Alastair Humphreys: Grand Expeditions & The Wonder of Local Exploration
Please click here to 'Follow' the show - it really helps get the show to a wider audience (which I really thank you for!). Alastair Humphreys cycled around the world for five years on a teacher's gap year he never quite ended. He rowed the Atlantic with three strangers he'd met online. He walked 500 miles across Spain playing the violin badly enough that someone occasionally threw him a coin. He's written more than a dozen books, been named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, and is widely credited with launching the global microadventures movement. And yet, when you talk to him, the thing that lights him up most is a random industrial yard on the edge of his local town — a kilometre-square of scrubby brownfield he was sent to by a random number generator, and which turned out to be one of the most fascinating places he visited all year. Chapers 00:00 Grand expeditions and getting into adventuring 01:08 Teaching, Edinburgh, and daydreaming about adventure 03:12 First adventures — Africa at 18 and discovering the wider world 04:42 Travelling pre-digital — paper maps, internet cafés, and no phone 06:34 Cycling around the world at 24: five years, 46,000 miles 07:21 Key memories — Patagonia, loneliness, and the kindness of strangers 09:41 Planning versus spontaneity — and how 9/11 changed the whole route 11:31 Wanting to quit: the mental challenge nobody warns you about 12:42 Friends, fellow cyclists, and Forrest Gump recruitment in Argentina 14:30 Rowing the Atlantic — an email from a stranger in Slovenia 16:14 Simultaneously boring and terrifying: life on the ocean 17:04 Wildlife at sea — and a very sad absence of sharks 18:15 Walking India's Kaveri River — 500 miles across southern India 19:39 Heat, crowds, and the relentless humanness of India 21:14 Walking across Spain playing the violin — and why terror was the goal 24:24 Grade 1 nursery rhymes and a windfall 20 euros in a sunny plaza 25:26 The rule: spend every coin immediately so you're broke again tomorrow 27:56 Microadventures — the breakthrough book and the five-to-nine concept 29:16 Why microadventures felt like giving up — and why it wasn't 31:26 Dismantling the obstacles — the five-to-nine thought experiment 33:39 The simple message: turn off your computer at five, sleep on a hill 35:03 Being a writer — the joy, the imposter syndrome, and the phone problem 37:33 Family, fatherhood, and why microadventures are his personal solution 38:05 The book Local — one Ordnance Survey map, one year, 52 grid squares 40:33 One to twenty-five thousand scale — and why 52 out of 400 felt like nothing 42:20 The random number generator — and why it was the best decision 44:40 What surprised him most: brownfield joy and environmental grief 45:51 The hidden environmental message — and why he's stopped flying for fun 51:18 What's next: Local was just published and for once there's no plan 53:56 Call to Adventure: your Local Seven Summits 55:51 Pay It Forward: Right to Roam, Trash Free Trails, and Take the Jump 58:22 Right to roam responsibly — and why that word matters 59:38 Where to find Alastair Humphreys That tension — between grand expedition and humble local wander, between flying somewhere epic and rediscovering what's on your doorstep — runs through everything Alastair does, and through this conversation. What You'll Learn: • Why Alastair says the Spain violin project — not the world cycle or the ocean row — is his favourite adventure of all time, and why terror was the whole point • What the five-to-nine concept actually means, and how it dismantles the most common reasons people never start adventuring • How committing to just one Ordnance Survey map for an entire year revealed something genuinely depressing about the British landsc
