode, I’m delighted to have back in the studio Kyle Henning (Episode 23: Cycling Solo From Djibouti to Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro). He’s joined by his friend, James Stevenson, to discuss their new extreme travel challenge: to journey from the lowest point to the highest point of the 21 highest islands in the world. Varying between 3,000 to 5,000 metres and each with it...

In this episode I’m joined by the writer, Alison Jean Lester, who, in 1985 at just 19 years old, spent a year studying at Peking University and travelling through China. Pre-Tiananmen and seeing a side of China few foreigners have experienced, Alison discusses how she adapted to the Chinese way of life, the challenges, and the extraordinary encounters she had with its people and the state, including a trip into Tibet. Alison also discusses her latest novel, The Sound of It (available at...

In this episode, Hannah Scott interviews Ruth Millington about her five week trip to Colombia. Learn about what inspired her to go, the route she took, and tips and advice on how to stay safe in this fascinating and diverse country. Production (for this episode) Creator, producer, writer and host: Ruth Millington Music credit: Epic Orchestra - Blockbuster Adventure Music by JuliusH Additional music: cumbia-colombiana-2713 by JuliusH Find out more at www.ruthmillingtonauthor.com Instagram: h...

This year's Extreme Holidays Podcast Christmas Appeal is in aid of Juana Flores Vegas who was my guest on Episode 19: Sailing the World. This brave and adventurous lady is facing a new and extreme personal challenge. Earlier this year, just a few months after she got married, Juana received the devastating news that she had stage 4 bowel cancer. In this episode, I speak to Juana and her wife, the artist, Hannah Scott, about Juana's diagnosis and the funds they are raising so tha...

In 1984, the writer, Sandra Jensen, disillusioned with life, put on her backpack and went off to travel the world. Her first stop was Sri Lanka, but with little funds to support herself, she soon fell into the dark world of travel scams. In this insightful and moving account, Sandra discusses the widespread practices throughout Asia in the 1980s, the risks she took and whether she fell prey to the very person she trusted when offered the opportunity to make some money from selling rubies. Yo...

Season 3 of my Extreme Holidays Podcast is returning shortly. Listen to the trailer to find out about more upcoming, exciting and life-changing travel stories! You can also hear about our special Christmas Appeal for Juana Flores Vegas who was my guest on Episode 19 (Sailing the World) and is facing a new and extreme personal challenge after being diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. Production (for this episode) Creator, producer, writer and host: Ruth Millington Music cre...

The Extreme Holidays Podcast is one-year-old! Thanks to everyone who has tuned in this past year. To celebrate, listen in to some of my previous extreme traveller guests discuss the one thing they could change to make travel more enjoyable and sustainable. It's a light-hearted look at what even the most experienced travellers can sometimes get frustrated about! This is also the last episode of the current series. For updates on when the podcast will be returning, don't forget to...

What does it take to fulfil your dream of travelling from the lowest to the highest point in Africa? In January 2011, Kyle Henning left the shores of Lake Assal, Djibouti (508 feet below sea level), destined for the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (19,341 feet above sea level). For sixty-eight days, he travelled by bicycle and on foot to connect the lowest point on the African continent to the summit of its highest mountain, following the Great Rift Valley from the Afar Depression thro...

What’s it like to be an expat child? We often hear stories about expat adults living abroad, but rarely do we hear about expat children. In this episode, I’m delighted to be speaking to one of my best friends, Sophie Capito, who I met whilst I was working in London in the 1990s. Sophie was different to anyone I had met before. I found her interesting and endearing, particularly when I discovered she had been an expat in Japan for a large part of her childhood. Little, though, did...

Can faith give you perspective even in the most extreme travel situations? In 2010, Jurek Schreiner, a photographer, having completed his studies at the Shedra: College for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, was invited with his future wife, Greta Williams, to Bhutan to participate in the 2nd event of the Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche Centennial Celebrations. To get there, they caught an overnight bus from Kathmandu to the eastern border town of Karkavitta. Traversing across dangerous mountain passes, the...

Many people are trapped in their careers based on an intense fear of scarcity and poverty and are simply in survival mode rather than following their passions. Until his mid-30s, Ryan Biddulph was one of them. He didn’t have a passport and had never left the USA, but inspired by his future wife, Kelly, who was already travelling the globe, he took his first trip to Bali and never looked back. 11 years and 45 countries later, Ryan and his wife are still on the road, the ultim...

What's it like to explore the world by yacht? In this episode, I speak with extreme world traveller Juana Flores Vegas who discovered her love for sailing in 2010 after travelling every corner of the globe both on foot and by bicycle. Since then, she has crossed the Atlantic five times, and in 2017 decided to sail around the world starting from Malaga to the South Caribbean and Panama, crossing the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia and onto New Zealand returning via Papua New Guinea and...

In 1994, Kimberly Brown embarked on a lifelong dream of travelling the globe overland. Her trip innocently began in San Francisco on a hippie bus called the Green Tortoise. She worked the Galway Arts Festival in Ireland, traversed Russia on the Trans-Siberian railway, and rode horses on the high Mongolian plains. If it hadn’t been for a nasty stomach bug she caught in China, she may never have volunteered as a teacher at Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border in the middle of a ...

In 2008, Ian Pilbeam and his wife, Anne, quit their secure jobs just before the financial crisis hit to take their 8 and 10-year-old son and daughter on a year long round-the-world trip. Visiting 21 countries, Ian discusses what inspired them to take the leap, the highs and lows, the challenges they faced and how it changed him as a father and inspired him to set up his own business. Ian gives lots of tips on how to set the criteria for travel, budgeting, managing kid’s expectations, the life...

In 1998, global nomad, keen bicycle traveller and author, Graydon Hazenberg, decided to cycle across the roof of the world from Islamabad in Pakistan to Mount Kailash (Tibet’s Holiest Mountain) with his sisters and their partners. It was to be a 3-month trip across 2200 miles of some of the world’s most inspiring and harshest terrain. Along the way, they met many of the fascinating ethnic groups that live in this remote region, but the trip came with some immense challenges: equip...

In this episode, I speak to Suzanne Buchanan, a British Citizen and the exiled former owner and editor of the Samui Times online newspaper. She has received numerous death threats and there is a warrant out for her arrest in Thailand for articles she published in the Samui Times after she investigated over a dozen suspicious backpacker deaths on the island of Koh Tao. Those investigations also led her to believe that two Burmese men, Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin, have been wrongly sentenced to death ...

Listen in to this EXTREME tale of bravery from 9/11 hero and world traveller, David T. Garrison! How would you spend time off work? Relaxing? Visiting family and friends? David T. Garrison did the exact opposite and went out to help in one of the most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis to hit Japan. You can’t get a more extreme holiday than this! On 11th March 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hit just off the coast of Japan followed by a tsunami that decimated 400 miles of east coas...

As news broke of the outbreak of war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, husband and wife team, Nick Tadd and Vanessa Warwick, decided to launch a humanitarian mission to Ukraine. Leaving Vanessa to coordinate efforts from the UK, Nick set off on the morning of 4th March 2022 in his SUV with trailer in tow loaded with donations of food and basic supplies for refugees for the 20-hour drive to the Polish/Ukraine border via a ferry from Dover to Dunkirk. What he witnessed on the ...

How would you cope if you were involved in a horrific accident in the African bush, thousands of miles away from home? In 2008, ex-City banker, Claudia Stachelhaus, upped sticks after being made redundant to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip across Namibia. On the second day of her adventure, the group tour bus she was travelling in overturned at high speed & Claudia was thrown out of the vehicle onto the dirt track & knocked unconscious. She woke to find herself screaming, having susta...