‘8,000 Miles in the Andes by Bamboo Bike’ with Kate Rawles: Stanfords Travel Writers Festival 2024

From Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show in London’s Olympia, The Stanfords Travel Writers Festival welcomes author and eco adventurer Kate Rawles. She talks to author Ben Aitken about cycling the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself.

Pedalling hard for thirteen months, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the ‘end of the world’, she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.

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Monuments and Markers along the Great North Road

Are you the kind of person who can’t walk past a plaque or a monument without reading every single word? Here, Steve Silk, the author of The Great North Road, talks us through his five favourites along the 400 miles between London and Edinburgh. 

As a crucial route linking London to Edinburgh, the Great North Road has been Britain’s backbone for centuries. Kings, queens, soldiers, rebels, mail coaches and highwaymen used the road to get from A to B. One hundred years later journalist Steve Silk went on pilgrimage by bike to explore its history. At a slower pace it’s easier to notice key markers and signs of the past that surround us…

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Cycle to Work Day

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”- Ernest Hemingway

13th September 2017 is National Cycle to Work Day.  Not only is cycling to work good for learning the lay of the land, it is also a great way of sneaking exercise into your daily routine and it means you can legitimately eat a second breakfast. Continue reading Cycle to Work Day

Allez! Allez! Allez!

The pièce de résistance of the cycling calendar begins on 1st July with the Grand Départ of the 104th Tour de France. Over the three weeks, the cyclists will cover 3,521 kilometres before crossing the Champs-Elysées finish line on Sunday 23rd July. Of the 21 stages five are mountain stages and they will only have two rest days. If you are already panicking about how you will fill those two TDF-free days, here are some books, maps and accessories to keep you busy thinking about bikes. Continue reading Allez! Allez! Allez!