Articles

  • A Darkening Terrain

    A Darkening Terrain

    How fiction can navigate loss, drawing on themes from ‘Loss Soup and Other Stories’. Published in Resurgence & Ecologist.

  • Peace and Fire

    Peace and Fire

    Tracing a 20th-century front line through landscapes newly scarred by 21st-century wildfires. Published in Dark Mountain.

  • Walking, War and Wildfires

    Walking, War and Wildfires

    Wildfires reveal the buried violence of Europe’s past on Slovenia’s Walk of Peace. For BBC Radio 4: From Our Own Correspondent.

  • Red Beer in Lviv

    Red Beer in Lviv

    A chaotic journey through Romania, Ukraine and Poland to the Tatra Mountains. Published in Intrepid Times.

  • Bulls and Scars

    Bulls and Scars

    On having my preconceptions destroyed in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. Published in Dark Mountain and The Best British Travel Writing of the 21st Century.

  • Across Europe Ten Years On

    Across Europe Ten Years On

    A reflection on what has changed since my walk to Istanbul. For BBC Radio 4: From Our Own Correspondent.

  • Vertical Imperialism

    Vertical Imperialism

    Review of ‘The Hunt for Mount Everest’ by Craig Storti. Published in Literary Review.

  • Wild East, Wild West

    Wild East, Wild West

    Adventures with make-believe cowboys in Spain and nostalgic nomads on Hungary’s steppes. Published in Ernest.

  • Tearing Cables from the Earth

    Tearing Cables from the Earth

    One Romanian peasant farmer against fracking in Transylvania. Published in Dark Mountain.

  • Return of the Foreigners

    Return of the Foreigners

    Seeking the Forest of Dean’s wild boar on the boundary between civilisation and myth. Published in Emergence.

  • ‘There are no evil people on mountains’

    ‘There are no evil people on mountains’

    On being rescued on a Croatian mountain by one man and his homemade wine. Published in Guardian Travel.

  • Genius Loci

    Genius Loci

    Climbing over the ‘mindwall’ to review ‘The Book of Trespass’ by Nick Hayes. Published in Dark Mountain.

  • Milk of Deer

    Milk of Deer

    The Arctic reindeer-herding legacy that links Scandinavia to Scotland. Published in Ernest.

  • How to Walk Across Europe

    How to Walk Across Europe

    An audio field guide to walking 2,500 miles. Published in Dark Mountain.

  • Dead Wood

    Dead Wood

    A journey into life and death in Białowieża, Europe’s largest surviving remnant of primeval forest. Published in Emergence.

  • Burying a Robin

    Burying a Robin

    On shifting normality and unexpected grief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Published in Dark Mountain.

  • Viking Legends of the Lea

    Viking Legends of the Lea

    A meander down London’s River Lea, once the border between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. Published in Waterfront.

  • A Bell for Lost Species

    A Bell for Lost Species

    The forging of the extinction bell for Remembrance Day for Lost Species. Published in Dark Mountain.