The First Mile

The First Mile is an immersive travel podcast, bringing you untold stories from the world of adventure.

It is presented by Ash Bhardwaj and Pip Stewart — two travel journalists, who are adventurers in their own right — and explores everything from the ethics of cultural tourism, to documenting your journeys and making a living from travel.

Ash and Pip navigate this territory with some of the world’s greatest travellers, who reveal how they got their first break in travel writing, planned remote expeditions, or made the switch from a corporate career to a life of adventure.

Alongside these in-depth interviews are travel-narrative dispatches: evocative field recordings from Ash and Pip’s adventures, which take the listener along for the ride.

New episodes are released weekly, in 10-episode seasons.

******
Season one’s interview guests include: author Monisha Rajesh, explorer Levison Wood, film-maker Reza Pakravan, and travel-writer Leon McCarron.

Our dispatches come from Annapurna, Nepal, and Whanganui, New Zealand, where our hosts report back on rites of passage, celestial navigation, the joys of moonshine liquor, and a whole lot more.

******

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning broadcaster, film-maker and Telegraph Travel columnist. He regularly reports for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, and his films have appeared on BBC, Channel 4, Discovery and National Geographic.

Pip Stewart has cycled halfway around the world and completed a world-first kayak descent of Guyana’s Essequibo River (where she picked up a flesh-eating parasite). She is the former Red Bull adventure editor, and her presenting work has appeared on BBC, Al Jazeera and The Telegraph.

******

We hope you enjoy The First Mile. Please let us know what you think of it in the comments, and give us a rating, too.

• No. of episodes: 11
• Latest episode: 2020-12-23
• Society & Culture Places & Travel

Where can you listen?