Armchair Explorer
The world's greatest adventurers tell their best story from the road. Each episode is cut documentary style and set to music and cinematic effects to create an immersive storytelling experience. 'Best travel podcasts 2020'- The Guardian, 'Thrilling Stuff'-Sunday Times, 'Ear Candy for Listeners' - Washington Post
Episodes
July 24, 2024 • 42 mins
In Antarctica, time is measured in ice. Entire worlds form and dissolve in the marbled blue sheets and shimmering peaks, which rise and return from glacial seas. Half of the year is soaked in eternal sunlight; the other, cloaked in perpetual darkness. And throughout this
cycle of melting and freezing, sunsets and vibrant auroras, there is a group of people who are living and working in an unassuming group of buildings on Ross Isla...
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July 15, 2024 • 41 mins
Follow award-winning Aaron Millar on a road trip across the Tennessee Music Pathways from
the graveside of Sonny Boy Williamson, the grandfather of The Blues harmonica, to Chattanooga, home of the Big 9, and one of the original breeding grounds of The Blues.
Along the way we will hear how The Blues became, perhaps, the most influential genre in all of music, inspiring everything from rock n’ roll to hip hop, R&B, and everything...
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Follow extreme bikepacker Cat Jaffee as she competes in the Silk Road Mountain Race - the toughest mountain bike race on the planet. 1,200-miles long, with over 115,000-feet elevation gain, athletes traverse the high mountain passes and remote valleys of Kyrgyzstan for 14 grueling days. Traveling completely unsupported, wild camping along the way, only a handful of riders attempt it and a fraction of those reach the end.
But the ...
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“These are the days in our lives that we remember. It's not all
the days that went so well. It's the days when you're miserable, when
you think you can't go one more step, and then you swear at somebody,
and then you keep going. Those are the days that form our spines. They
have formed my spine.”
- Kris Tompkins
Kris Tompkins has spent a lifetime fighting tooth and nail to protect wild lands. In
1993, she stepped down as CE...
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June 17, 2024 • 63 mins
Dinosaurs and dark skies have a lot more in common than you'd think...and Utah happens to be one of the best places in the world to experience both of them firsthand.
In this episode, join host Aaron Millar as he explores Utah through both time and space. From coming face to face with a wall of dinosaur bones to stepping onto a top-secret active dinosaur dig site and behind the scenes at the fossil preparation lab, you'll learn abo...
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Conrad Anker is renowned throughout the world as one of the greatest living mountaineers. Follow him to the Himalayan peaks of northern India to climb the ‘Shark’s Fin’ of Mt. Meru, a sheer 1,500-foot wall of blank granite, one the hardest, most dangerous and beautiful routes on the planet.
For 30 years the best mountaineers in the world had attempted to climb Mt. Meru and for 30 years one-by-one they were spit off. It was though...
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June 4, 2024 • 50 mins
Pub crawls, wine tasting, a distillery or two. The only thing better than summer travel, is summer travel with a drink in hand. That’s what this episode is all about. We’re calling it Liquid Tourism and it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Today, we’re going to Yolo County, California. You may remember it from the documentary we made about the Slow Food movement up there. It’s a beautiful rural landscape filled with vineyards, small farm...
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Benedict Allen has made a name for himself, not necessarily for what he does, but for what he does not do...travel with modern technology.
For the last several decades, Benedict has explored some of the most remote corners of the planet, from crossing the Amazon basin to the deserts of Namibia. And instead of navigating those highly complex journeys with modern technology, he's chosen instead to embed himself with local cultures, ...
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May 13, 2024 • 46 mins
If there's one word that defines Utah, it just might be adventure. From the adrenaline-pumping to the meditative, the outdoors in Utah is a veritable playground for exploration. In Part One of Uniquely Utah adventures, we spent the morning fly fishing on the teal waters of Flaming Gorge, followed by an afternoon of mountain biking, chasing sharp turns with a pro rider.
In Part Two, follow along as we ride on muleback to trace the...
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Growing up in Kenya, Chris Carter fell in love with Africa's wilderness -- with forests and grasslands, mountains and waterfalls, lions and giraffes. But after spending several years backpacking the long-distance treks of the US, he returned to his home country only to realize that Kenya had no comparable established backpacking trails. So naturally, he decided to create one.
Chris partnered with the Kenya Wildlife Service to map,...
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April 29, 2024 • 34 mins
Welcome to Utah: Life Elevated, the documentary podcast that will take you all around Utah on an unforgettable road trip. Today, we're diving into some of Utah's unique adventures...because if there's one word that defines Utah, it just might be adventure!
From rappelling down canyon walls to churning up dirt on a mountain bike, there are so many ways to get a taste of the outdoors in this great state. Join us for some unforgetta...
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April 24, 2024 • 34 mins
Writer Tim Moore is no stranger to the unusual and unique. In his early days as a travel writer, he rode a container ship to Iceland, biked across Italy in a period costume, completed the Camino de Santiago with a donkey as his only companion, and more. So when Tim got a call out of the blue one day from his editor, asking if he'd consider biking the length of the newly established Iron Curtain Trail, he had two thoughts.
One was ...
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In Oregon, the natural world doesn't just inspire awe -- it gives a touch of the sublime. In the words of one guide, it's "timeless...important for the soul of humankind."
And today, we're immersing ourselves in those sublime experiences along the Central Nature Trail in Oregon! Follow along as we snowshoe to the top of Watchman Peak, for the best view over Crater Lake in the park – “like a sapphire embedded in the Earth”, as Aar...
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April 8, 2024 • 43 mins
"Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst—or just across the ocean—if only we can find eyes to see it."
Thus begins the premise of Pico Iyer's journey in The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise. Pico is one of...
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April 1, 2024 • 32 mins
In the Florida Keys, the ocean isn't just part of the scenery. Because beneath those shimmering teal waters, there are adventures and discoveries just waiting to be found.
And in today's episode, we'll explore two very different - yet equally captivating - gems of the Keys, with excerpts from two different episodes of the 30-part Florida Keys Traveler podcast.
First, join host Elizabeth Harryman Lasley as she visits Marathon's Do...
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March 25, 2024 • 56 mins
“I'm sure bungee jumping is crazy and a real like adrenaline rush. But if you've never walked through Somalia with $15,000 in your backpack, you have never lived. You think you like adventure sports, but that is real, real pumping adrenaline.”
In this episode, American journalist Eric Czuleger takes us on a journey into the twilight zone of almost countries, the places in the world that are fighting for recognition: Kurdistan, Ko...
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March 17, 2024 • 55 mins
St. Patrick might be the most famous of the Irish saints...but he's far from the most interesting.
In 2023, St. Brigid’s Day was decreed a National Holiday in Ireland to honor Brigid. Over the millennia, this legendary woman has evolved into a figure encompassing myth, holy legend, pagan icon, and now modern feminist symbol.
But who was Brigid, really? To answer that question, travel writer Nicola Brady set off around Ireland to s...
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March 11, 2024 • 54 mins
The Van Gujjar tribes spend half of each year living deep in the forests of northern India and the other half high on the mountain plains of the Himalayas. Herding water buffalo, whose milk nourishes and sustains their livelihoods, every Van Gujjar family makes an annual migration from their winter home in the forests to their summer grazing fields in the Himalayas.
That is -- until now.
Faced with the threat of losing their herd...
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February 26, 2024 • 39 mins
This week we are going to Nashville, Tennessee The Country Music Capital of the World … but don’t worry you don’t have to love country to love Nashville. It is a music town. If you like listening to live music – who doesn’t? – then this is a musical odyssey you must take at least once in your life.
We’re going to have some fun, we’re going backstage at 3 rd and Lyndsey, one of Nashville’s most iconic venues, to meet the songwriters...
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"I will show you my Amazon - the Amazon that visitors never get to see."
When Alex Robinson heard those words, he knew he was in for the adventure of a lifetime. His guide, Saru Mundurucu, had recently founded his own adventure and travel company, Aracá Expeditions. As the first and only Amazon adventure company owned and operated by an indigenous Amazonian, Saru promised Alex an experience unlike any other - and he delivered.
Im...
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