Personal Landscapes

The little town of Weimar was the crucible of German high culture, democracy, and dictatorship.It was home to Goethe and Schiller, Nietzsche and Liszt. It gave its name to the Weimar Republic. And it was an early stronghold of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.It’s easy to look back this period and diagnose how it all went wrong. Why did so many people sleepwalk into disaster?Hindsight is always deceptively clear. But life looks very different when you’re living it.Historian Katja Hoyer tells the story of Weimar — and by extension, Germany’s descent into chaos — through the lives of ordinary people, giving us a vivid sense of what it must have been like, year by year, as they tried to put food on the table, build businesses, and feed their families.Katja is the author of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe.We spoke about Weimar as the centre of German culture, how Elizabeth Nietzsche tarnished her brother’s legacy, and how democratic hope turned to Nazi terror.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack, where you'll find show notes for each episode, book reviews, reading-related videos, and more. You’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading. Go to https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereFollow my travels — and buy my books — on https://ryanmurdock.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Landscapes contain hidden histories that shaped the development of the world we live in. How we moved through those landscapes also tells us something about ourselves.The Paths More Traveled explores the web that has stretched across Britain for over 11,000 years, as prehistoric routeways evolved to Roman roads and pilgrim paths.Nicholas Crane is the author of ten books, including The Path More Travelled, The Making of the British Landscape, Latitude, and one of my favourite travel classics, Clear Waters Rising. He’s also known for his television work as lead presenter on the series Coast. And he was was president of the Royal Geographical Society between 2015 and 2018.We spoke about navigating Mesolithic routeways, the legacy of Britain’s Roman roads, and how 7th century pilgrimage reshaped the urban landscape.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack, where you'll find show notes for each episode, book reviews, reading-related videos, and more. You’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading. Go to https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereFollow my travels — and buy my books — on https://ryanmurdock.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

The foreign affairs and travel writer Robert Kaplan sees today’s world as a larger version of Germany’s Weimar Republic, “connected enough for one part to mortally influence the other parts, yet not connected enough to be politically coherent.”In his latest book, Waste Land, he uses history, literature, politics and philosophy to draw parallels between today’s challenges and those of Germany’s interwar period to give us a bracing glimpse of a dangerous world that we’ve already entered into.We spoke about the immediacy of every crisis, how faltering institutions enable fanatics and ideologues, and why the roots of our permanent twenty-first century crisis continues to lie in what went wrong in the twentieth.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack, where you'll find show notes for each episode, book reviews, reading-related videos, and more. You’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading. Go to https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereFollow my travels — and buy my books — on https://ryanmurdock.com/Your support is greatly appreciated. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

In a small medieval palace on Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, a young girl chosen from a caste of Buddhist goldsmiths watches over this broad valley and protects the country and its people.She’s the embodiment of Devi, the universal goddess, and Hindu kings have sought her blessings for centuries to legitimate their rule.Isabella Tree uncovered the secrets of this strange tradition over many years and many visits to Nepal. She peeled away the layers of myth, religious belief and modern history, and she slowly overcame the reluctance of priests and caretakers to meet Kathmandu’s living goddess herself.Isabella is the author of The Living Goddess, Islands in the Clouds, The Book of Wilding, and other books. Her work has appeared in Granta, National Geographic, The Sunday Times and other publications. She’s an award winning conservationist, and lives West Sussex, in the middle of the Knepp Wildland, the first large-scale rewilding project in lowland England.We spoke about the powers of the living goddess, how she is chosen, the connection to tantric ritual, and how the goddess foreshadowed the massacre of Nepal’s royal family.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack, where you'll find show notes for each episode, book reviews, reading-related videos, and more. You’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading. Go to https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereFollow my travels — and buy my books — on https://ryanmurdock.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Every book I read about Easter Island said roughly the same thing: a small, isolated group of people living on the world’s most remote inhabited island couldn’t have sculpted, moved and erected the enormous statues that are Easter Island’s most famous feature.Or if they had, they must have been consumed by a monument building obsession that led them to cut down all the trees, causing mass starvation and warfare, and destroying their own civilization in the process.Archaeologist Mike Pitts tells a very different and far more compelling story.He draws on the latest research to build a picture of a remarkable cultural flourishing in a remote and unforgiving environment, by people with a highly sophisticated system of agriculture and a rich tapestry of myths, religion, political stratification and artistry.His new book is one of my top reads of the year, and I couldn’t wait to talk to him about it.We spoke about the small group of settlers who discovered the island, the genesis of the famous ecocide myth, and what those massive stone statues really mean.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Moonlighting posed as a detective show, but it was actually an old-fashioned 1940s screwball-comedy. Mysteries were just a framework for the romantic tension between the two main characters, played by Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd.In an era when television was serious and even the comedies were overly-earnest, Moonlighting threw out all the rules.Chase scenes ended in food fights and soap suds. They did song and dance routines, made film noir and Shakespeare episodes, broke the fourth wall, and did cold opens where the lead actors spoke to the audience in character.It really is a time-capsule of what was great about the 1980’s, when we could still laugh at ourselves without being ‘triggered’.Today I’m bringing you the inside story on the creative chaos and private feuds at the heart of that decade’s most original TV show.I'm joined by Scott Ryan, author of Moonlighting: An Oral History.We spoke about Moonlighting’s most creative episodes, the chaos and fighting on-set, and the myth the so-called Moonlighting Curse. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

I first encountered Constantine Cavafy in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, where ‘the old poet’ represented the ghostly voice of the city.I was immediately attracted to the dreamlike quality of his poems, and the way he captured a sense of melancholy that I’ve always felt.Cavafy wrote about human desire, inglorious epochs of Greek history, and civilizations in decline, using plain factual descriptions undressed by metaphor.But how did a writer who showed little promise in his youth find a place in the literary canon and become ‘the poet of Alexandria’?I’m joined by Gregory Jusdanis, co-author of Constantine Cavafy: A New Biography.We spoke about Cavafy’s childhood of faded aristocratic grandeur, the Mediterranean Greek world he grew up in, and his lifelong poetic preoccupations.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Peter Matthiessen is a towering figure of twentieth-century American letters, and the only writer to win the National Book Award in both fiction and nonfiction.He’s also a difficult man to pin down because he accomplished so much in so many different areas.He co-founded The Paris Review and spied for the CIA. He was best known for 'nature' books like The Snow Leopard, but thought of himself as a novelist. He was also a spiritual seeker who reached the highest ranks of Zen Buddhism. How do you come to grips with a life as varied as this?I'm joined by biographer Lance Richardson, the author of True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen.We spoke about Matthiessen’s privileged background, his life-changing journey to Nepal, his serial womanizing, and his greatest books.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

This drive to discover is deeply human, and as today’s guest will tell you, it might even be encoded in our genes.Alex Hutchinson is the author of The Explorer's Gene. He draws on the latest insights from neuroscience and behavioural psychology to show how the urge to explore shaped our species, and how it continues to direct our actions, even when we’re sitting on the sofa.We spoke about the explore-exploit dilemma, memorizing a route versus mapping a landscape, and how to find the sweet spot between predictability and chaos in your own exploring life.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Film noir is is my favourite silver screen genre. I’ve seen every A-list film noir multiple times, and most of the B-movies, too. I’ve wanted to do a podcast conversation about it since I started Personal Landscapes.These downbeat stories of ordinary lives gone hopelessly astray crackle with hard-boiled dialogue. They're set in modern urban wastelands, usually at night, in claustrophobic rooms where the actors are framed in tight shots that create a mood of entrapment.The classic period only lasted from 1941 until the mid-1950s, but their visual style continues to influence movies today.Who better to guide us through it than Foster Hirsch, film historian and author the definitive study, Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen. We spoke about film noir’s roots in hard-boiled fiction, how German Expressionism shaped its aesthetic, and what was happening in 1950s Hollywood as noir — and the studio system — came to an end.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

When his doctor told him to walk or die, Peter Carpenter transformed a health crisis into a feat of urban archaeology.In wandering the streets where David Bowie honed his craft, Carpenter uncovered hidden dimensions and new connections to pivotal Bowie narratives, shining a light on the legendary artist’s conscious and subconscious influences.Peter Carpenter is the author of Bowieland: Walking in the Footsteps of David Bowie, and of several volumes of poetry, including Just Like That and After the Goldrush.We spoke about Bowie’s Berlin years, how the suburbs shaped his sound, and the Growth Arts Lab in Beckenham.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

The Atlantic slave trade began in the 15th century and was abolished in the United States in 1865, but slavery was practiced in the Muslim world for much longer. It dates back to the 7th century, and endured openly until late in the 20th century.Why do we know so little about this? And what forms did it take?Today’s guest set out to answer these questions — and more — in a compelling new book that traces the extraordinary variety of slavery in the Islamic world and brings life to voices of enslaved people, from 8th century concubines to 20th century pearl divers.Justin Marozzi is the author of Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World.We spoke about courtesans and slave soldiers, the trans-Saharan slave trade, and how the Quran addressed slavery.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Europe By Rail is a beautifully-published guidebook that covers 50 key rail routes across Europe, blending practical advice with narrative storytelling, and a focus on slow travel by local trains.This wonderful resource has been inspiring travel dreams for over 30 years. The 18th edition was published in October 2024. It’s one of my favourite guidebooks, and I’m happy to be able to share it with you today.Co-author Nicky Gardner joined me to talk about spontaneity versus pre-planning, the pros and cons of rail passes, and the return of night trains.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

In his mid-twenties, city-bound and restless, Louis D. Hall decided to make an uncharted journey on horseback.He found his horse, Sasha, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains and headed west for ‘the end of the land’.In Green is a classic adventure story and a wonderful travel writing debut. I think you’ll enjoy it.We spoke about crossing the Ligurian Alps, the mysteries of the horse, and the kindness of strangers.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

If you grew up in the 80s like I did, you know Andrew McCarthy from Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire.But Andrew is more than an actor and director. He’s also an award-winning travel writer.His writing is introspective, vulnerable and self-deprecating. He weaves memoir with vivid descriptions of people and place, and grapples with questions like how to balance a solitary nature with the desire for intimacy.I reached out to ask him about walking across Spain, a journey he made twice: first alone, and then with his teenaged son.I thought he might give me some insights and inspiration as I prepare for a long farewell-to-Europe hike.We spoke about Andrew's Brat pack years, walking the Camino with his son, and how a hike can change your life.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Germany’s post-war recovery was an economic miracle.The country was on the rise in a good way. And then it all started going wrong.The signs of trouble were visible long before the covid pandemic pushed us over the brink.Journalists Will Wilkes and Chris Reiter have spent decades reporting on Germany’s problems, and they lay it all out in their new book Broken Republik.We spoke about Germany’s worrying lack of national identity, its reliance on structure to manage interpersonal relations, and why it has Europe’s worst social mobility.Personal Landscapes relies on the support of listeners like you to keep going. Please consider joining my Member's Club on Substack https://www.personallandscapespodcast.com/p/start-hereYou’ll be supporting an independent ad-free podcast that publishes carefully curated conversations like this one, backed by decades of reading.Find me on: InstagramYouTubeXFollow my travels — and buy my books — on ryanmurdock.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Digital platforms promised us personalization but their algorithms homogenized culture to a bland lowest common denominator instead.They don’t just influence what we consume, they also determine what is produced as artists shape their output to fit what gets seen and what gets shared.My guest today traced this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrated the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. And he has a few ideas for escaping it that might surprise you.Kyle Chayka joined me to talk about how digital algorithms work, why they flatten culture and how to take back control of our own taste. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

In 1879 a forgotten Irish adventurer called Frederick Carter marched four tamed Asian elephants from the coast of East Africa to the edge of the Congo. He was sent to establish a training school for African elephants so they could be used to transport cargo in place of vast armies of porters.It’s a tale of ineptitude, hypocrisy and greed filled with powerful chiefs, ivory dealers, Catholic nuns and dissolute colonial officials set against the beautifully described landscapes of Tanzania, the Congo, Brussels, Iraq and India.Sophy Roberts joined me to talk about Frederick Carter’s forgotten journey, Leopold II’s Congo land grab, and oral memory keepers as custodians of the past. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia the year Germany annexed the Sudetenland. His childhood was overshadowed by Nazi occupation. He lived under the postwar communist regime, and watched Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.His work is permeated by feelings of tragedy but the man himself is surprisingly optimistic, seizing on the present moment while appreciating the beauty of life.Biographer Melissa Harris joined me to talk about Koudelka’s wandering life, his remarkable network of friends, and his interest in capturing the end of things. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Clair Wills was in her twenties when she learned she had a cousin she'd never met.It wasn’t as though their families drifted apart. She’d never been told of this person’s existence. It was shrouded in shame and secrecy, and she wanted to understand why. Her memoir Missing Persons may change how you think about your own family, and your family secrets.We spoke about Ireland’s mother and baby homes, the stigma of illegitimacy, and how secrecy can shape a family and a society.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

What would you do if someone you knew your entire life — your mother — suddenly revealed that she’d been a spy? Deborah Lawrenson turned her story into a novel. The tangled web of espionage she weaves in The Secretary is fiction, but the background to the story is authentic, drawn in part from a seemingly innocent diary her mother wrote in 1958 while working at the British Embassy in Moscow. It’s an exciting high stakes thriller with insightful social commentary and a vivid sense of place. Exactly the sort of novel she excels at.We spoke about Cold War Moscow, growing up as an embassy child, and the shock of discovering her mother’s cloak-and-dagger past.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

In 1986, Michael Asher and his wife Mariantonietta Peru set out to cross the Sahara from west to east, by camel and on foot. Their 4,500 mile (7,200 km) journey is the longest trek ever made by Westerners in the Sahara, and the first recorded crossing from west to east by non-mechanical means. I read Asher’s book about this trip — Impossible Journey — more than twenty years ago, and it’s been in my travel literature top ten ever since.We spoke about traveling by camel, Saharan cultures, and what it was like to see the Nile after nine desert months. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Arthur Rimbaud turned French poetry on its head in his late teens. His work influenced everyone from the modernists and the Beats to Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, but he wasn’t recognized or well-liked in his lifetime. He guzzled absinthe, sponged money off friends, and wrecked the life of fellow poet Paul Verlaine. And then he renounced poetry at age 20 and simply walked away. The last we hear of him, he’s somewhere in Africa living as a trader and gunrunner — and for a while, that was all we knew. The book we’re talking about today reveals what happened next.Charles Nicholl is the author of Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1890-91.  He’s a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a recipient of the Hawthornden prize and has won the James Tait Black prize for biography. We spoke about the allure of Rimbaud the poet, his ‘lost years’ in Africa, and his late reputation as a traveler and Arabist. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

The stories in The Vanishing Point, Paul Theroux's new collection, span the globe from Hawaii and the South Seas to Africa and New England. They have all the qualities I love in his fiction: a sharp bite of satire that skewers pretension, crisp dialogue, and an eye for the small, clear detail — an action, a pattern of speech, an element of dress — that reveals someone’s deepest character. He describes the things we all see but don’t mention in polite conversation, and he shines a light on thoughts we actively avoid.Paul is the author of some 33 works of fiction including The Mosquito Coast and The Bad Angel Brothers, and 19 travel books including The Great Railway Bazaar and Dark Star Safari, books that cemented his standing as our greatest living travel writer.We had a wide-ranging conversation about the core themes in these stories, including aging, childhood reading, and how taking risks can make you wise. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Julian Evans first visited the city of Odesa, Ukraine on a boat journey down the Dnipro River in 1994. He fell in love with its distinct personality as a self-contained world. He also fell in love with a local woman, and for nearly thirty years, her city became his city, too. His new book, Undefeatable: Odesa in Love and War, weaves memoir with history and literature to give us a haunting portrait of a country struggling against terrible odds to survive. We spoke about the city of Odesa, his visits to front line combat zones, and what Russia’s war means for Europe. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.A great biography reveals the raw humanity behind lives of rare genius. In his latest book, Parallel Lives: From Freud and Mann to Arbus and Plath, Jeffrey Meyers draws on Plutarch’s principle of dual composition to shed fresh light on some of the figures who did so much to shape our world.It’s full of literary feuds, illicit romance, chronic alcoholism and sympathetic attachments between writers, artists, actors, directors, and thinkers —names you’ll recognize, and ‘greats’ you thought you understood.We spoke about Plutarch’s use of mirror images, literary feuds as spectator sport, and Audrey Hepburn’s connection to Anne Frank. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Cam Honan has hiked across 56 countries on six continents, logging over 96,500 km in three decades. Backpacker Magazine called him “the most traveled hiker on earth”.I’ve wanted to speak with him for ages about his excellent website The Hiking Life. He's also the author of Wanderlust Nordics, Wanderlust Himalaya, Wanderlust Mediterranean, Wanderlust USA, The Hidden Tracks, and other books.We talked about his favourite Nordic trails, how to go light by ditching your tent and sleeping bag, and why you should see the world at walking speed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Richard Grant has lived in Arizona for more than twenty years, and his latest book — A Race to the Bottom of Crazy — is a fascinating blend of memoir, history, local issues and encounters with strange characters.It’s a place where social guardrails are weak, and outlandish behaviour is the order of the day. Arizona doesn’t just reflect national trends, it exaggerates them. Is it a bellwether for the world to come?We spoke about the lure of the desert, Arizona’s southern border, water shortages, and the world’s biggest machine gun shoot.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Lesley Downer's fascination with Japan's most famous poet took her from Tokyo's drab industrial concrete into what was then a seldom-visited part of Honshu.It was a place of sake-drenched poetry sessions in thatched-roof highland villages, and holy mountains where modern ascetics continued to roam between their past and future lives in search of atonement. Her book about this journey, On The Narrow Road to the Deep North, was reissued by Eland in 2024.We spoke about Matsuo Basho’s haiku, mountain ascetics and Japan’s undiscovered north. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Thomas Swick moved to Warsaw at the height of the Cold War. His newest book Falling Into Place is a memoir of his life behind the Iron Curtain, but it’s also a writer’s coming of age in the heyday of post-Watergate journalism.We spoke about life in the Eastern Bloc, Polish films, and the ten sins of travel writing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.The Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was a surprisingly interconnected place. Trade flourished, interrupted by the odd embargo, and military conflicts used disinformation for strategic gain. And then something terrible happened that brought it all to an end. Large empires and small kingdoms that had been flourishing for centuries all collapsed at around the same time. It was as though civilization itself had been wiped away. What caused it? And could it happen to us?Eric Cline joined me to talk about the globalized Bronze Age world, why some civilizations vanished and others thrived, and why future historians might look at 2020 in the same way we look at 1177 B.C. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Long before he wrote 1984 — and long before he was even George Orwell — Eric Blair was a nineteen year old policeman in Burma. Biographies skirt over this five year period, but it was the making of the writer he would become.Today’s guest set out to imagine those years in a wonderful new novel called Burma Sahib.I've read all of Paul Theroux's books over the last 30 years. They were a crucial influence on me as a young traveller and writer, and I’ve gotten enormous enjoyment from them.We spoke about George Orwell and Burma, of course. But this was also a conversation about reading and the life of a writer. I hope you enjoy it.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Jonathan Raban wrote about human landscapes rather than uninhabited ones, and the borderlands between what a place professes to be and what they are.An Englishman who emigrated to Seattle at the age of 47, his status as an outsider gave him a unique perspective on America as the land of perpetual self-reinvention. Many of his books involved water — from the coastal UK to the Mississippi and the Inside Passage — and all contain interior as well as physical journeys.Julia Raban and editor John Freeman joined me to talk about Jonathan's fascination with sailing, the emigrant experience and reading landscape. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.James Salter is the best American writer you’ve probably never read. He was a fighter pilot in the Korean War, and a successful screenwriter. His sentences are fractured jewels. The details are closely observed, the imagery poetic. Every page contains an observation I want to write down.Biographer Jeffrey Meyers joined me to talk about Salter’s remarkable prose style, his core themes of love and loss, and why this giant of American fiction isn’t more widely read today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sherlock Holmes fans span the range from casual to obsessive. They included Abdulhamid II, the last ruler of the Ottoman Empire to hold absolute power. A description of the sultan having Holmes stories read to him at bedtime set journalist Andrew Finkel off on the flight of fancy that became his first novel. We spoke about The Adventure of the Second Wife, the Sherlock Holmes craze, the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, and the nature of obsession. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.I first got interested in the Wakhan Corridor when I read The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk. This weird bit of political geography once formed a buffer between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain. It’s been closed to traffic for more than a century, and it remains one of the world’s least-visited corners.Bill Colegrave joined me to talk about the Wakhan region, his search for the source of the Oxus River, and the challenges of traveling to such a remote place.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.I’d always thought of Tamerlane as a sort of cut-rate Genghis Khan. It was only when researching a trip to Uzbekistan that I discovered he was one of the world’s greatest conquerors.Justin Marozzi joined me to talk about Temur’s military genius, his architectural and cultural legacy, and how he’s remembered in Uzbekistan today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.I’ve often thought of it as one of the world’s most misunderstood countries. Not because it’s uniquely inscrutable but because it’s so beset by stereotypes. The truth is more complicated and far more interesting.Alex Kerr is the author of Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan, and Hidden Japan.He joined me to talk about embodied philosophy, “instantaneous culture”, and how to look beyond the modern and connect to Japan’s deeper essence. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Barnaby Rogerson joins me to talk about the origins of the Sunni-Shia schism, the differences between them, and the current ethnic and linguistic rivalries plaguing the Middle East. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sarah Anderson founded the iconic Travel Bookshop in 1979.You might be familiar with it even if you’ve never been to London. It was the inspiration for the bookshop in the 1998 Hugh Grant / Julia Roberts film Notting Hill.What are the biggest challenges of running a bookshop? Was there a ‘golden age’ of literary travel writing? Who are Sarah’s favourite forgotten writers about place?I’ve got all that and more in the last Personal Landscapes episode of 2023. Talk about ending the year on a high note. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Louisa Waugh lived in a village in the far west of Mongolia in the late 1990s, and wrote a remarkable book about her experience.Hearing Birds Fly describes a world of drought-stricken spring, lush summer pasture and brutal winters when fetching water meant hacking holes through river ice.In this harsh and stunningly beautiful landscape, villagers lived on mutton, dairy products and vodka, and met incredible hardships with smiles and laughter as they carved out a life in one of our world’s most remote corners.We spoke about life at the edge of Mongolia, the nomadic cycle, and how aloneness teaches us about ourselves. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Bruce Chatwin’s first book — In Patagonia — changed our idea of what travel writing could be.He was a traveler, an art expert whose keen eye for fakes made him a star at Sotheby’s, and to those who knew him, a perpetual house guest and mesmerizing conversationalist.His friend and editor Susannah Clapp joined me to talk about Chatwin’s unforgettable writing style, and his lifelong obsession with nomads. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.This might just be the strangest landscape I’ve featured on the podcast. It’s also the one we know least about.Laura Trethewey joins me to discuss bizarre underwater landscapes, the difficulties of sonar mapping, and the amazing race to map the world's oceans. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Lagos is a massive city with massive problems. I've always thought of it as a place to avoid. But I came away with a very different impression of Africa’s largest megacity after reading the book we’re discussing today.Tim Cocks joins me to speak about ancestral spirits, the importance of community networks, and the desperate need to hustle without getting hustled yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Sacred mountains are revered across a wide array of cultures. They're sites of sacrifice and of ritual, perhaps because they feel closer to the gods: physical border zones between the sacred and profane.Jeremy Bassetti joins me to talk about a strange religious pilgrimage in an off-the-track corner of Bolivia, the concept of liminal spaces, and suffering as the root cause of hope. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.The Pyrenees form one of the great European landscapes, but they're all too often overshadowed by the romance of the Alps. As you'll hear in today's podcast, they have their own very different set of stories to tell.Matthew Carr joins me to talk about medieval troubadours, Cathar castles, and Second World War escape routes from Nazi occupied Europe.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.If you think colonialism ended after the Second World War, then my latest conversation may surprise you. Simon Winchester joins me to talk about Tristan da Cunha, hiding under a bed in the Falklands, and how he bluffed his way into the world’s most notorious military base.Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire was first published in 1985, and is still in print. It’s one of the 5 or 6 books I had in mind when I started the Personal Landscapes podcast, and it remains one of my favourite books about place.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Tom Parfitt walked across the northern flank of the Russian Caucasus, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, through republics whose names are synonymous with violence, extremism and warfare. He joins me to discuss the Circassians, mass relocations under Stalin, and high mountain villages where resourceful people have survived for centuries on the stoniest ground. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Nothing symbolizes freedom in America like the open road. Richard Grant joins me to discuss frontiersmen and plains Indians, riding the rails, and the role of the Scotch-Irish in forging the utterly unique American view of freedom. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe

Donate to Personal Landscapes.Why have nomads gotten such a bad rap? And why is their knowledge essential for us today? Anthony Sattin joins me to discuss nomadic empires, cycles of history, pastoral peoples, and how steppe nomads contributed to the European Renaissance. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.personallandscapespodcast.com/subscribe