PODCAST · history
By Their Own Compass
by Where a love of history meets a passion for travel.
Historian Jeremiah Jenne and journalist Sarah Keenlyside explore historical travellers and the worlds they encountered, connecting past journeys to today's travel destinations. www.bytheirowncompass.com
Episodes
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Zheng He: The Eunuch Who Commanded the World’s Biggest Treasure Fleet
Decades before Christopher Columbus and Europe’s “Age of Exploration”, a strapping Chinese admiral named Zheng He commanded the biggest fleet of ships the world had ever seen – treasure ships so enormous that nothing comparable sailed the oceans for another 400 years. Born into a Muslim family…
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The Dark Side of the Compass: When Travellers Become the Problem
British travel writer and podcaster Jamie Fullerton has spent his career documenting communities and places that the average guidebook doesn’t cover – from the Dance of the Little Devils ritual in Boruca, Costa Rica, to overnight hikes on Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano and obscure bagpipe festivals in...
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Emily Hahn in China: War, Romance, and Opium
Seeking the perfect travel companion: Must like adventure, dodgy neighborhoods, good gin joints, handsome and interesting men (a spy or a poet, if you please), gibbons (which are NOT monkeys), and opium. Not in that particular order. Meet Emily “Mickey” Hahn, a writer, an adventurer, and a...
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History’s Funniest Diplomatic Fails: the US in Guam, Louis XIV’s Fake Persian Ambassador and China’s Unluckiest Envoy
In diplomatic history, some missions don’t always go off with a bang, but with a cringe. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, the US Navy attacked Guam and waited for return fire that never came. Turns out the Spanish-run island had no idea they were enemies and sent an army officer and port...
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Leo Africanus: Pirates, Popes, and the Moor Who Knew Too Much
Captured by a Spanish pirate? A gift to Pope Leo X? Europe’s expert on Africa for nearly three centuries? Leo Africanus lived many lives. Born al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan around 1488 in Granada, Spain, he was trained in the madrasas of Fez to be a diplomat. He travelled across the Sahara…
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The Lost Generation in 1920s Paris: How Glamorous Was It Really?
Cobblestones. Cafes. The smell of baguettes hits you as you walk into a warm boulangerie on a rainy morning. An open notebook on a chequered tablecloth, an old-style pen, and a café au lait at the ready. Paris in April. They even wrote a song about it. Paris is probably the most pre-imagined city...
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Historian Nicola Di Cosmo on Venice, the Mongols, and Marco Polo in China
Our Marco Polo episode was the most downloaded show in the history of By Their Own Compass. This week, we go deeper into the world of Marco and the Mongols as we sit down with Nicola Di Cosmo, Professor of East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and co-author of Venice...
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Marco Polo’s 17 Year Journey in China: Reality vs Fiction
It’s a question that’s puzzled historians for centuries: did Marco Polo really go to China – or is history’s most famous traveller also its greatest liar? In this episode of By Their Own Compass, Jeremiah Jenne and Sarah Keenlyside attempt to uncover the true story of Marco Polo – the Venetian...
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History's Biggest Travel Divas: Fanny Trollope, Empress Dowager Cixi, and Alice Roosevelt
From Fanny Trollope's war on American manners to Alice Roosevelt's pet snake to the Empress Dowager Cixi's private theme park: a travel history of women who refused to behave. Every traveller knows one. You might be one. The person who sends the steak back twice, requests a different hotel room...
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Interview: Annie Londonderry’s Great-Grandnephew Peter Zheutlin
It’s rare that one of history’s most iconic travellers has a living relative we can speak to – but that’s exactly the case with Annie Londonderry, whose great-grandnephew Peter Zheutlin has a remarkable story of his own. In 1894, Annie Londonderry, real name Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, became a…
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Annie Londonderry: The Woman Who Bicycled Around the World (Sort Of)
On June 25, 1894, five hundred people gathered on the steps of the Massachusetts State House to watch a young woman named Annie Londonderry climb onto a Columbia bicycle and ride off to circle the globe. She carried a pearl-handled revolver, a placard advertising spring water from New Hampshire,...
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History's Greatest Travel Scams: From Medieval Relic Fraud to the Tea House Scam in Beijing
If you’ve ever Googled “how to avoid scams in [destination],” you already know the genre: YouTube videos breathlessly (and ominously) exposing the 15 tricks that will ruin your trip to Florence, Bangkok, or Marrakech. Full disclosure: We watch them too. But the historically minded traveler will…
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What Happens When You Recreate a Viking Voyage, with W. Hodding Carter
It’s one thing to read about Leif Erikson’s epic journey from Greenland to North America in the 10th century as a child; it’s quite another to build a replica Viking cargo ship and attempt the same journey as an adult. But that’s exactly what W. Hodding Carter and his team did in 1997, making…
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Erik the Red & Leif Erikson: The outlaw who founded Greenland and the son who reached North America
Around the year 985 A.D., Icelandic exile Erik the Red, a man renowned for his fiery temper, founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. Years later, his ambitious son Leif Erikson went on to become one of the first known Europeans to set foot in North America – centuries before Columbus. In...
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The Grand Tour Explained: Bridgerton, Bad Behaviour and Too Many Sex Scandals to Count
When the writers on Netflix’s Bridgerton send Colin Bridgerton off on the Grand Tour in season three, it’s treated as a throwaway plot device. In reality, the Grand Tour was one of the most influential – and ridiculous – phenomena in British history, shaping everything from travel writing to…
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Bonus Dispatch: Modern-day Missionaries, Walking Safaris, and the Livingstone Trail with Dan Kobayashi
David Livingstone spent thirty years wandering across Africa. In our main episode we spent forty minutes talking about him. We may have missed a few spots. Dan Kobayashi, a writer and longtime Africa analyst, helps us fill in the blank spaces on the map. Dan spent 13 years as an expert on…
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Dr. David Livingstone's Thirty-year Journey in Africa
In 1871, Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813-1873) was hanging out in the village of Ujiji, in what is today Tanzania. He wasn’t exactly lost, but the last few years had been rough, full of heartbreak and disappointment. Livingstone had spent three decades exploring and…
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Bonus Episode: Sacagawea Does K-Pop, Lewis and Clark, and AI in Podcasting
In this bonus episode of By Their Own Compass, we go behind the scenes of our Sacagawea episode to unpack one of the most misunderstood figures in American history — and the creative choices involved in telling her story today. We pull back the curtain on podcasting and creative production,...
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Sacagawea
In this episode of By Their Own Compass, we explore the extraordinary journey of Sacagawea, a nursing teenager travelling across North America with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Corps of Discovery from 1804–1806. Looking beyond the legend, we examine her role as a traveller, cultural...
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When Travel Goes Catastrophically Wrong: History's Greatest Fiascos
Pour yourself something strong (we suggest a nice scotch for reasons that will become clear a few minutes into the episode) and settle in for a festive tour through history's most spectacular travel disasters. Whilst the rest of the world is busy booking flights and packing bags for the holidays,...
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Bonus Episode: Emily Hahn’s Shanghai
If you enjoyed our deep dive into the life of the New Yorker correspondent, Emily Hahn wild times in China, you won’t want to miss this special bonus episode. Sarah sits down with Tina Kanagarathnam of Historic Shanghai to answer the burning question: What is actually left of Emily’s world? Every...
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Emily Hahn
We’re back and in our second episode, we’re following the travels of Emily “Mickey” Hahn in 1930s China. Mickey Hahn was a writer, an adventurer, and a professional rule breaker whose wanderlust took her from the American Midwest to Europe and Africa and finally to China, all before she turned…
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Ibn Battuta
After months of planning, scripting, and the sort of meticulous historical fact-checking that would make Ibn Battuta himself say, “Mate, it’s just a travel story,” we’re thrilled to announce the launch of By Their Own Compass. Our inaugural episode features Ibn Battuta, one of history’s most...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Historian Jeremiah Jenne and journalist Sarah Keenlyside explore historical travellers and the worlds they encountered, connecting past journeys to today's travel destinations.
www.bytheirowncompass.com
HOSTED BY
Where a love of history meets a passion for travel.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does By Their Own Compass have?
By Their Own Compass currently has 31 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is By Their Own Compass about?
Historian Jeremiah Jenne and journalist Sarah Keenlyside explore historical travellers and the worlds they encountered, connecting past journeys to today's travel destinations. www.bytheirowncompass.com
How often does By Their Own Compass release new episodes?
By Their Own Compass has 31 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to By Their Own Compass?
You can listen to By Their Own Compass on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts By Their Own Compass?
By Their Own Compass is created and hosted by Where a love of history meets a passion for travel..
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