Stranded in Remote Peru, Brad Fox Ate Psychedelic Plants and Wrote About the Depths of the Ocean

When the entire world shut down in early 2020, Brad Fox was not at home in New York. He was instead in the high jungles of Peru, embedded with a family of Quechua-speaking traditional healers, known as curanderos. "I have never felt so sober in my life," Brad said of his many months stranded there, which involved getting to know the local pharmacopoeia, some of which had profound psychedelic effects. During his time of isolation, Brad Fox wrote "The Bathysphere Book", which was named Winner of the 2024 National Book Foundation's Science + Literature Award and A Washington Post top 10 best book of 2023. The book shimmers with a logic-bending mystique, and it's hardly surprising why. For his next book, Brad returned, literally and in theme, to the Peruvian jungle and told the story of his time there. The resulting book is "Another Bone-Swapping Event," it's out in November through Astral Press in the US and Icon Books in the UK. In our episode of the Travel Writing Podcast, Brad Fox talks about his time in Peru. He traces the journey of his two most recent non-fiction books, and brings us into the strange yet piercingly clear world of tradition, ayahuasca, and healing, he inhabited far from the high rises and emails of modern life. We also talk about Brad Fox's earlier travels, including years spent as an aid contractor in Serbia, and a mysterious diving expedition in central Budapest. L