Action Packed Travel

Freelance public relations consultant, Paddy Daly, took the plunge and moved his family and his business to the other side of the English Channel. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy

We're re-running this popular episode about Harry Mitsidis, who has travelled to every country in the world...at least twice.  He's the founder of a website called NomadMania. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy 

The quaint medieval community of Lacock might seem familiar.    Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy

Alice Gully of Aardvark Safaris takes a journey back in time to São Tomé and Príncipe.   Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy

This week we're in Val d'Isère in the French Alps, exploring the complicated subject of ski and boot rental. Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy

Dick's Tea Bar in Val d'Isère once captured the imagination of generations of visitors.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy    

Minty Clinch, who died this month, was a good friend of ours for more years than we can remember. She was a fine writer and witty to the very end. We have decided to re-release an interview we did with her five years ago. The episode is about her adventures on horseback to some of the wildest corners of the world. To Minty's many friends: we hope you enjoy listening. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy

We're giving this episode another airing. It's what might best be described as a rather long bike ride. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy

One of the first tour operators to give away the company to their staff. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy 

Because this means so much to us, we've repeated the episode! The Somerset town of Frome has seen many battles in its history, from the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 to a campaign to win Packsaddle Community Fields in 2025. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

This week we're talking to Jay Stevens, CEO of Wayfairer Travel, whose passion is snowboarding in Japan. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Zoe Langley-Wathen walked 630 miles around the coastline of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset – and then she wrote a book about it.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

The Somerset town of Frome has seen many battles in its history, from the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 to a campaign to win Packsaddle Community Fields in 2025. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Forty years ago, Patrick Nash took a ten-month walk through the heart of Africa. We talked to him about the journey that inspired his latest book, Shots Across the Water. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Jean McNeill, author of Latitudes: Encounters with a Changing Planet, is an award-winning Canadian-born writer, the first-ever female director of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and a professionally qualified safari guide. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Scottish explorer and Arabist Alice Morrison decided to take a long hike to talk to the ordinary people, particularly the women who live there. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy   Support the show

Valentine Warner is a celebrity chef who's made no less nine TV series, and has written five books. He likes to cook in remote and beautiful corners of the world. His new venture, Kitchen in the Wild, is set in a private safari lodge with views of Mount Kenya.   Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Travel writer and author of My Family and Other Enemies, Mary Novakovich, explores her homeland, including the hinterland of Croatia most foreigners never visit.  Music: © Barney and Izzi Hardy Support the show

Author, podcaster, and creative entrepreneur Joanna Penn is a best-selling and award-winning writer of horror, thrillers, dark fantasy and travel memoirs. She's also taken up going on pilgrimages. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Simon Parker has cycled in this election year across the whole of America, from the northwest coast of Washington state, all the way to the most south easterly tip of Florida. He's written a book about it.  Music: Barney & Izzi Hardy Support the show

Sophia Ashe, hooked on ponies and horses since childhood, joined a team of gauchos at a ranch in Argentina and wrote a book about her experiences.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy Support the show

Bletchley Park is a country mansion 35 minutes by train northwest of London, where Alan Turing and his team of cryptanalysts cracked the complicated codes of the German Enigma machine.  Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

How do you survive on your own for days on end? So far, seven women have completed the Vendée Globe, the toughest round-the-world race. Joan Mulloy, a brand ambassador for Helly Hansen and a mother of two from the west coast of Ireland, is determined to become the eighth woman to compete and the first to win it.  Music: © Barney & Izzy Hardy  Support the show

Veteran underwater cameraman, John Ruthven, talks to us about his book and a lifetime of exploring the deep. He is also a producer of Sir David Attenborough's The Blue Planet, a zoologist, film director, writer, editor and stylist. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

This week we're in Kenya talking to safari camp owner, Calvin Cotter, whose family came here from the Great Plains of the Midwest in the years before World War One.  Support the show

This week, we're exploring the fraught subject of taking small children skiing for the very first time. We're going to start and end with a warning to listeners: If you want to book a nanny service-inclusive holiday for the coming winter, there is really no time to waste. You need to book right now.  Support the show

Le Grand-Bornand is not a name like Morzine or Chamonix that trips easily off the tongue when we mention skiing, but it's typically and traditionally French.  Support the show

It's the twentieth anniversary of Arc 1950. The resort began as the idea of Canadian resort developer, Intrawest, creator of Mont-Tremblant in Quebec and manager of some 20 other resorts in North America – from Whistler to Mammoth.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

This week we're talking to someone who specialises in creating holidays that are entirely different – taking you to places you probably thought were out of bounds to all tourists.  Support the show

We caught up with Rory Dixon who organises skiing-touring trips off a boat in Norway and Greenland,  life-changing adventures to distant corners of the world. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Jess Isbrecht is a digital nomad who travels full time with her horses.   Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Harry Mitsidis has travelled to every country in the world, at least twice.  He's the founder of a website called NomadMania. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

To discover a little of what former Royal Marine, Sam Cox, will experience living alone at -30°C, podcaster Peter Hardy spends time in an industrial freezer. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

No, not the 1951 movie starring Gene Kelly and Lesley Caron... Jay Swanson moved from the USA and now lives in Paris where he calls himself: 'a YouTuber, writer, and puppy wrangler.'  He  publishes a guide to the city called Paris in my Pocket. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

We're on the road exploring a thriving sector of the travel industry that continues to explode in popularity across Europe.  Music © Barney and Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Untamed Borders sets out to satisfy the hunger of that rare breed of traveller who's already been to the far corners of the earth, got the T-shirt but still wants more.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

This week, we're talking to travel guru, Amin Momen, whose London-based company Momentum Ski organises bespoke holidays.  Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Turn your wildest travel dreams into reality, with superyacht voyages to the end of the earth, intrepid  journeys to deserts, jungles, polar regions and the oceans. Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy Support the show

We're in Vienna for an unusual episode of Action Packed Travel – unusual because our principal guest is Felice herself. She's just published a book about her grandparents' dramatic escape from Vienna to London on the eve of World War II.  Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Chris and his girlfriend Phoebe are in the saddle, for what you might describe by any standards as a rather long bike ride. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

With the sunny weather outside, we felt it was time to republish this episode about Bath Thermae Spa. Bath in the southwest of England is famous for its Roman baths. In its Regency heyday, the supposedly curative waters attracted the cream of British society…and of course, Jane Austen. 2,000 years later, the  waters were re-harnessed in the magnificent thermal spa located just a soap bath's throw away from the original.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Tom Kevill-Davies has managed to carve a highly successful career for himself out of his twin passions, cycling and eating.  Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy Support the show

Only a handful of  ski resorts in the Alps will in future offer reliable snow cover throughout the season. These include Val d'Isere, Tignes and Val Thorens in France, Cervinia in Italy, and Zermatt in Switzerland – not forgetting the Austrian glaciers. Support the show

Globally, there's just a handful of specialist operators who look after their guests on this giddy level. London-based Consensio is the leader of the pack.  Support the show

Cheryl B Engelhardt is a singer-songwriter who composed and recorded her album, Passenger, on a train journey from New York City to Los Angeles.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

Action woman extraordinary – mountain and ocean photographer, skier and freediver, Melody lives her life on the edge. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

It was three years ago that we launched our podcast and today we're in a village that dates back to 1930. It is now evolving into what should become one of the most important  future destinations for skiers in the whole of Europe.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

The island of Jersey's top five-star hotel is a very special place indeed.  Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

We went on a lightning tour of some of the crumbling coastal defences linked by a network of underground passages and even an underground German hospital. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show

A vast ski area, environmentally-friendly chalets, and birds of prey are just a few of the attractions of Morzine. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy  Support the show