

Alastair Humphreys left Yorkshire one day on his bike and didn’t return for four years, cycling through an incredible 60 countries. He’s walked across India, rowed across the Atlantic, run six marathons through the Sahara, crossed Iceland on foot, busked through Spain by facing his worst fears of performing (badly) in public and having found all that adventure hard when real life came calling, has pioneered the concept of #microadventures. A motivational and inspiration conversation with this intrepid explorer.
On this episode we cover:
The huge interest in his concept of ‘Microadventures’
How real life gets in the way of big, long adventures
Exploring the world two miles away from home
How we can all find adventures at home
Erling Kagge the Norwegian explorer
How weeks and month can fly by but the hours of a microadventure being very slow
How removing the things you don’t need in life makes more
Levison Wood and sacrificing personal relationships
Big expeditions being incredibly selfish thing
His new book My Midsummer Morning
Being inspired by Laurie Lee
Wanting to busk around Spain but not playing any instrument
Being terrified by public speaking
Being terrible at the violin (video evidence!)
Turning up in Spain and emptying his pockets of money
His terrifying first ‘gig’ in Vigo in Galicia
Being more scared of this than rowing the Atlantic Ocean
His magical journey across Spain
The beautiful landscapes from Galicia, Castile down to Madrid
Cooking on campfires and sleeping under the stars
Being the happiest he’s been in many years
Not putting any thoughts into walking 500 miles
The biggest adventure being the first time he busked
Busking being everything he’d ever dreaded
The old Spanish man who gave him his first Euro
Living like an absolute king
Earning a grand total of 120 euros in a month
Being able to afford bread and bananas on the same day
Laurie Lee’s wonderfully evocative discretions of Madrid
Fresh seafood being brought into Madrid on ice on a train
Spending a lot of time of hilltops and walking through villages
The fine line between loneliness and solitude when travelling
Being touched by the kindness of strangers
Crossing the Sierra de Guadarrama towards Madrid
Spending four years cycling round the world
How cycling is his favourite way to travel
Being curious about the physical and mental challenge of travelling the world
The masochistic urge to make life more uncomfortable
Cycling from Yorkshire to Cape Town via Europe, the Middle East and East Africa
Crossing the Atlantic on a sailing boat
Cycling from Ushuaia in Patagonia all the way up to Northern Alaska
Getting the boat from Alaska to Asia
Cycling from North Eastern to Siberia back to England
What his parents were thinking
Scuppering his plans to become a teacher
Saving up £7000 and living on just this for four years
‘Living like a total tramp’ and being close to quitting
Completely underestimated how hard and lonely it would be
Having cold showers because he hates them
Whipping himself with reeds (maybe for the next project)
Whether you stop and appreciate travel when you’re crossing 60 countries
Being overjoyed to earn £300 for an article for the Guardian on his journey
How life offers choices to earn more or spend less
The realisation he could cycle round the world forever
Being jaded by ‘another invitation to visit a nomad in his hut’
Running the Marathon de Sables 150 miles across the Sahara Desert
Walking across India
Crossing Iceland for emptiness and wilderness
Feeling his of ‘being a beginner’ influences his choices
His Night of Adventure annual speaking night
Regularly heading off to spend a night up a hill
Lisa’s ambitions to climb trees
Feeling a fraud at first with his small adventures
Building a raft on a river in the Lake District
Feeling guilty he wasn’t doing a spread sheet
How we all need to be more childlike
Getting back to things we did as kids
Trying to live adventurously every day rather than separating work and holidays
How a mountain in Scotland is his favourite view
Feeling most foreign in rural China
Finding a mixture of belonging and not belonging in Japan
How Ethiopia was where he felt least welcome
Struggling with tourist hot spots in Egypt
Feeling incredibly remote in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
The huge space meeting massive claustrophobia, boredom and terror
Scary storms in the night
Being deliberately masochistic
How real life caught up with him
How marriage and kids caused some constraint anxiety
Showing his kids what an adventurous life means to him
The difference of being a Dad going off for a month in Spain and a Mum
Parenting changes every generation
Whether mothers bear a bigger emotional burden
Whether mothers choose to bear an emotional burden
Women adventurers being judged harshly by the media
Him being the default parent
Putting your kids to go to bed and going to climb a tree
How we all put up barriers and make excuses
How first song he learnt on the violin was the soundtrack of his life