A Pocket Of Wilderness: Adventure Travel With Anna McNuff

07/09/20 • 34 min

Adventure is a mindset. You can find it in a pocket of wilderness in your local area just by doing something different and seeking out the unusual — or you can find it by running Great Britain barefoot, cycling the Andes, and running the length of New Zealand!

In this interview, adventurer Anna McNuff talks about the definition of adventure, finding the element of the unknown, encouraging young people to explore, and the acceptance that change is the only constant.

Anna McNuff is a British adventurer, professional speaker, and author named by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the 50 most influential travelers of our time. And by The Guardian as one of the top modern female adventurers.

Show notes

What is ‘adventure’?
The changing motivations for adventure travel
Cultivating a voice that supports adventure
Stepping into the unknown
Running from Scotland to London barefoot
Change is a constant
What travel might look like in the future
How adventure travel is actually about storytelling
How moments from our young lives shape us

You can find Anna McNuff at AnnaMcNuff.com and on Instagram @annamcnuff

Photos used with permission from Anna McNuff.

Transcript of the interview

Joanna: Anna McNuff is a British adventurer, professional speaker and author named by Conde Nast Traveler as one of the 50 most influential travelers of our time. And by The Guardian as one of the top modern female adventurers. Welcome to the show, Anna.

Anna: Oh, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be on.

Joanna: I’m so excited to talk to you. I’ve been following you on Instagram, reading your books. And we’ve known each other for a while now. I really wanted to talk to you about adventure because the word adventurer can mean so many things.

What does adventurer mean to you and how does that definition shape how you choose to travel?

Anna: I think it’s changed over the years. Adventurer used to be a term that was kind of solely reserved for the Shackletons of the world and the people who went off and did brave and daring things in far-flung places.

But now I think the more adventures I do, and the more I adventure in between myself big ones and do little things around and close to home, I think I realized it really is a mindset.

Adventure is just about trying to see something, and it could even be something that you thought was familiar, but you see it through a new fresh set of eyes. So it is just about trying to experience something new and see how you feel in that landscape or experiencing that culture or eating that food.

That is what adventure is to me. And the beauty is that it’s a personal thing. So what is new and exciting and intriguing to one person might be completely different for someone else. And also, you don’t have to go very far to do it.

So yes, you can have an adventure on the other side of the world. But you can also have a great adventure across the road in your local hill, checking out bluebells and finding new trails there. So that is what adventure means to me, seeing something new.

Joanna: I go up the hill, our local Solsbury Hill, for example, and I don’t think that’s an adventure, but for example, going at night with a head torch, I would probably be quite afraid. You go sleep on hills a lot and that to me is slightly scary.

Anna McNuff running the length of New Zealand

Do you think there needs to be an element of fear or apprehension for it to be an adventure?

Anna: I think to call it an adventure when it’s going to be an adventure because you feel it, you feel that thing and it goes, ‘Let’s go on an adventure.’ Or ‘I’m going on an adventure,’ and there’s sort of a buzz in your veins.

I think there does have to be an element of the unknown in it. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be 100% fear. There’s probably a tiny bit of fear there because that’s what happens with the unknown, we are fearful of it. But there can also be a lot of excitement. And I think an adventure probably ranges on that scale.

Sometimes it’s a little bit too scary and sometimes it’s just 100% fun and excitement.

But yes, there’s definitely an element of fear, I think in some adventures, but it doesn’t have to be terrifyi...

Show notes

What is ‘adventure’?
The changing motivations for adventure travel
Cultivating a voice that supports adventure
Stepping into the unknown
Running from Scotland to London barefoot
Change is a constant
What travel might look like in the future
How adventure travel is actually about storytelling
How moments from our young lives shape us

You can find Anna McNuff at AnnaMcNuff.com and on Instagram @annamcnuff

Photos used with permission from Anna McNuff.

Transcript of the interview

Anna: Oh, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be on.

What does adventurer mean to you and how does that definition shape how you choose to travel?

But now I think the more adventures I do, and the more I adventure in between myself big ones and do little things around and close to home, I think I realized it really is a mindset.

Anna McNuff running the length of New Zealand

Do you think there needs to be an element of fear or apprehension for it to be an adventure?

Sometimes it’s a little bit too scary and sometimes it’s just 100% fun and excitement.

But yes, there’s definitely an element of fear, I think in some adventures, but it doesn’t have to be terrifyi...

Previous Episode

Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark. Ararat With Rick Antonson

The word Ararat brings to mind an adventure into myth and history and in this episode, I talk to Rick Antonson about his journey to the fabled resting place of Noah’s Ark, as well as some of the research into Biblical history and ancient myths of the flood.

My ARKANE thrillers center around Biblical archaeology, history, and myth, so this was a particularly exciting interview for me!

Rick Antonson is an author, professional speaker, and world traveler. Today, we’re talking about his book, Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat and Beyond.

Show notes

The history, mystery, and myth surrounding Ararat and Noah’s Ark
Versions of the flood story
The complications of climbing Mt. Ararat
The lure of (slightly) dangerous travel
What travel might look like in the future
Recommended books

You can find Rick Antonson at RickAntonson.com.

Transcript of the interview

Jo Frances: Rick Antonson is an author, professional speaker, and world traveler. Today, we’re talking about his book, Full Moon Over Noah’s Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat and Beyond. Welcome to the show, Rick.

Rick: Thank you for having me.

Jo Frances: I’m so excited. I was just saying before we started recording, this is just catnip to me. I just love stuff about Noah’s Ark and Ararat. So, I want to ask you, so why choose Ararat?

There are so many biblical archeology sites around the world. What drew you to this adventure?

Rick: Each trip it seems has its own little curious motivation, but I find that there are levels of them that continue to overlap. So part of it was as a youngster, four, five, nine years old, whatever, I first encountered the story of Noah’s Ark and Mount Ararat.

Secondly, there was a book on our shelves. Me and my brother, older brother by a year, shared a bedroom and we shared a bookshelf, and one of the books there was about a fellow who in the early ’50s, a Frenchman had gone to Mount Ararat, actually, seeking to find Noah’s Ark, believing as he did as a person of faith, that it actually had landed there.

And those two things along with...as time went on and I was older wanting to go, and be places that were uncommon, that the phrase gets used, off the beaten path, but it really was to try and do something that maybe friends, and family, and others weren’t doing. And one day I was looking at a map and across my mind came Mount Ararat.

Khor Virap, an Armenian monastery located in the Ararat plain. Photo licensed from BigStockPhoto

Jo Frances: It just has a romance about it, really. Because you’re in Canada. And I’m in Europe and, you know I’ve traveled in the Middle East. Do you think there is something quite different when you’re from North America, Canada to come to the Middle East?

Rick: Well, first of all, the last couple of years, my wife, Janice and I were living in Europe because of my wife’s job. And then before that, for five years, she was in Australia and I was back and forth, and then the last couple of years living there.

So I probably bring a different perspective, but the further away you are from any destination, the more romantic, perhaps forbidding, foreboding a place could be. And the Middle East is so characterized by turmoil that to actually plan on traveling there has to put safety at the front of your mind and also just loads your planning table with history, almost overwhelming history.

Again, you know, layers of it that one wants to sift through before they go. But you also don’t want to take away that traveler’s awe by being too prepared.

Jo Frances: Absolutely. And you mentioned that overwhelming layers of history, which is certainly true.

What is history and what is myth when it comes to Ararat and the flood?

Rick: The ‘Reader’s Digest,’ Peter Rabbit short version is that great flood stories appear throughout the world, all over the planet. There have been perhaps localized floods but they were great floods to the people involved.

So the factual part is that if a flood happened in 5,000 BC almost anywhere in the world, if you had never traveled more than 20 miles from Bath in any direction and you didn’t know anyone else who had, and that part of ...

Next Episode

Travels In Blood And Honey. Kosovo With Elizabeth Gowing

The word Kosovo brings to mind images of the Balkan War — a place of blood — but Elizabeth Gowing talks about it as a place of sweetness, a place of honey with wonderful food, welcoming people and a complex patchwork of religion that manages to get along together in a tiny country. She also explains how her unexpected move to Kosovo led to her love of beekeeping and a new direction helping local communities.

Elizabeth Gowing is the author of five books, including Travels in Blood and Honey: Becoming a Beekeeper in Kosovo. She’s also a professional speaker and co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity that empowers and supports people in need in Kosovo.

Show notes

An unexpected transfer to Kosovo
Exploring Kosovo and the hospitality of the people
The dying art of silver filigree
The religious buildings and their significance
Is it safe to travel to Kosovo?
The symbolism of the traditional Kosovo foods
Working with the Roma and Ashkali communities to educate children
Tips for sustainable tourism in Kosovo

You can find Elizabeth Gowing at ElizabethGowing.com

Elizabeth’s headshot photo credit: Jonada Jashari

Transcript of the interview

Jo Frances Penn: Elizabeth Gowing is the author of five books, including Travels in Blood and Honey: Becoming a Beekeeper in Kosovo. She’s also a professional speaker and co-founder of The Ideas Partnership, a charity that empowers and supports people in need in Kosovo. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Gowing: Hi there.

Jo Frances Penn: It’s great to have you on the show. And as I was saying, I love the book, Travels in Blood and Honey. It’s just super original.

I want to just first talk about Kosovo because, in my mind, I know to a lot of listeners, Kosovo means war in our heads. That’s the only image we have. We don’t know much about it.

Could you explain, first of all, where Kosovo is and how it featured in the Balkans conflict?

Elizabeth Gowing: As you say, it’s the image that lots of people have, which is where I decided to start the title of my book with blood and honey because I realized that lots of people thought of it as a place of blood and I was really discovering it as a place of honey.

It’s a beautiful country with beautiful landscapes and hedgerows and all the things you’d imagine for a place that has great honey. And it’s also a very small country, which always surprises people because it did dominate so much in the headlines, less so now, thankfully. But in 1999 when the NATO initiative against Slobodan Milosevic’s forces was the huge news and the biggest initiative that was taken since the Second World War by NATO.

So people remember it for that war and can’t believe that it’s actually a country the size of Devon. So it’s a small country. Tucked in between other former Yugoslav countries like Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and it also has a border with Albania.

The people of Kosovo are a mixture of Albanians ethnically and Serbs ethnically with the vast majority of them now being Albanian. In terms of its climate, it has summers that are much hotter than the U.K.’s and winters that are much colder. So it veers between this very Mediterranean summer and then this really what people would probably think of as a Balkan winter.

Jo Frances Penn: And for any people who aren’t in the U.K., you said the size of Devon there. I’m trying to think of an American state that might be a similar size.

Elizabeth Gowing: Rhode Island always seems to get wheeled out as a comparator. But yes, I think it’s about the size of Rhode Island. I’ve never been to Rhode Island.

Jo Frances Penn: That is great because it is difficult to imagine the size. I guess the other question is what drew you to Kosovo and also Albania? And you speak Albanian, which is very cool.

Tell us how you came to work there and how bees helped you make a home.

Elizabeth Gowing: I didn’t intend to go to Kosovo. It was really a big surprise to me when it happened, but me and my partner were looking for some ki...