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

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.”

2nd: Lola, John & Danny – Wild Guide Morocco

Join the authors of Wild Guide Morocco for stories of wild swims, desert adventures and slow travel from their five-month campervan journey across Morocco. 

Lola Culsan, John Weller and Danny Weller are a London-based family of travel writers and wild swimmers, known for their immersive adventures and off-the-beaten-path discoveries.

Authors of Wild Swimming Spain, Hidden Beaches Spain, Outdoor Swimming London and now Wild Guide Morocco (March 2025), they spent five months exploring Morocco by campervan – uncovering hidden waterfalls, desert oases, and remote mountain villages. 

Lola is a Jamaican-born, half-Spanish writer and former stand-up comic; John is a photographer, writer and lifelong wild swimmer; Danny is a linguist, journalist and explorer. Together, they share a passion for freedom, nature, and meaningful travel.

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 before 14:45 and switch your phone to “do not disturb” or silent.

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:

On Saturday, November 8, 2025, we have :

AGM: The club AGM starts at noon (card-carrying members only)

Speaking at 2.45 pm we have: 

1st: 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

2nd: Richard Loosley – A Butterfield’s Overland to India in the 1970s by Public Transport.

Join lifelong traveller Richard Loosley  who will talk about his early experiences on the overland route to India that he took with his business partner, Ashley Butterfield.

Richard retraces his journey across ten countries to India—armed only with a backpack, a sense of humour, and public transport. In this vivid memoir of the 1970s, Loosley shares tales of border crossings, hashish-laced buses, and the raw charm of a bygone era of travel.

A celebration of spontaneity, grit, and the joy of getting gloriously lost.

You can review Richards book at https://richardloosley.com/

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 before 14:45 and switch your phone to “do not disturb” or silent.

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: Shafik Meghji – Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History in South America

In his new book Small Earthquakes, award-winning travel writer and author Shafik Meghji uncovers the fascinating story of Britain’s forgotten connections with South America, from the Atacama Desert to Tierra del Fuego, Easter Island to South Georgia.

Focusing on Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, the book tells a tale of footballers and pirates, nitrate kings and wool barons, polar explorers and cowboys, missionaries and radical MPs.

From a ghost town in one of the world’s driest deserts to a far-flung ranch in the sub-polar tundra; rusting whaling stations in the South Atlantic to an isolated railway built by convicts; the southernmost city on the planet to a crumbling port known as the ‘Jewel of the Pacific’, Small Earthquakes brings to life the past, present and future of this remarkable continent.

‘Meghji has the true travel writer’s eye for the comic, pathetic and tragic, and for the places where they collide… This is writing full of rust, wind and sadness. It captures splendidly the air of South America and the long, withdrawing roar of an empire whose influence once reached far beyond its political borders.’ – The Times

‘Rekindles a sense of wonder and expands our idea of what travel can be… Combining the immediacy of a travel memoir with the depth of a scholarly history lesson.’ – BBC Travel

Shafik will be happy to sign copies of the book after his talk.

2nd: Justyna Hellebrand – Three trips to Paraguay.

Justyna will present her journey to Paraguay, a country often overlooked, this captivating nation is a hidden gem, offering a truly unique experience for those fascinated by rich biodiversity, or natural wonders such as the Monday Falls and Cerro Koi.

A country with the remarkable story of a Catholic bishop who ascended to the presidency, a traditional “sopa paraguaya” that’s actually not a soup but corn bread  and the origin of mate drinking,(not a beer with your mates 😉 a practice first discovered by the indigenous Guaraní people.

She’ll tell the story of a sticky situation (for not having an entry stamp in her passport!) and talk about 2 Christian communities –   Mennonites, who, originated from a region of Poland occupied by Prussia, have played a pivotal role in flourishing Paraguayan agriculture and the Bruderhof community, with whom Justyna has maintained a personal connection for over 40 years.

Expect the unexpected as we weave in a surprising mention of origami and the intriguing tale of how she met the “German Super Papa” – a man who adopted many children in Paraguay and faced a 30-month prison sentence. She’ll also talk about ñandutí lace and the enchanting melodies of the Paraguayan harp.

This talk will be an unforgettable adventure into the soul of Paraguay – a country waiting to be discovered!

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 before 14:45 and switch your phone to “do not disturb” or silent.

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 will be talking about travelling in 2019 back to Australia through Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand.

Vietnam was a delight. Cambodia was fascinating and visiting Angkor Wat was a long-held dream! Thailand was a great place to take stock, play tourist and still visit places I had not been before.

Going home was something I had done many times before but this time was different – it would be my home for the next five years (and still is) and the world of travel would not be quite the same for any of us ever again.

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 before 14:45 and switch your phone to “do not disturb” or silent.

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: