Speaking on Saturday, June 7, 2025, we have :

1st: Ash Bhardwaj – Why We Travel

Have you ever had a bad travel experience or a disappointing holiday? What if there was a way to avoid that?

In his award-winning book Why We Travel, Ash blended smart-thinking, psychology, and journalism to reveal the secret to satisfying travel – and how understanding motivation can transform not just journeys, but careers and lives.

Ash brings these ideas to life through real-world examples from his work and travels, ranging from a 1000km walk through Uganda and Sudan, an 8500km journey along Russia’s European frontier, soldering in Estonia, and telling the stories of indigenous cultures in Ecuador, Nepal, and New Zealand.

Key Takeaways:

• How to identify your personal motivations and align them with your goals.

• The three mindsets that create more fulfilling experiences at work and beyond.

• Why hardship and discomfort can unlock greater satisfaction.

• How to apply the lessons of travel to professional decision-making and resilience.

BIO

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and author, whose work sits at the intersection of travel, culture, and current agairs. He has reported from over 50 countries for outlets including BBC Radio 4, The World Service, The Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Condé Nast Traveller, and Hugington Post, and he appears as a travel expert on BBC One’s Morning Live, Channel 5, and Sky News.

Ash wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 documentaries How Ukraine Made Us Care & NATO’s Newest Member and appeared on Sky News’ The Great Debate about Ukraine. He produces and presents The First Mile and The Human Advantage podcasts, hosts The Moth storytelling events in London, and delivers workshops & keynote talks on leadership, influence, storytelling, and motivation.

Ash’s journeys include: a 1000km walk through Uganda and Sudan whilst filming Levison Wood’s Walking the Nile for Channel 4; travelling 2500km along the India-Pakistan border to present a 4-part TV series for Discovery Channel; retracing secret British missions in Albania; kayaking through New Zealand; and travelling 8500km of Russia’s European border (including Donbas and occupied Crimea) for his Telegraph podcast series Edgelands.

Before travel writing, Ash was a ski instructor, science teacher, and wannabe cowboy. He is a captain in the British Army Reserve (RIFLES), an MA graduate of King’s College London, and a lecturer in journalism at City University London. He is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and has judged both the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.

Ash’s debut book, Why We Travel: A Journey Into Human Motivation, is a smart-thinking blend of memoir, travelogue, research, interviews, and advice; it explores our motivations for travel, how to do it better, and how it can help us to live a more fulfilling life. It was recently awarded Best Travel Book of 2024 by The Independent.

2nd: Mary Fogarty – Title to Be Confirmed.

Date & Time: Saturday 7th June 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025, we have :

1st: Jo Bradshaw – Everest

2nd: Maria Hickey – Japan.

Date & Time: Saturday 3rd May 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, December 20, 2025, we have :

1st: Speaker to be confirmed

2nd: Speaker to be confirmed

Date & Time: Saturday 20th December 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, November 8, 2025, we have :

1st: Speaker to be confirmed

2nd: Speaker to be confirmed

Date & Time: Saturday 8th November 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, October 4, 2025, we have :

1st: Lola, John & Danny Wild Guide Morocco

1st: Oliver Smith – On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage around Britain

Acclaimed travel writer Oliver Smith embarks on an epic adventure across sacred British landscapes – climbing into remote sea caves, sleeping inside Neolithic tombs, scaling forgotten holy mountains and once marooning himself at sea. Following holy roads to churches, cathedrals and standing stones, this evocative and enlightening travelogue explores places prehistoric, pagan and Christian, but also reveals how football stadiums and music festivals have become contemporary places of pilgrimage.

The routes walked are often ancient, the pilgrims he meets are always modern. But underpinning the book is a timeless truth: that making journeys has always been a way of making meaning. So often, Oliver finds, “the unravelling of a path goes in tandem with the unravelling of the soul.”

Date & Time: Saturday 4th October 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, September 6, 2025, we have :

1st: Darran Rees – Love Letter to Romania

When Darran Rees first drove northward toward Transylvania he felt he was being transported back in time. These remarkable landscapes were like visions of the past with such odd beauty and majesty that betrayed little of their recent history. Over the following fifteen years he was fortunate enough to continue that journey and indeed accompany Romania on its own journey as it unbuckled itself from the chains of its dictatorship and looked to an independent and brighter future. These images represent a record of this unique yet often misunderstood country, its exceptional people and their rare culture, family values and traditions. It shows a moment in time, a unique time in a unique country among extraordinary people.

Darran Rees was born and raised in Wales. Originally trained in art, he later discovered the power of the ‘still’ image and photography. Following photography college and two years assisting a London based commercial photographer, Darran began his own journey with his chosen medium in 1992. This is his first book. Darran Rees, a Welshman by birth, now resides in North London, but travels internationally for his work.

2nd: Olivia McGregor – Guiana

Olivia McGregor was the recipient of the Royal Geographical Society’s 2024 Neville Shulman Challenge Award and will be talking about her journey to the savannahs and rainforests of Guyana.

Olivia travelled to The Lost World, one of the last wildernesses on Earth, a land steeped in exotic myth and legend that served as inspiration for Jurassic Park. Among its inhabitants were the Makushi people, indigenous to the region, with a rich culture dating back 11,000 years.

The Makushi people are at a crossroads, caught between traditional ways of living in close connection with their natural environment and the influences of the modern industrialised world. Olivia will talk about how they are adjusting and the implications of this for everyone. Their survival could be humanity’s own.

Date & Time: Saturday 6th September 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, July 5, 2025, we have :

1st: Stuart Bradford – Across Russia from Moscow to Kamchatka

Stuart Bradford lived and worked in Russia for over seven years, a period which was the inspiration for his book Caviar Vodka and Tears. He will share some of his travel experiences in this huge and varied country, from Moscow overland to Vladivostok, and also the magical and remote region of Kamchatka.

Find out more at:

•  trouspinettravels.com
• caviarvodkaandtears.com

2nd: Laura Coffey – Enchanted Islands

Join Laura for on a mythical journey through the real world. Together we will travel through tiny archipelagos and explore mystical Mediterranean islands thought to be the setting of Odysseus’s epic journey.

We will encounter sea monsters and sex goddesses, fragile masculinity, toxic gods, polyamory and plenty of narcissism as we look again at this old text with fresh eyes. Together, we will explore what myths are, the importance of the stories we tell ourselves, and the magical task of mapping imaginary worlds. 

Laura Coffey is not a classics scholar, she cannot read Ancient Greek, often finds herself utterly lost, and so is an unlikely author of a book on mapping The Odyssey.

Stephen Fry said it’s “a magical and hugely captivating journey – a simply marvellous read, hugely recommended”. 

Laura’s book Enchanted Islands: A Mediterranean Odyssey, has also been selected by Wanderlust and Citizen Femme as a top travel book for 2024, and by Blackwells as recommended summer reading. It has been long listed for the Anglo Hellenic League Runciman Award

Laura is happy to sign copies after the talk.

You can find out more about the book: Enchanted Islands: A Mediterranean Odyssey

Date & Time: Saturday 5th July 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

Tickets go on sale just before the meetings.

Speaking on Saturday, April 5, 2025, we have :

1st: Christopher Forse – Fifty years of Travel in South East Asia

Five decades of travel through an exotic land of beautiful landscapes, beautiful cultures, beautiful people and tragic recent histories.

Chris Forse, a former resident of Hong Kong, describes his five decades of travel through the exotic landscapes and cultures of this beautiful part of the world, where until quite recently only five countries (The Philippines, Thailand. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) were open to foreign travellers.  He has hiked in jungles in Thailand, taken boats deep into Borneo and down the Mekong River in Laos, crossed tragic Cambodia by bus, and travelled overland through Sumatra and Java to exotic Bali. He was among the first to travel to Vietnam on an individual visa, later to explore Burma/Myanmar, a land that time forgot. As in his talk on Thirty Years of Travel in China, he witnessed the enormous changes that economic development (and mass tourism) has brought, for good or ill.

2nd: Jacqui Trotter –  – Homegoing: Part 4

Jacqui Trotter talks about her journey overland back home from London to Australia.

Date & Time: Saturday 5th April 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

For in person Tickets at the hall:

For Zoom online tickets:

Speaking on Saturday, March 1, 2025, we have :

1st: Anthony Britton: A summer 2024 road trip to the Aegean, via the Carpathians and the Black Sea.

In June 2024, Anthony and Julia set off on a long round road trip to Eastern Europe. They explored their Polish roots, visited World Heritage sites in Romania, discovered what King Charles likes about the Carpathians and trailed the Black Sea coast to the Aegean. They met families who remember the Cold War and those whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change.

2nd: Simon Johnson – Cycling a Camino Route by Accident

Exploring the Longest Spanish Pilgrimage Route

Join Simon Johnson as he shares his captivating journey of cycling a thousand kilometers solo along the Camino de Santiago’s southern route—from Seville to Santiago de Compostela. With no prior experience in long-distance cycling or any detailed planning, Simon embarked on this unexpected adventure, filled with challenges, surprises, and moments of self-discovery.

In this talk, Simon will recount his mishaps, lessons learned, and the unique joys of cycling through Spain’s diverse landscapes, historic towns, and spiritual pathways. Discover how the combination of the Camino’s rich cultural heritage and the spontaneity of unplanned travel turned his journey into a deeply rewarding experience. Whether you’re a cyclist, a Camino enthusiast, or simply curious about adventure travel, this talk will inspire you to embrace the unexpected and take on your own journey—on two wheels or otherwise.

Date & Time: Saturday 1st March 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

For in person Tickets at the hall:

For Zoom online tickets:

Speaking on Saturday, February 1, 2025, we have :

1st: Elizabeth Mioduchowski – Travelling in Russia

Elizabeth will discuss travelling in Russia, a land of vast landscapes, rich history, and dynamic cultural and political significance. This talk will explore the multifaceted identity of the world’s largest country, examining its history and contemporary challenges.

Elizabeth travelled in Russia before the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advises against all travel to Russia due to the ongoing conflict with Ukraine.

2nd: Sarah Cook – Cycling Journey in Chile

Sarah has kindly offered to give a talk she gave to her local cycling club a few months ago about her Cycling Journey in Chile.

The talk by Olivia McGregor on Guiana has had to be postponed.

Date & Time: Saturday 1st February 2025

Doors open at 14:15 in London and on Zoom with the talks starting around 14:45 (London see Event Time Announcer for local times), please arrive early so we can deal with any issues with joining.

We would ask that anyone with respiratory symptoms participate via Zoom.

Admission costs:

• £7 for members. (Members can access a ticket code below or from the members area.)
• £10 for non-members. (save £3 if you join at this meeting)
• a recording to watch later will be available to members and non-member ticket holders.

Please sign up for meeting updates to get notifications for future meetings.

For in person Tickets at the hall:

For Zoom online tickets: