The Outdoor Journal Podcast

Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.That was Thor Pederson, this week, on The Outdoor Journal Podcast.After a 700 day detour from his record-breaking adventure, Thor Pederson is back at sea, on the journey to visit every country in the world without catching a single flight. Last week, Pederson boarded the good ship ‘Kota Ratna', a 472 foot long Pacific ocean liner on the way to his first new country in two years. The ship will pass Taiwan, Guam, Saipan, and Yap on the 2,857 nautical mile journey to Palau, the closest country to Hong Kong on his unbroken journey.On October 10, 2013, left his home in Southern Denmark with the pledge to not return until he visits every country in the world. Thus far, Pederson has reached 194 countries in an unbroken journey completely without flying. There are three cardinal rules for Pederson's record-setting project Once Upon a Saga: 1) no flights, 2) he must spend more than 24hrs in each country, and 3) he cannot return home until the project has been completed. 

Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.On the verge of climbing her second of the famed seven summits, Eva Zu Beck evolves from a full-time travel filmmaker on Youtube to an extreme athlete and overland explorer in her fitted-out Defender. Eva travels to places that most Western tourists have never even considered as vacation destinations, like Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, with the mission to uncover cultural beauty that is otherwise shrouded by negative narratives manufactured by Western media. Eva documents her adventures on her Youtube channel, which has over 1.3 million subscribers. The ethos of Eva´s channel is best exemplified by her motto ¨the world belongs to the brave,¨ and she follows a life trajectory that goes way off course from modern expectations. But After three years of constant travel, Eva shifted gears to developing her relatively dormant athleticism by dreaming up and executing daunting physical challenges in the outdoors which continue to edge on more and more extremes. She has become an ultra-runner, completing a 250-kilometer trek across the Accursed Mountains, and an overlander in her modified Land Rover Defender, and she's currently tackling her second climb of the seven summits, her goal to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Eva discusses the meaning of Type 2 fun, how she overcomes fear as a solo female traveler, why she thinks Pakistan is on the verge of becoming the world's number one tourism destination, and how to find comfort within discomfort. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.

Beau Miles films contemplative adventures into the outdoors that combine the absurdist existential humor of Bill Murray with Van Gogh's affinity for landscape.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.He's a writer, a filmmaker, a carpenter, an ultrarunner, an adventurer. Miles' generalist skills in building, camping, and exploring afford him a freedom to create and a freedom to roam in a way that is truly enviable to those of us who feel stuck in our protracted comfort-seeking lifestyles. Up until this past year, Miles taught an outdoor education program at Monash University, one of Australia's top schools, Synthesizing philosophical lessons with practical skills.Miles is no longer an educator...officially. He's now a full-time YouTuber and dad. In his films on Youtube, He has the ability to extract profundities out of seemingly mundane moments that are equally motivating and hilarious. Miles immerses himself particularly in the faded glory of his environment to connect with its recent past on creative adventures in his home county of Jindivik, Australia with the goal to teach other would-be adventurers how to cram the ends of the Earth into their own backyard.Miles' book The Backyard Adventurer is now available as an audiobook read in Miles own voice. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Bea Miles discusses how he developed his distinctive concept of bringing adventure closer to home, why mistakes can sometimes be more interesting than successes, and what he has learned so far about himself from pushing his own thresholds in the outdoors. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Special Thanks:Track: Static DreadLicense: http://bit.ly/CCBY-SALicenseProvided by: Chandlers VibeMaxKoMusicTrack: Patriotic HeroismLicense: http://bit.ly/CCBY-SALicenseProvided by: Epic Music Waves

It's 2019 and ultrarunner Scott Jenkins has just completed 224 miles out of the 240-mile race which follows the Colorado River as it carves its way through Utah. He's cruising in 18th place and there are only 16 miles to go. Everything is going to plan. Sleeping would only prolong the agony.  But that's when the wheels fall off. Scott's running stride devolves from seasoned amateur to hungry zombie. He doesn't know where he is and he's seeing things that aren't there. Scott finishes (becoming the first Welshman to do so), but his sleep-deprived, feverish spell cost him 10 hours and almost 20 spots on the race ladder.Two years removed from his delirious finish, Jenkins returns to Moab - the perfect arena for this ultramarathoner's comeback - and sets a new British record in one of the world's toughest races. Listen to Jenkins recounts his hallucinatory and gut-wrenching 2019 race. Read the full article at OutdoorJournal.com

Kyle Obermann is an environmental photographer and conservationist based in Chengdu China. After learning Mandarin and studying environmental science at Peking University, Obermann now spends his time exploring China's natural beauty and working with local park rangers to spread the word about conservation efforts in China's national parks.  Read more at OutdoorJournal.com

Jimmy Nelson is a British photographer who is known for his portraits of tribal and indigenous peoples. In order to reach these tribes, he travels to the farthest extremes on the planet, places like Siberia and Papua New Guinea. Very often, these communities are so remote that they have never seen a white person before and they've never been visited by car. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Nelson's lens is a small window into the world of indigenous tribes who could disappear tomorrow if our globalized society continues in its failure to appreciate them. And with them lies invaluable knowledge of how humanity can exist on this planet in a sustainable way. Nelson's photos are more than pictures, they are heritage. In seeking out indigenous cultures in the only remote landscapes that are left for them to exist, Nelson's innate curiosity for “the other'' holds up a mirror for the rest of us human beings living in the modern world. If you are not familiar with Nelson's work, click through to the article to see a sample of his photography. You can also find a link to Nelson's latest book Homage to Humanity, which has over 500 pages of photos. I can't think of a more stunning and thought-provoking coffee table book. Indigenous tribes are the guardians of lands that are rich in minerals and preservers of ancient knowledge of how humans can live in alignment with the Earth. Although these peoples are often disrespected and marginalized in today's world, the Jimmy Nelson Foundation seeks to reeducate our youth to see the power and wisdom of the indigenous communities.Jimmy's process of photographing the other is also a deeply personal journey, as it has helped him heal from childhood trauma. And here's a warning that we do discuss sexual abuse in this conversation.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Nelson discusses the source of his unlimited fascination with indigenous tribes, how he ingratiates himself into strange, yet ancient cultures, and how his obsession with photography reveals profound insights about himself.

In a series of narrow escapes, Forrest Galante takes animal conservation to the extreme on his remote expeditions to find proof of species thought lost and gone forever.Read the full article here on The Outdoor Journal.Wildlife biologist and conservationist, Forrest Galante, checks in only one day removed from his recent excursion to Mozambique, where he narrowly escaped a bounty on his head from a local politician. It's business as usual for Galante, whose day-to-day life in the field is perilous not only from the dangerous animals that he's tracking but more so from the human threat.Galante, the world's leading rare species expert and host of Animal Planet's “Extinct or Alive”, is a noble character in wildlife conservation, yet he's unwelcome in many of the places that need his help with a killer croc or a stealthy leopard - places that have skeletons in their closet - because the government officials often think that Galante is a journalist coming to expose their illegal operations. Galante's missions to uncover long-lost species read like nail-biting spycraft, complete with speed boat chases, last-second charter plane rescues, and AK-47's. After darting a lion or chasing down a rogue elephant, Galante then has to evade local officials by leaving decoy gear and fake footage or even by dumping thousands of dollars of drone equipment into a swamp. Galante's book Still Alive comes out June 1, you can find a link in this article on OutdoorJournal.com.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Galante discusses his fish out of water experience as a young teenager moving from Zimbabwe to California, his rise from counting ants under a microscope for a living to making a speech about human-animal conflict mitigation to the Senate committee, why Galante has the confidence to follow his personal moral code even when it clashes with local customs.

Louis-Philippe Loncke left the town of Hendaye, France's most southwesterly point and a popular seaside tourist resort, with three rules - never restock, always sleep in a tent, and no outside help. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.With 700 kilometers in front of him, Loncke carried all of his food and equipment in a painfully heavy, 70 kg backpack across the Pyrenees mountain range, traversing France, Spain, and Andorra. When he arrived in Banyuls 43 days later on September 7th, 2020, Loncke achieved another world first with his completely unsupported mission.Loncke is a world specialist in heavy load expeditions. He previously received the 2016 European Adventurer of the Year for his crossings of three deserts - Death Valley, in the U.S., the Simpson Desert, in Australia, and the Salars in Bolivia - all self-supported.In his journey across the Pyrenees, he would battle thunderstorms and hail, unseasonably cold temperatures, and dangerously low food rations. By the end, Loncke lost 11 kg and his legs ached for the next two months. Yet with the burden of the heavy bag and total self-sufficiency comes total immersion - the feeling of not just being in nature but being a part of nature.  Loncke trained for this world-first challenge during Covid in a unique and extreme way, and in our conversation, he shares his advice for other people who are passionate about the outdoors and like to set challenges for themselves, on how they can overcome Covid restrictions to achieve their dreams.In Loncke's case, he scaled one of the most extreme staircases in the world enough times to equal the height of Everest.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Loncke discusses what one mistake put his safety in jeopardy, his extreme training challenge to get in shape for the Pyrenees, and the “why” behind his latest world record attempt.

After sailing 100,000 miles around the world, full-time filmmakers from the SV Delos crew go arctic.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.SV Delos is the most popular sailing channel on youtube. Over the past 10 years, they've sailed 100,000 miles around the world, enough to loop the equator three times, and they've filmed every thrilling adventure. Brady Trautman and Alex Blue film, edit and produce weekly episodes for SV Delos, of which there are over 430. They are used to traveling close to the equator, but they decided to step out of their comfort zone by committing to a sailing expedition in the arctic, just 600 miles from the North Pole. In this 4-part docuseries, the team covers several threatening issues to the wildlife and ecology of the region - from the extreme rate of glacial retreating, to the negative effect of Cruise ship tourism, to the brutal history of whaling in Svalbard, to the harmful impact of plastics pollution on Svalbard, which is in direct line of the gulf stream.In addition to these sobering themes, the series includes a veritable “polar petting zoo” with numerous wildlife encounters, including polar bears, walruses and a gigantic pod of beluga whales.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Trautman and Blue discuss  the crew member they wish they didn't invite on, their most intimate wildlife encounter in the arctic and how to keep from murdering each other while living, working and traveling together with no personal space and nowhere to escape to.The best way you can support stories like this is to subscribe to the podcast right now and take a second to leave your review.Alright, let's go.

With his international ultra running calendar on hold, India's premier Trail Ultra Runner dreams up new mountaineering speed ascents in his home of Manali. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Kieren D'Souza first felt the joy of running through the mango fields in Chhattisgarh, India as a boy, while irate farmers chased him with sticks. D'Souza's running career, one that uniquely blends the disciplines of ultra-marathon trail racing with mountaineering time trials, truly began when he reached Manali, which has tantalizing access to a network of forest trails as well as a 6,000-meter mountain peak right in his backyard.Over the past five years, D'Souza has represented his country on the trail running world championship's international stage from Hong Kong to Mont Blanc. During the pandemic, he was finally able to fulfill projects that he's been putting on the back burner for years. D'Souza looked to the unexplored places in his own backyard within Manali, a resort town nestled in the mountains of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh near the northern end of the Kullu Valley.The point of a speed ascent is to select a mountain that climbers usually take three to five days to summit by going through the process of acclimatization - resting overnight at a series of base camps. Instead of three days, D'Souza aims to reach the top and return to the bottom all in one day. It's a hybrid sport, a mashup of ultra trail running and mountaineering. D'Souza is basically sprinting up the mountain in his running shoes with minimal mountaineering gear, arguably too minimal. A few months ago, D'Souza set a groundbreaking record by completing his speed attempt on Deo Tibba, a 6,000-meter peak, in just 19 hours and 38 minutes. In June D'Souza soared up Mount Friendship, a 5,000 meter high Himalayan Summit near the town of Manali without any ropes or an ice axe. If you watch the video linked within our article, you can see just how extreme that is. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, D'Souza discusses how he balances training enough mileage in advance of a race without wearing down his body, how he prepares for an alpine speed challenge, and those moments of feeling high up in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. The best way you can support stories like this is to subscribe to the podcast right now and take a second to leave your review.

Extreme Adventurer Mike Correy travels around the world to experience tribal rites of passage that demystify his darkest fears.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Mike Corey has forged his own path in life as an adventure travel filmmaker. His series Fearless and Far on YouTube is an episodic quest for misunderstood rites of passage  - from frog poison rituals in Brazil, to bamboo poking tattoos in Thailand, to freight train hopping in West Africa, to hanging his body by hooks. Corey's journey has taken him from Yemen to Bangladesh to Mauritania, destinations that fall off the beaten path of digital nomads, travel vloggers, and social media influencers. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, it's all in the search for the experience of feeling alive.With 10 years of full-time travel under his belt, Corey was asked to host the BBC Travel Show. Corey now travels 11 months out of the year to far off places like Kalinga in northern Luzon, where he endured a traditional hand-tapping tattoo from a 103-year-old tattoo legend who used to tattoo head-hunters.Corey has prepared a course for people people who are interested in pushing past the small fears in their lives by establishing a better relationship with fear to develop into the person they are destined to be. You can find that link in the description.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Corey discusses what motivated him to try body suspension by hooks, the most painful style of traditional tattooing, the biggest cultural faux pas he's made on his travels, and how to become the superhero version of yourself. The best way you can support stories like this is to subscribe to the podcast right now and take a second to leave your review.

At the age of 23, Twin sisters Tashi and Nungshi Malik became Guinness World Record holders as the youngest people (and the first twins) to complete the Explorers Grand Slam (climbing the world's seven highest peaks including Everest and skiing to the North and South Poles).Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.This year, they pushed their comfort zones further by taking on the World's Toughest Race, the Eco-Challenge in Fiji, as half of team Khukuri Warriors, the first team ever  to represent India, especially their home states of Haryana and Uttarakhand, on the global stage.The race includes a plethora of disciplines, from mountain biking to paddleboarding, many of which the sisters had no previous experience in.Surpassing their own expectations on the 671 km course, the rookies finished the grueling 10-day race course in 36th place amongst seasoned teams. Relying on their mountaineering background, where they honed the ability to push on for hours without stopping, the Malik sisters overcame adversity such as running out of food and water and hypothermic waters and tongue blisters. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Nash and Tash discuss how they overcame their lack of experience in many of the disciplines such as open ocean paddling, their surprise of their rare encounter with eco-challenge host Bear Grylls, their most precious piece of gear and how they improvised on the course, how they became empowered to inspire women from restrictive cultures around the world to dream big. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.

One man, three peaks, 9 days, and only nine toes. Tony Riddle has just completed a record run by reaching the three highest peaks of Scotland, England, and Wales, barefoot. Most runners drive the 460 miles between each peak in a 24-hour challenge, but Tony completed the full route on foot.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal. He ran the 485-mile distance in nine days, seven hours, and 18 minutes. beating the previous time by four hours and 31 minutes.The father-of-four successfully ran more than 17 marathons barefoot to raise funds for Survival International to help protect indigenous communities around the world, who currently preserve 80% of the planet's global biodiversity.To break the men's running record, Tony committed to a week of 4 am starts. And he did it all with a broken toe, which caused a cascade of other injuries as the body naturally compensated for that missing support. In his day job as a natural lifestyle coach, Tony helps people choose ways of living that are more in synch with human biology. Tony is also an extreme ultra-marathon runner, who also ran the nation running the length of the UK barefoot last September. This is Tony's second visit to The Outdoor Journal podcast. So if you're interested in learning more about ways to rewild, reboot, and reconnect yourself with natural practices, check out Episode 1, which to date is still our most popular episode.  In this episode, Tony discusses the mental and physical challenges he had to endure on the challenge and the natural recovery techniques he used to overcome them, the role of his family in supporting his goal, his personal connection to the route, the significance of raising awareness for Indigenous peoples and the threats they are facing, and the feeling of being reborn a new man. This episode originally aired lived on Instagram, so Tony fields some live questions, including one from a very special guest.  Alright, let's go!Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.

Nick Leason, the Co-Founder of Lift Foils, has spent the past 10 years inventing new equipment that blends ocean sports and reaches new frontiers in the outdoors.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.An avid surfer with an engineering background, Leason started Lift ten years ago in his garage in Isabella, Puerto Rico. Leason became obsessed with pushing the boundaries of where he could find a great ride - to places like rivers, channels, and even miles off the coast.After releasing the first commercially available electric hydrofoil, Lift leads the way in the design and manufacture of fun on the ocean As a family-owned, father and son business, Lift has created the world's smallest personal watercraft that allows riders to soar over the ocean. Lift's electric foil is powered by a Lithium-ion battery and controlled by a wireless Bluetooth remote. Although the idea of paying 12 thousand dollars for a motorized surfboard may disable your equilibrium at first, it's not an apt comparison - with all the tech that's packed in there, it's more spaceship than surfboard.In this episode, Leason discusses how to customize a ride setup for your own personalized experience, the challenge of satisfying both beginners and more experienced riders. and why Leason is so confident that he will continue to out-innovate the competition. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.

After manning the helm at Australia's research outpost on Antarctica, Rachael Robertson shares her first-hand experience of surviving extreme isolation for those of us going through it now.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Who would volunteer to spend an entire year living in isolation on the coldest, most remote continent on the planet? Stuck in extremely cramped living quarters in an inherently dangerous workplace environment with almost zero contact with the outside world.On second thought, with daily helicopter drop-offs, ATV joy rides and zodiac excursions, living and working at Davis Station, Antarctica might just be the greatest gig in the world.Rachael Robertson is one of the youngest and only the second female expedition leader at Davis Station, Antarctica - a 30 million dollar program at the edge of the world. In 2005, she led a maintenance crew and a gaggle of scientists around the clock - 24 hours per day - for a year.Intrigued by a job notice in her newspaper that included a photo of a penguin, Robertson followed through with her mantra to live with no regrets by taking on a role that no woman had done in some 20 odd years.Davis Station is one of three permanent research outposts in Antarctica, and as part of the Antarctica treaty, it's reserved for peaceful, scientific purposes. With its harsh conditions and extreme isolation, it's about as close as you can get to living on a lunar colony. Robertson discovered several coping strategies to problems that are common in this pandemic, such as how to live in very close quarters with people you can't take a break from, how to lead in an extreme work environment and how to manage diverse teams who don't seem to have any common ground.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal, Rachael discusses how a minor dispute once threatened to shut down the Antarctic station: should the bacon be soft or crispy? and the important leadership lesson she learned from it, what leading a search and rescue following a plane crash taught her about leading through tough times, and her first-hand experience getting through months of complete isolation and her message to all of us going through it now.

UFC Fighter Mickey Gall details his intense fitness regimen and the CBD-infused recovery routine that allows him to endure the grueling cross-training workouts necessary to compete at the highest level. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Whether your passion is running ultras, climbing mountains or trekking glaciers, a peek into the training methods of an elite MMA fighter, to see how he achieves both optimal performance and recovery, could get you to your summit faster and stronger. Mickey Gall quickly became a star in the sport by beating big names on big stages. Gall demanded the spotlight by first calling out and then dominating professional wrestling superstar CM Punk before derailing the hype-train of the company darling - spikey-haired, athletic phenom Sage Northcutt. Gall's specialty is the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He devoted 11 years to earn his black belt. But he's also plenty happy to punch his opponent in the face. Gall has been training with some of the best fighters in the world, true legends in the game, with the goal to become a world champion. His training is intense and varied across many disciplines. His commitment to his recovery routine is just as important, and he takes a triple threat approach to CBD dosing that he believes can make him immortal in the sport. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Gall details his weekly cross-training regimen to become a better athlete and a more complete fighter, his ultimate goals in the sport, and his triple approach to recovering with CBD.

Andy Stein is a new breed of Big Cat conservationist working in northern Botswana who develops technology to help wildlife and people coexist in harmony. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Andy has developed an advanced warning GPS system running through a cloud-based algorithm - which is truly the new era of Big Cat conservation. With the recent popularity of Netflix's Tiger King, which highlighted the flagrant abuse of tigers in captivity, the opportunity is upon us to educate ourselves on the worldwide threat to Big Cat species and the facts related to Big Cat extinction and conservation. One of the most shocking takeaways from Tiger King is the statistic that there are more tigers living in captivity within the US than there are living out in the wild anywhere in the world. Many of us watched the series while waiting for some mention that Netflix would donate a portion of the proceeds of its blockbuster show towards tiger conservation, but when that never happened, we were left wondering what we could do about it.Andrew Stein has spent the past 15 years working on human-carnivore conflict throughout East and southern Africa, with a focus on Big Cat conflict prevention.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Andy Stein discusses his path to finding the perfect balance between studying wildlife and culture, the need for a paradigm shift from the conventional approach of setting aside nature reserves to working with communities to help wildlife and people coexisting harmoniously, and what can be done to curb the demand for animal tourism at roadside zoos like those featured in Tiger King.

Movement coach Nick Brewer forged an integrative daily routine to survive one of the deadliest prisons on Earth and he's offering live classes every day on Instagram to help us all endure the confines of quarantine. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Nick co-founded Project Ibiza, an amalgamation of different disciplines and activities, combining art, work, exercise, and play, with the mission to integrate wellness and movement into everyday working life. Nick may be 50 years old, but his physique is that of a 25-year-old gymnast. For the past 35 years, Nick has devoted himself to an array of movement paradigms, including yoga, pilates, and gymnastics, with a particular focus on longevity. Nick teaches a daily in-person primal movement class to accommodate movers of all ages and backgrounds.Throughout our global quarantine, Nick has been sharing his multidisciplinary teachings daily with the world for free - live on Instagram. Every day at 10 am, you'll find a shirtless Nick, stretching, squatting, and contorting his body to keep it performing like an elite Cirque du Soleil athlete. A stream of gratitude and adulation scrolls by in the comments section. A cat or two scurries through the frame, jealous for attention.You would never guess it from Nick's serene demeanor that in his former life he climbed the ladder from rookie smuggler to cocaine kingpin. After breaking his back in three places and ending his competitive skiing career, Nick spiraled into the smuggler's underground and devised a cocaine smuggling scheme which allowed him to live the playboy lifestyle in Argentina. After the Argentine drug squad caught him with $30 million dollars of cocaine, he was sentenced to 10 years in one of the deadliest prisons on Earth. He served 6, and during that time, he mastered his body by committing to 3 to 4 hours of yoga practice each day. He realized his ultimate goal and dream is to integrate movement into as many lives as possible. During quarantine, he began sharing his classes live on Instagram every day and the response from around the world has been overwhelming. Under quarantine lockdown, people are using Nick's class as “a daily get out of jail free card” to improve themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually even while isolated in one place. 

ClientEarth Founder James Thornton applies law and economic theory in cutting-edge ways to hit major polluting companies where it hurts most. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal). In the midst of our global climate crisis and a sudden sweeping pandemic, a bright spot of optimism emerges this month from an unlikely place. James Thornton is one of the world's leading experts on climate change litigation. As the Founder and President of ClientEarth, Europe's first law firm set up to defend the public interest in the environment, James leads a team of lawyers who use the law as a strategic tool to protect the environment and human health. ClientEarth has represented public health, and ultimately the Earth, as its client in 15 countries within the EU. They've closed down existing coal-fired power plants across Europe, stopped the flow of finance to coal projects, and won several court battles to require governments to clean up the air, which has a direct impact on ensuring that people live healthier lives. Their work demonstrates what a small group of people can do using tools of the law. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast. James discusses how he manages to win cases against large companies and even governments despite the imbalances of the legal system, How his work is influencing corporate boards to value their company's impact on the environment and see that “Climate change risk equals financial risk.” and which surprising country is making the biggest changes to create a more ecological civilization. Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.

American Director Carol Dysinger wins an Oscar for revealing the resilience of young Afghan girls with an unlikely second chance at an education.Read the full article here on The Outdoor Journal. With an all-female crew of three Western women and two Afghan women, Carol gained unprecedented access into the lives of the young girls of Skateistan. She won the Academy Award in the Best Documentary (Short Subject) category for Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) at the 92nd annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles on February 9.Afterward, Carol was whisked away to the after-parties to hobnob with the likes of Mark Ruffalo and Keanu Reeves. Carol has wrestled with one of the central themes of Learning to Skate in a Warzone - limited access to women - throughout her entire career. The film industry has historically excluded women from the director's chair and, conspicuously, the nominees for best director of a feature film were all men. Over her lifetime, Carol has maintained a passionate interest in examining the relationship between civil rights abolition and the women's movement. In fact, she even carries a copy of the Constitution in her purse at all times. Over the past 15 years, she has filmed in Afghanistan. Her previous work, Camp Victory Afghanistan is well-known for its portrayal of US National Guard troops struggling through cultural barriers to train the local Afghan national army. In deciding to take on this Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone project, Carol recognized and appreciated the systemic problems that Skateistan was willing to take on - access to education and illiteracy.As a teacher herself, at NYU's Tisch Graduate Film program, Carol innately connected with the educators and students at Skateistan. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Carol discusses what it was like to embed herself within a culture with antiquated traditions about women's rights, how she instantly connected with the young girls on Skateistan, and her experiences both on stage and behind the scenes at the Oscars.For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal.

Fighting through total arctic darkness and running dangerously low on food, Mike Horn and Borge Ousland journey unsupported across the polar ocean.Read the full article here on The Outdoor Journal.In September, South African Mike Horn and Norwegian Borge Ousland set off on a human-powered journey across the North pole. They walked and skied through 24 hours of darkness, lugging all of their supplies behind them in sleds. Due to climate change, the deteriorated ice conditions took their journey to dangerous lengths, even drifting them backward, and when it had taken a month longer than they planned and depleted their emergency food reserves, their mission was in serious jeopardy.Mike Horn has been a loyal ambassador for The Outdoor Journal for years. He has sailed 15 times around the world, completed a solo journey around the equator without any motorized transport and he's stacked up a series of polar firsts to boot. If you look closely at the thumbnail for The Outdoor Journal podcast, you'll notice it's a shot from the crow's nest of Horn's ship Pangea as he makes ground on Antarctica. We chose that shot because it represents the spirit and ethos of pushing through fear in the outdoors.The Co-Founder of The Outdoor Journal, Lorenzo Fornari, is no stranger to Horn, having adventured across Australia's Simpson desert together back in 2017 in one of Horn's heavily modified Mercedes G-500's. The two reunited in Paris for this discussion. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Horn details the unique challenges on this expedition due to climate change, how he came centimeters from death on the final day of the journey after grinding for 87 days in the darkness, and he finally sets the record straight about the recent controversy on crossing Antarctica. 

Coyote Peterson has survived venomous bites and the animal kingdom's most painful stings. You can catch Coyote in the new series Brave the Wild, now on Animal Planet.Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal.Coyote developed his passion for animal encounters as a child by collecting common snapping turtles from the woodlands near his home in Cleveland, Ohio. Although it started out as a passion project, over the past five years, Coyote has traveled one million miles around the globe to film more than 500 videos for Brave Wilderness. His hard work and bravery have generated over 3 billion views on Youtube and a worldwide following. That demand has culminated in the development of his new show - Coyote Peterson: Brave the Wild, which premiered Sunday, February 9th on Animal Planet.After voluntarily offering his arm up to the bite of a 50-pound alligator snapping turtle, which started feeding frenzy among Coyote's fans, known as the “Coyote Pack,” Coyote committed to more pain by braving the stings of the most wicked insects on the planet, including the Velvet Ant, Tarantula Hawk, and even the Bullet Ant.Coyote is particularly drawn to educating people about misunderstood animals. He seeks out apex predators in environments that you've never heard of to teach you how they survive and to dispel myths, fears and folklore in order to promote animal conservation and also to make sure people stay safe in the wilderness as well as their own backyards. Brave Wilderness is an Emmy Award-winning Youtube Channel which has also earned 2 Guinness World Records is known for its surprisingly high production value and consistently cinematic footage given its small, fast and loose filming team.In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Coyote discusses his most painful animal encounter experience, how he built Brave Wildnerness from a passion project into a global sensation with over 15 million Youtube subscribers, and how he manages to film with hot lava venom coursing through his veins.And if you'd like to get up close with wild animals yourself, check out our wildlife safari packages on The Outdoor Voyage. Before you know it, you'll be face to face with gorillas in Rwanda, or scouting for Lions in Tanzania.Now it's time to enter the chomp zone with Coyote Peterson.

Outdoor therapist Dr. Ruth Allen invites us to break through the walls of traditional therapy to be a more active participant in the healing process and seek out euphoria in the outdoors. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).Who among us hasn't felt stuck at some point in their life? Without forward momentum, we begin to slowly sink and become vulnerable to the grips of anxiety and depression that reach out to grab us from just below the visible surface of everyday life. We get wound up in ruminating thought patterns and mental scripts that we repeatedly tell ourselves. “Maybe I'm just not good enough...Maybe I deserve to suffer.” Yet, when we seek help in traditional therapy, we find ourselves further trapped, our problems are sealed off in a doctor's office. We sit in our problems, motionless, static. Outdoor therapist Ruth Allen guides her clients to break through these four walls and move past periods of stuckness by connecting with nature.For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal.And if you'd like to go on your own adventure to Ethiopia's highest mountain range, check out our hiking package in Simien National Park on The Outdoor Voyage.

At 140 MPH and just feet off the ground, every flight that professional wingsuit pilot Sam Hardy takes requires a deep connection with nature and ultimate trust in his jumping partner. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal). Over the past 14 years, Hardy has completed over 1,800 BASE jumps in 27 different countries, which makes him one of the world's leading experts on the sport. Hardy runs a BASE jumping school where he teaches students the techniques of BASE jumping and wingsuit flying. Steadfast to Peter Pan's credo “Never Grow Up,” Hardy believes that we are meant to carry on our childhood playfulness throughout life. Hardy also co-founded Project Base, a non-profit company, in order to combine his passion for wingsuit flying with the chance to give back to others. In 2015, Hardy and his partner Nate Jones flew to Ethiopia to complete a world's first BASE Jump in the Simien mountains, in conjunction with providing fresh water and school furniture to students. As if wingsuit flying was not difficult enough, Hardy straps various cameras to his gear to capture footage for documentary films, which requires an additional level of air awareness, concentration, and trust to film his subjects at cinematic angles. Wingsuit flying is a sport misunderstood. Athletes jump from cliffs, mountain tops, tall buildings and other objects with the goal to fly in close proximity to the ground, yet at a safe enough “angle of attack” to avoid contact. Each flight takes hours of mental preparation which involves closely reading the terrain and weather conditions. In this episode, Sam will discuss the purpose behind his wingsuit adventures, the mechanics of flight prep, what it was like to be mistaken for the Messiah on his first descent into Ethiopia's Simien Mountains and how to deal with life's stressors better by facing ultimate risk. For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal. And if you'd like to go on your own adventure to Ethiopia's highest mountain range, check out our hiking package in Simien National Park on The Outdoor Voyage.Hiking the Roof of Africa to the Hottest Place on Earth - Simien National Park & Danakil Depression

Stefanie Spear, a 30-year advocate for the environment and the Founder of EcoWatch, takes her own maiden voyage as a sailor from Panama City to the Galapagos Islands on an all-women crew to move the needle on single-use plastics. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).This month, eco-activist Stefanie Spear will be joining the crew of eXXpedition, an all-women crew sailing around the world to raise awareness about the devastating tole that single-use plastics take on our environment as well as on human biology, especially for women. Onboard the eXXpedition, she'll conduct scientific studies on the concentration and global distribution of microplastics in the ocean. The world's oceans hold an estimated 5,250 billion pieces of plastic, and these particles make their way into our system and pose harmful health effects. Like me, Stefanie was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the Founder and former CEO of EcoWatch, and she continues to lead a charge for change against the climate crisis.In this episode, Stefanie discusses how she developed her passion for environmental advocacy, the media's role in reporting the immediacy of the climate crisis, her citizen science efforts onboard the eXXpedition sailboat and how they could lead to solutions in plastic waste disposal, and how you can get involved with the charge for change today.For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal.If you'd like to go on your own adventure to the Galapagos, book your trip on OutdoorVoyage.com.The Best of Galapagos AdventureGalapagos Multisport Adventure

Propelled by the kindness of strangers on his tandem bicycle, Naresh Kumar crosses continents to raise awareness for human trafficking. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).Traversing 13 countries and 2 continents over 87 days, Naresh Kumar rode his tandem bike from Chennai, India to Hamberg, Germany, picking up friends and 180 strangers along the way to help him complete the 5,000-mile journey. His mission was to raise awareness and funds to help the victims of bonded labor slavery in South India. People from all walks of life stopped to help Naresh along with way, curious as to why he was riding a tandem bike all by himself. Funnily enough, most people assume he just broke up with his girlfriend, and they were shocked to learn the full scale of his project. Also in 2019, Naresh followed up his multi-continent mission by heading on a 12-day solo journey through the Kyzygstan mountains. In only its second year, the Silk Road Mountain Race is already known as the toughest race on the planet with an elevation gain 3 times Everest in dangerous conditions.In this episode, we discuss the duality of the human spirit, as displayed in the abundance of hospitality Naresh received on his journey juxtaposed with the cause, to end human slavery and human trafficking, how Kumar travels to remote ends of the Earth to find his absolute limits, and also how he learned to make himself vulnerable to truly connect with others.For more stories like this, check out The Outdoor Journal.Visit The Outdoor Voyage to book your own cycling adventure.Kerala Coast to Coast Bike TripRiveting Saigon to Hanoi Bike TripSouthern Thailand – Bangkok to Phuket Bike Trip

Ray Zahab seeks out vast areas of remote wilderness - the most inhospitable areas on the planet - to explore his connection with humans around the world, push his own personal limits, and connect students with empirical learning. Ray is a Canadian ultra-runner and extreme adventurer who has set out on 15 expeditions over fire and ice, deserts and tundras, crossing tortuous terrain in extreme temperatures. Ray has run over 14,000 kilometers across the world's deserts, including running solo across the Gobi desert and the Atacama, known as the “driest desert on Earth.” as well as crossing the Sahara in 111 days. Quite literally, Ray runs with a classroom on his back. In 2008, he founded Impossible2Possible, a charitable organization that empowers children around the globe to learn through Ray's adventures. In this episode of The Outdoor Journal Podcast, Ray discusses a near-death experience he had while falling through the ice in Northern Canada's wilderness, how he stumbled upon ancient Incan high pass trails in the Atacama desert, serendipities that showcase our undeniable interconnectedness as humans, and finally, how Ray keeps his legacy in perspective. Book your own adventure in the desert or the arctic on The Outdoor Voyage.Meet more incredible athletes and explores like Ray on The Outdoor Journal.

Jessica Faulkner is the Communications Manager at Skateistan's Berlin headquarters. (Read more).Represented by Skateboarding Legend Tony Hawk on its Global Advisory Board, as well as Sky Brown, the youngest star in the skateboarding world, Skateistan's creative blend of skateboarding instruction and classroom programs empowers underprivileged youth, especially young girls, to build a better future.In Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa, Skateistan reaches out to children from groups that are often excluded from educational opportunities, such as girls, children living with disabilities and children from low-income backgrounds.They've just launched a new campaign called Safe to Skate to provide a safe haven for students who are often living in insecure and even dangerous environments. The target of the campaign is to raise $200,000 for Skateistan's skateboarding and educational programs. To donate, visit Skateistan.org or follow the links we've provided.In this episode, we'll meet Jessica Faulkner, the Communications Manager at Skateistan's Berlin headquarters, about her role within the organization, how Skateistan builds strong relationships within communities despite cultural differences, designing gender-inclusive programs to encourage young girls to skate, developing classroom programs to focus on life skills like resilience and determination, and the best way that readers can get involved and become a Citizen of Skateistan themselves.Visit The Outdoor Voyage to go on your own adventure to South Africa, where you'll dive with sharks or snorkel with cape fur seals.Skateistan.org

Lizzie Carr is a British Eco-activist and paddleboard adventurer who has inspired a global community of citizen scientists to map plastic pollution in her crisis-fighting app. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).In 2016, Lizzie Carr set out to traverse the entire length of England's waterways on a solo and unsupported paddleboard expedition, a world record. Lizzie loaded all of her food and camping gear onto the front of her board, paddled 10 hours per day and slept in her tent alongside the waterway each night. Throughout the 400-mile journey, which took more than three weeks to complete, Lizzie logged 2000 pieces of plastic on an interactive map, which she later developed into the Plastic Patrol app. Plastic Patrol has evolved organically into a global movement, as more than 200,000 pieces of plastic waste around the planet.In her next world record challenge, Lizzie became the first female in history to paddleboard across the English Channel, a 24-mile journey through choppy waters and dangerous shipping lanes. Then, in 2018, completing a third world record in as many years, Lizzie paddle boarded the entire length of the Hudson River over eight days to raise awareness for the global plastic crisis and to share a way for everyone to get involved.Lizzie's passion for the environment began unexpectedly with a cancer diagnosis when she was 25 years old. Using Cancer as a catalyst, Lizzie realized that by inspiring her community to take action, she could become a catalyst for change in corporate practices and public policy by creating an evidence base of waste patterns and unresponsible brands that aren't taking ownership of their waste. All you have to do to influence corporate reliance on single-use plastics is to “See it, Snap it, and Map it.” Plastic Patrol

Cam McCaul discusses how he pursued a new style of BMX free-riding even when a competition circuit did not exist yet, whether the “speed gene” exists in the nature versus nurture debate, the mental gymnastics a rider must endure to compete at the highest level, and the benefits of CBD on not only focus and clarity as a rider but also staying present as a father of two. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).

I'm Davey Braun, Associate Editor and Content Manager for TOJ, and interviewing these incredible athletes and adventurers has been the most exciting experience of my career. These discussions have inspired me to drastically change my daily routine and also to aspire to tackle seemingly impossible goals. I'm hoping that each episode inspires our listeners to push a little harder in their workout, think about their own lifestyle in a different way and push through their greatest challenges.

Welcome to The Outdoor Journal Podcast, where the world is your playground. We'll be taking you on a journey to meet some of the world's most inspirational athletes, explorers and storytellers who are pushing the boundaries of human potential on adventures into the outdoors and journeys into the self. In each episode, we'll examine the psychology of performance to learn just what it takes to face your fears and come out the other side.In this inaugural episode, we'll speak with the Founder of The Outdoor Journal, Apoorva Prasad or "AP", for a behind the scenes peek into the "why" behind the international adventure travel magazine and how TOJ is developing a new way for readers to live out the adventures they've been reading about. AP enjoyed an immersive relationship with the outdoors as a child growing up in India, living in spitting distance from rhinos and later on, after struggling to balance the pressures of graduating college in the states with his competing dream to become an elite mountaineer, AP turned his accidental foray in journalism, when he realized he could make a few bucks by taking a camera with him into the mountains, into a viable media business and use it as a means for good.

Ryan Richardson and his wife Hailey, are two filmmakers from Western Canada, committed to trek across Iceland in an attempt to force the government to protect the highlands region, an area of over 40,000 square kilometers, by granting it national park status. Ryan and Hailey operate their own small-footprint film production company, Life Outside Studio, in which they actively participate in film projects around the world. We'll speak with Ryan about the serious survival dilemma he faced on day one when Ryan noticed that after 42 km of hiking, they were still only halfway to their first waypoint. Because the remote highlands are so untouched and even unmapped, the satellite data they based their route on was 40% wrong. When Ryan and Hailey realized that they would now have to traverse over 400 km to achieve their goal, they decided between cutting their food rations in half and doubling their daily mileage - quitting was never an option. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal.To embark on your own adventure to Iceland, visit our authentic packages at The Outdoor Voyage.

Jelle Veyt has embarked on an expedition from his home in Belgium to the summit of Kilimanjaro, over 10,000 miles due south in Tanzania. In a completely human-powered journey, Jelle will avoid all planes, trains, and automobiles. In fact, he'll avoid any vehicle with an engine for the next year, as he expects to reach the base of the mountain by July 2020. This expedition to Kilimanjaro is just one leg in Jelle's ambitious and monumental project he calls “the Seven Summits of Happiness,” to climb the highest peak on every continent using only human power. Kilimanjaro will be his fourth summit, after Elbrus (Europe), Everest (Asia) and Carstensz Pyramid (Oceania). So far he has cycled more than 30,000 km (18,000 miles), rowed 4,000 km (2,500 miles). Jelle is the first person ever to have achieved such a feat. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).To set out on your own adventure to the summit of Kilimanjaro, check out our packages on The Outdoor Voyage.For more stories like this, visit The Outdoor Journal.

The nine-year running careers of Scott and Rhys Jenkins read like epic quests composed of challenges that grant the characters new levels of personal growth. The Jenkins brothers conquer their inner demons by setting out on ultra challenges in the harshest places on Earth - from Iceland to Death Valley to running over 2000 miles across the US from Boston to Austin. Their motivation to push through the pain comes from their commitment to causes that have personal meaning for them. (Read the full article on The Outdoor Journal).Set out on your own adventure - Visit The Outdoor Voyage.For more stories like this, check out The Outdoor Journal. 

In our 4-part series REWILD with Tony Riddle, we introduced Tony's paradigm-shifting concepts to connect us with our natural human biology and the lifestyle of our ancestors in rebellion against modern social norms. Breaking away from a culture that continually seeks out comfort, Tony challenges us to adopt practices that may seem extreme compared to our cushy daily routines, such as cold water immersion, wild swimming, barefoot running and removing all chairs from the home. In this episode, we chat with Tony as he prepares to embark on his 874-mile barefoot run traversing the whole length of the island of Great Britain to raise awareness for environmental sustainability.Tony Riddle Crosses Great Britain Barefoot but Not BrokenVisit The Outdoor Voyage to live out your own adventures in Ireland.