The Slate Island of Seil

Clare hikes up Bredon Hill with Steve Boycott, founder of the Be You Programme, an outdoor‑based initiative that helps young people build confidence and resilience. Steve explains how his work grew from his own experiences of insecurity, bullying, military service and years spent ...  Show more

Clare Balding meets the adventurer Pom Oliver for a woodland wander near her home in West Sussex. As they stroll amongst the trees, Pom recalls extraordinary chapters from her life: polar and desert expeditions, an epic hitch‑hiking journey from Cape Town to Sydney, and her time ...  Show more

Was Robinson Crusoe real? According to the book it was 'written by himself'.

To establish the facts, Matthew Parris is joined by two notable desert island survivors to discuss Crusoe’s life and strange adventures, during 28 years on an uninhabited island near the mouth o ...

For centuries, the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through northern Canada, was a holy grail of Arctic exploration. Even now, sailing through it isn’t guaranteed. Mark Synnott, a National Geographic Explorer, writer, and adv ...  Show more

This month World Book Club discusses Bill Bryson’s hugely acclaimed travelogue Notes from a Small Island with the author and his readers around the world. After two decades as a resident of the United Kingdom, Bryson took what he thought might be a last affectionate trip around h ...  Show more

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts is inspired by the stories of the Clotilda, a ship that illegally arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, and of Africatown, created by those on the vessel—a community that still exists today. The archaeologists and divers leading the search ...  Show more