Action Packed Travel
Welcome to Action Packed Travel! Our podcast features amazing travel stories...without having to go anywhere. The episodes are interviews with people who've been inspired by their adventures. They're also full of information and useful links, all of which you can find on our Show Notes. Our podcast can be used for future travel ideas and plans for the days when we can explore the world again! About us: we're Felice & Peter Hardy and we’ve spent half a lifetime travelling to just about every corner of the world, making a living as travel writers out of what we like doing best – and that’s skiing, biking, hiking, eating, exploring, city breaks, seaside…and a whole lot more. We've had lots of favourable reviews, such as: "What an interesting and diverse world you are opening up for us in a nicely laid back way. Very informative and some are also wonderful archive material."
Episodes
159 episodes
Battle of the Countryside
The Somerset town of Frome has seen many battles in its history, from the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 to a campaign to win Packsaddle Community Fields in 2025.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 160
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20:50
Walking Across Africa
Forty years ago, Patrick Nash took a ten-month walk through the heart of Africa. We talked to him about the journey that inspired his latest book, Shots Across the Water.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 159
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45:42
Writing Around The World
Jean McNeill, author of Latitudes: Encounters with a Changing Planet, is an award-winning Canadian-born writer, the first-ever female director of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and a professionally qualified safari ...
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Episode 158
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33:27
Alice's Journey Through Saudi Arabia
Scottish explorer and Arabist Alice Morrison decided to take a long hike to talk to the ordinary people, particularly the women who live there.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 157
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30:34
Valentine Warner’s Wild Kitchen
Valentine Warner is a celebrity chef who’s made no less nine TV series, and has written five books. He likes to cook in remote and beautiful corners of the world. His new venture, Kitchen in the Wild, is set in a private safari lodge with views...
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Episode 156
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30:36
Wild About Croatia
Travel writer and author of My Family and Other Enemies, Mary Novakovich, explores her homeland, including the hinterland of Croatia most foreigners never visit. Music: © Barney and Izzi Hardy
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Episode 155
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34:27
Joanna Penn's Pilgrimage
Author, podcaster, and creative entrepreneur Joanna Penn is a best-selling and award-winning writer of horror, thrillers, dark fantasy and travel memoirs. She'...
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Episode 154
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35:27
A Ride Across America
Simon Parker has cycled in this election year across the whole of America, from the northwest coast of Washington state, all the way to the most south easterly tip of Florida. He's written a book about it. Music: Barney & Izzi Hard...
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Episode 153
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36:43
Ride Like A Gaucho
Sophia Ashe, hooked on ponies and horses since childhood, joined a team of gauchos at a ranch in Argentina and wrote a book about her experiences. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 152
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35:10
Bletchley Park Revisited
Bletchley Park is a country mansion 35 minutes by train northwest of London, where Alan Turing and his team of cryptanalysts cracked the complicated codes of the German Enigma machine. Music © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 151
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22:16
Loneliness of a Long-Distance Sailor
How do you survive on your own for days on end? So far, seven women have completed the Vendée Globe, the toughest round-the-world race. Joan Mulloy, a brand ambassador for Helly Hansen and a mother of two from the west coast of Ireland, is dete...
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Episode 150
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35:59
The Whale in the Living Room
Veteran underwater cameraman, John Ruthven, talks to us about his book and a lifetime of exploring the deep. He is also a producer of Sir David Attenborough's The Blue Planet, a zoologist, film director, writer, editor and sty...
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Episode 149
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25:27
A Century of Cottar's Safaris
This week we're in Kenya talking to safari camp owner, Calvin Cotter, whose family came here from the Great Plains of the Midwest in the years before World War One.
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Episode 148
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31:36
The Ultimate Childcare for Skiers
This week, we're exploring the fraught subject of taking small children skiing for the very first time. We're going to start and end with a warning to listeners: If you want to book a nanny service-inclusive holiday for the coming winter, there...
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Episode 147
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28:59
The Secret Resort of Le Grand-Bornand
Le Grand-Bornand is not a name like Morzine or Chamonix that trips easily off the tongue when we mention skiing, but it's typically and traditionally French.
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Episode 146
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23:41
North American Dream in the French Alps
It's the twentieth anniversary of Arc 1950. The resort began as the idea of Canadian resort developer, Intrawest, creator of Mont-Tremblant in Quebec and manager of some 20 other resorts in North America – from Whistler to Mammoth.
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Episode 145
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19:36
Wild Travels In Africa and Asia
This week we're talking to someone who specialises in creating holidays that are entirely different – taking you to places you probably thought were out of bounds to all tourists.
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Episode 144
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21:07
From Fjord to Snowfield
We caught up with Rory Dixon who organises skiing-touring trips off a boat in Norway and Greenland, life-changing adventures to distant corners of the world.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 143
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21:42
Jess the Horse Nomad
Jess Isbrecht is a digital nomad who travels full time with her horses. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 142
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17:09
The World's Most Travelled Man
Harry Mitsidis has travelled to every country in the world, at least twice. He's the founder of a website called NomadMania.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 141
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31:51
Walking to the South Pole
To discover a little of what former Royal Marine, Sam Cox, will experience living alone at -30°C, podcaster Peter Hardy spends time in an industrial freezer.Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy
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Episode 140
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23:03
An American in Paris
No, not the 1951 movie starring Gene Kelly and Lesley Caron... Jay Swanson moved from the USA and now lives in Paris where he calls himself: 'a YouTuber, writer, and puppy wrangler.' He publishes a guide to the city called Paris...
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Episode 139
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33:15
The Van Life Revisited
We're on the road exploring a thriving sector of the travel industry that continues to explode in popularity across Europe. Music © Barney and Izzi Hardy
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Episode 138
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25:43