Destination Unlocked

Welcome back to the Destination Unlocked

Podcast with me, Daniel Edward.

Today on the Destination Unlocked Podcast, in the words of Ike and Tina

Turner, we’re going Mountain High and in the words of The Carpenters,

we are gonna be On Top Of The World.

And that’s because we are unlocking mountains today with

none other than the editor of Mountains Magazine, Olly Beckett.

And in this conversation, not only are you gonna hear some great tips for how

to enjoy the world’s peaks, but also some really fascinating insight into what it

takes to launch a magazine that is now stocked in hundreds of shops up and down

the country, as well as being available online at www.mountains-magazine.com.

Enjoy.

So Olly, what are you unlocking for us today?

Today, Daniel, I’m gonna be unlocking the mountains of the world.

Ah, that’s a big claim.

There’s some big mountains out there.

People say, are you a mountain or a sea person?

And you find you are a mountain person, do you?

That’s the question that I kind of asked myself over the years

as someone that’s worked in travel for two and a half decades is yeah,

that question of beach, city, mountain and Forest, and after having a good,

long, hard think about it, mountains was definitely coming out on top.

I like the others, but yeah, mountains are where I belong.

Why?

Why?

Because mountains are surprisingly diverse.

You can have massive, snowy mountains.

You can have very dry, dusty mountains.

You can have mountains that are covered in forest.

You can have cities that are up in the mountains.

You can have deep human history in the mountains.

Geology is fascinating.

There’s a lot going on in the mountains.

And I just like the look of them when it comes down to it.

Like they are extremely dramatic things to look at and to be in; sitting there

and feeling very humble, staring up at this immense object that’s thousands

of meters tall and covered in snow.

It’s, extremely scenic in my eyes.

Do you remember your first ever mountain?

Not a specific mountain, but kind of vague hazy

memories of family holidays.

I grew up on the south coast of England and a cheap family holiday

involved getting on a cross channel ferry and in our cheap battered

Passat, driving across Europe.

And going to destinations such as Brione song and Grenoble.

And having grown up in the New Forest, which is notoriously flat,

being confronted with these immense things that are impossibly huge.

How is it possible that people can go up, go up these, but sure enough,

in France, in Italy and Switzerland, not only do they stand there and

stare at them, they build roads and railways up these things as well.

So yeah, I’ve got hazy memories of standing there feeling

very small in the Alps.

That’s where we went primarily.

So it was the Alps that started it.

Probably one of the most famous mountain ranges.

It’s a great place to start, right?

They are very nice and pointy and snowy and have all that

fascinating culture within them.

I haven’t spent so much time in mountains.

As much as I like looking at them, I find them very cold in the winter

and very hilly In the summer,

Yeah.

you must be quite fit and active.

Um, not as fit and active as you might think.

That is kind of one of the perceptions that I’m hoping to change is

that you don’t need to be fit and active to enjoy the mountains.

All around the world, not just in the Alps, there’s impressive

infrastructure that can help you get to the top of a mountain.

You don’t have to be an athlete to do that.

You can hop on a cable car, you can hop on a train, you can drive up one.

And even if you are, you know, wanting to be a bit more active, there’s some

really good equipment, there’s some really good tour operators out there that can

help anyone of any ability to get out onto a mountain trail, down a slope.

They are very accessible in winter, in summer.

Why don’t we do a beginner’s guide to mountains.

If somebody’s surprised by the fact that you’ve said, actually you don’t need to be

that fit, you can get out there, you can use a cable car, you can use the train.

There’s some amazing mountain trains, you could even drive to the top of a mountain.

Where is a comfortable place to start?

The most comfortable would be Switzerland.

The Swiss are remarkable engineers.

They don’t just look at a mountain and walk away.

They look at a mountain and decide to build a rotating

restaurant on the top of one.

That is where you will find the highest train station in Europe, they

blasted tunnels through the mountain to reach the top of this mountain.

It’s easy.

There’s, there’s railways everywhere in Switzerland.

They are reliable.

They connect very well with the cable car systems as well.

That is by far the easiest, most accessible mountains you can find.

But then, there’s countries around Switzerland also do a very good job.

Austria, very, very similar.

Good railway system, great cable cars.

France, also very, very good.

Compared to Switzerland, I’d say those countries are more affordable.

So if it talking about accessibility in terms of budget, then France and Austria

would be a good starting place as well.

And what do you need to bring with you on mountain holiday?

It depends on what season you’re going in.

In any season, sunscreen’s usually a good idea because even in

winter, if it’s a sunny day, the UV levels up there are much harsher.

Mountain weather can be unpredictable.

So again, any season come prepared for rain or for snow, it could get

cold even in the height of summer.

So be prepared for that.

Apart from that, it really depends on the season that you’re going in.

Winter, obviously you’re gonna want to bring thermals and stuff

in summer far less equipment.

Any time of year sunglasses, sunscreen, and the expectation that

the weather could change very quickly.

I fully appreciate mountain climbers and people that.

Literally run up the top of mountains and do various other

extreme things in the mountains.

That is something that I am more than happy to be a spectator

of rather than a participant.

My magazine, it’s for people that just want to go up, enjoy the mountains

without necessarily having to do anything or at least do anything extreme.

Yeah.

Just to enjoy being there in this gorgeous environment.

exactly.

Talking of extreme things on mountains, this is something that

I saw and I thought, wow, there is something for everyone: extreme ironing.

Have you heard of it?

I’ve heard of it and I’ve seen the pictures.

Yeah.

This is where people unfold an ironing board on the top of a

mountain, literally on the peak, with all their climbing equipment.

yeah.

Good for them.

I just have no idea what brings somebody to think

that that’s a worthwhile pursuit.

They bring a deliberately unironed shirt to iron it at the

top of climbing up a mountain.

I mean, I struggle to do ironing at the best of

times that let alone at the top

of the mountain, so, yeah.

And all of that extra weight to carry.

Yeah.

And how do they plug the iron in?

They bring like batteries up there as well?

Yeah.

A lot of thought went into it.

An unnecessary amount of thought.

What sort of food can you find up in the mountains?

Are there resorts where essentially you’re staying in a village, or

is it quite a remote holiday?

There can be a remote holiday if you want it to be.

You can go up and either camp or stay in a remote mountain hut, in which case the

food is gonna be more basic, although there are now more luxurious mountain

huts way up in the middle of nowhere where you can get good gourmet cuisine.

But like I said, there’s cities up in the mountains.

There are mountain cities which have Michelin star restaurants.

I think Saint Moritz is one of those.

I know Ischgl’s got a couple that has some good quality.

I think they’ve got a few Michelin starred restaurants there.

You certainly don’t have to sacrifice things like that.

If you want to go off a mountain, of course, depends

where you are in the world.

Europe is very good for that.

North America also, South America, you can certainly go to some good

mountain towns and eat very well too.

But you’re less likely to find like the gourmet cuisine

in those kind of locations.

I feel like as travel writers, we are sort of spoiled when it

comes to gourmet food though, because I feel like gourmet food seems to be thrown

at almost any trip that we do, whereas when I’m doing my own holidays, I don’t

actually need it to be Michelin starred.

I like local.

I like local.

I totally agree.

Yeah.

And, and luckily for me, I like cheese and chocolate, which are things

that are extremely prevalent in the mountains no matter where you are.

I was talking about South America; there’s a beautiful town called

Barce in Argentina, that is famous for its chocolate shops.

I know it’s got very good restaurants as well, but I’m quite a basic

person, so just give me some chocolate and I’ll be very happy.

In the Alps, give me a good fondue any day.

Doesn’t have to be that complicated.

Bit of melted cheese, I’m happy.

Find me anybody who would turn well apart from somebody

who’s lactose intolerant, I suppose, in which case they ought to turn it down.

But the rest of us, there’s something about a cheese fondue.

Och.

I mean, especially after you’ve spent a day doing something mildly active

in the mountains, like a nice, easy hike, you feel like you’ve earned

that fondue at the end of the day.

Did you ever expect that you would be spending your

career traveling and writing about it?

Certainly traveling.

Yeah.

As a teenager, I read the book, Seven Years in Tibet

and was immediately inspired.

And I guess that’s also where my love of the mountains stems from as well.

So from that kind of moment on, once I put the book down, I knew

that I wanted a life in travel.

I wanted to be a travel writer from the get go.

Heinrich Carrow was the author of that book, really good writer.

So wanted to kind of emulate his life, going up on the

mountains and writing about it.

The big disadvantage that I had was that, I was never particularly academic.

So much as I wanted to start off in journalism and travel writing,

did not get the grades to get onto a decent writing course, so decided

to go into travel marketing instead.

Did a degree in tourism studies, did a really, really good internship at

STA Travel, if you can remember them.

They were great.

Really, really good company.

And then once I graduated it was like, well, still can’t really get

into journalism, so we’ll continue down the travel marketing route

and then hopefully sometime soon explore the writing a bit more.

About 15 years later, finally had put together enough money to take

the risk of being a travel writer.

It’s, as I’m sure you’re aware of, it’s not an easy business to get into.

It helps if you either have the grades or if you have a bit of money

to take the risk at some point to kind of start all over again, and

build a reputation for yourself.

It is a risky business, in that sense.

And I think a lot of people look at it and think, oh, I’d love to be doing that.

Oh, you’re so lucky you’re going away to these places; all you

have to do is write about it.

And actually, there’s a lot of stuff in the industry which people don’t see.

If somebody was looking to follow in what you’ve done, what is the

most important thing that you think they ought to be aware of?

Oh, don’t expect to be able to support yourself

through travel writing overnight.

It takes a long time to build up a reputation.

Either do what I’ve done and have a bit of money behind you to start

off with, so you know, you don’t have to fully support yourself.

And have other income streams as well; I know the majority of travel

writers, the vast majority in fact, do have other income streams as well.

It’s very, very difficult to fully support yourself as just a travel writer.

Yeah.

It almost doesn’t make sense

economically.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

When you see what you get paid per commission and how difficult

it is to get a commission, yeah.

It’s next to impossible to kind of make that your sole job.

And that’s why a lot of people have second jobs as well.

But a lot of people in the industry are creative types who have stories

that they want to share and then want to create outlets for those stories.

Both our own stories and other people’s stories.

And I think that’s where the magazine comes in.

Yeah.

The reasons for the magazine are multiple.

Firstly there was a gap in the market.

But also it is a really good outlet for my writing and for the writing of other

travel writers that I really, really admire and think deserve a wider audience.

It’s something that has now pretty much taken over my life.

So in that sense, I’m busy.

Economically still a bit of a struggle.

It’s a new business.

All new businesses, it’s a struggle to start off with.

But yeah, in terms of the actual being able to write, I’ve got more

than enough on my plate right now.

So the magazine is called Mountains Magazine.

It’s very obvious what we could expect to find inside a Mountains Magazine.

But, why don’t we unpack it a little bit more.

It’s a quarterly magazine, so it sort of follows the seasons.

Exactly that.

Yeah.

It comes out in March and June and September and in December.

And each issue vaguely reflects the seasons.

wasn’t really a winter person in the mountains, but couldn’t really

edit something called Mountains Magazine without knowing how to ski.

So did a beginner trip to Saint Gervais, which is a really

fun, nice place to learn.

And just about got the hang of it.

Oh, actually, no.

My first trip was to the, uh, snow dome in Milton Keynes.

fantastic place

to

Have you been?

That’s my entirety of skiing actually.

It’s not a bad place.

I was, I was genuinely impressed that they had actual snow

inside this building in the middle of Milton Keynes.

For people who don’t know Milton Keynes, it’s the greyest,

concrete jungle, you’ll find.

It’s roundabouts and concrete.

about as far away as a scenic mountain landscape

as you can possibly imagine.

And yet there’s this immense building with an actual snowy slope inside.

yeah, I decided to, um, for a group lesson there just so I didn’t look like

a complete idiot on an actual mountain.

even down to how do you put on a ski boot sort of lesson,

Yeah, I, I don’t think

I’d

right?

Yeah.

It, I

mean, it.

I don’t think I’d know which equipment I would

need to bring and what would be there waiting for me as well.

Exactly that and even do you point the skis down to that sort of thing.

even so, like going on an actual mountain, despite having that

behind me, it still intimidating.

was lucky I was on a press trip and therefore had a one-on-one tuition.

I highly recommend, if you do want to do a beginner kind of skiing

thing, just splash out on a tutor at least once or twice because they are

fantastic at not quite literally holding your hand, but very close to holding

your hand, and just kind of slowly helping you improve your technique.

And even to like, if you do fall over, which you know it’s gonna happen,

probably, they will help you put your skis back on, which is really important

when you dunno what you’re doing.

Oh, what?

When you fall over, the skis come off?

depends on how you fall.

but that is part of the safety mechanism.

They, should ping off.

and of course if they’re pinging off on quite a slope, they’re gonna ping

off and keep on sliding down the slope.

So you need someone that can chase after it and then find you again,

and then help you this thing back on despite being on an icy slope?

Would you recommend learning to ski as an adult?

Yes, absolutely.

It’s, it’s not as intimidating or scary as it sounds.

mean, I I certainly felt apprehensive, I was scared, but having now done it, there

was no reason to be scared, even though I fell few times on a more recent visit.

just falling onto snow, it’s not gonna hurt.

as an adult, of course, you’re not gonna be as bouncy as a toddler.

but it’s still, it’s an adventure.

something completely different to anything you would’ve tried before.

So I’d thoroughly recommend it.

And what about the apres ski side of things?

That’s the other thing I keep hearing about ski.

It’s, it’s all of the stuff around it.

And after you’ve been on the slopes all day.

Yes.

Yeah.

I will admit, one of the reasons I wanted to try skiing was to

justify the apres ski as well.

apres ski can be as hedonistic or as easygoing as you wish it

to be, and there are destinations that you can choose accordingly.

Ischgl’s a really good party town, you want that kind of Nightlife,

of bars, lots of drinking.

Ischgl’s really good for that, really good skiing as well during the day.

then plenty of family resorts as well.

Saint Gervais I found really good for restaurants.

wasn’t too crazy in terms of nightlife.

yeah, I, enjoy the apres ski, includes the restaurants and stuff as well.

And so for your first winter magazine, you shared your

initial experiences as part of that

issue.

Did

Yes, I did.

Yeah, think it the cover story was about that ski trip to Saint

Gervais, it was titled How a Hiker Fell in Love with Skiing, because

traditionally, I’m, I. I’m a hiker.

Like what I do in the mountains.

I’ve done mountain biking as well.

Love whitewater rafting.

I really wanted to fall in love with skiing as well.

I did, once I had figured out what I was doing and I could kind up and

appreciate the fact that I was on a mountain looking up at Mont Blanc covered

in snow, was a very special moment.

As a scene it doesn’t really get much better than that.

If skiing was the part of mountains that was new to you, I’m assuming you

didn’t launch the magazine in winter.

And in that issue there was quite a lot of hiking content.

mountain biking content, but there was a little bit of ski content as well.

and that’s of the purposes of Mountains Magazine, is to try and encourage

people that love the mountains to go back to the mountains at a time of year

that I might not otherwise have done.

trying to get hikers to give skiing go.

I’m trying to encourage skiers to try mountain biking, which

kind of ticks their boxes of fast downhills, lots of adrenaline.

You still have bike, if you will, these towns and cities at the end of the day.

The winter issue.

Yeah, there was a lot of skiing.

September issue, bit of skiing.

yeah, it, not, this is just a ski magazine or this is just a hiking magazine.

It’s a magazine just about the mountains.

And as you say, it’s even encouraged you to see more

of the mountains by launching it.

Did you launch it in September because that’s the time of year

that speaks to you the most on the mountains, or that’s the time of year

that suited launching a magazine.

September is definitely one of my favorite times to be in

the mountains, as a hiker; you’re outside of the school holidays,

the weather’s still decent.

prices are better.

can still go hiking or biking or rafting.

Without the crowds, basically, it’s a good time of year to be in the mountains.

that was certainly one of the reasons.

The other reason it was, is pure, kind of practical.

had started working on the magazine at the beginning of the year.

It took that much time for me to get everything commissioned, get

everything designed, work with a distributor and get it out to the shops.

Um, so yeah, it, it takes a long time to get a magazine out onto the shelves.

and

Let’s talk a bit about that bit, people, I think will be

fascinated to understand how much work really goes into a new magazine.

People walk into the news agents, whichever one it is used to be WH

Smiths, and now I think it’s TG Jones and whichever others and you see this

whole wall of magazines, you think that there’s a magazine on everything.

And then new magazines pop up because there wasn’t a magazine on everything.

And these magazines, they’re full on publications.

There’s, advertising in a lot of magazines, there’s artwork

in magazines, there’s writing, of course, there’s type setting.

There’s so many people coming together, distribution.

Where did you even start?

I began just by mocking up some designs.

guess I could I started by reading other travel magazines, but I’ve

been doing that for decades anyway.

there’s some great examples out there, like I’ve subscribed to

Wanderlust a lot in the past.

My wife subscribes to Journey.

which that’s a good kind of starting place for me anyway, to see how everyone

else does it, but not to necessarily copy them, but to see how I can do

something a little bit different and have a different place in the market as well.

so then I mocked up the designs, and started figuring out who I wanted

to write in this magazine as well.

So reached out to kind of acquaintances that I know write extremely well and

have some mountain experience and trying to broaden the content as well.

So I looked at where writers are based and where they’ve been writing about.

not just to be Magazine about the Alps and maybe North America as well, but to

make sure it includes South America and Oceania and Asia and Africa as well.

so once I kind this kind team of other writers together, as knew how long the

magazine needed to be, and then that kind of dictated the design accordingly.

at the moment, a one man band.

I’m doing the design, I’m doing the ad sales, the commissioning, a lot of

the writing and it’s a lot of work.

become almost a full-time job now to get this magazine out.

It’s a huge undertaking and a lot of people,

really trust you with that.

By the time this episode comes out, three issues will have been out.

And everybody who’s written something, or any advertiser that’s spoken

to you, they’re trusting you to do something with their work or their

brand and they have to believe in that

project to make it worth

their

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Very much aware that I have responsibility towards the writers

as well and their reputation, I, it, the magazine’s got to look good.

It’s got to look professional.

similarly with the advertisers, like they are trusting me, their budget basically.

I think it’s, looking pretty good.

there’s been design tweaks that’s true of any magazine.

Even Wanderlust goes through little design tweaks every now and then.

magazines have been disappearing off the shelves.

travel’s always been a tough industry to work in.

I kind of wanna Be part of the turning point, which I’m hoping is gonna

happen where decent magazines are, once again available to the general public.

I think people really are gravitating back

slowly but surely to analog media.

I think there’s something very comforting and familiar about

holding a magazine, sharing it with a friend, having something that you

can connect over, which I think people are lacking with some of the digital

offerings.

Yeah, I totally agree.

And someone has put as much effort as I have into creating a magazine, you

can trust that that magazine is a good magazine and the content is reliable.

have a very strict anti AI policy for the magazine.

anything in there has been extremely well researched.

And I know travel writers that I’m commissioning are very,

very good travel writers.

so you can totally trust what they’re writing as well.

Do you think it’s your marketing background from the

years that you were doing travel marketing, that’s really helped you

with this as well, because you’re tying together multiple parts of the

industry.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

think my email marketing, I’ve absolutely nailed because I, I worked in email

marketing for a very long time.

I was a senior manager in email marketing for Expedia.

That was my last kind of full-time employed job.

I am not traditionally a social media marketer.

I have developed a very, very deep appreciation for those who

are, it’s a whole other skillset.

but I think slowly I’m getting that right as well.

then kind of paid marketing as well.

my budget is minus whatever at the moment, I’m trying to

stretch it as much as possible.

so paid advertising I’ve got to be very careful with, so

I’m experimenting with that.

marketing’s a huge, huge industry.

It’s a challenge, but at least the email marketing I’m getting right.

Yeah, you’ve got confidence in that part.

It’s a huge amount of pressure for one person to be spearheading such a big

project, and I suppose that that’s one of the things that people don’t always

realize with this industry travel writing.

It’s a freelancers industry really, because how can you send people to

all of these trips and expect them to be at the desk Monday morning?

got staff writers who are at the desk Monday morning, and you’ve

got the freelancers generally who are going out over the world

to cover the travel stories.

And so we are a lot of independent people, a lot of people who are used

to having to run things on our own.

And there’s a certain pleasure in that as well, even though it

can be a, a bit lonely sometimes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I, each individual freelancer, you don’t need to have a magazine

to think of yourself as a business.

You are, you’re a one man, one person business.

I have always had a deep respect for writers because they have to battle

against all these different things and run themselves as a business.

They’re doing marketing as well, right.

It’s not easy.

But it’s hugely rewarding.

There’s a reason why people do it and also, I can certainly speak myself, I

don’t feel like I’m doing this alone.

I’ve got the support of my wife and friends and family, but also

there’s a little band of travel writers that I belong to as well.

Like I’ve got this little cheerleading, very supportive group behind me as well.

Even speaking with you, this is all part of that support network

that I think is very, very strong within the travel writing community.

I belong to the British Guild Travel Writers.

Within that, there’s deep support for what I’m doing as well.

So even though you are working solo, you are not alone doing this.

And I, I think it’s so important, whatever people do, whether

it’s travel writing or, accountancy, to surround yourself with people

who understand what you do, value what you do, can support it, where

they’ve got a skill which will help and can learn from you because that

gives everybody value and meaning.

If people want to find the magazine, where can they find it?

There is a website, actually that was the first thing I

built that was more than a year old now.

If you go to Mountains-Magazine, that’s the website, and then there’s

a shop link right at the top.

You can buy it direct from there, it’s priced extremely low.

You can get a digital copy for just £2.99.

You can get a physical copy delivered to your door for £7.99.

If you want to go out into the shops, it’s now in around 400 shops

across the UK and a few in Ireland.

You’ll be able to find it in at least 20 airports.

If you go to the website, there’s a map showing where your nearest branch

is to pick up a copy of the magazine.

It’s priced at just £4.99, so it’s priced deliberately low,

just so that people give it a try.

As travel magazines go, it’s probably one of, if not the cheapest one out there.

So pick up a copy, give it a go.

If you don’t like it, then you’ve only spent £4.99 or £2.99

if you’ve got the PDF version.

That’s so exciting to see your magazine in hundreds of

shops now up and down the country.

Something which a lot of people don’t realize, when they go into one of the

news agents and they’re flicking through the magazines, and I, I want to say

this explicitly to you, if you are one of these people: if you’re picking up a

magazine and you’re loving it… buy it, because what happens is magazines that

don’t get sold within their month or their quarter, their cover gets ripped

off and they get thrown away because they can’t get returned to anybody.

They get destroyed.

And I just think it’s so sad.

So if you are enjoying that magazine, and obviously we all do have a flick

through to work out, if we wanna pick something up, go to the till and get it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, please do, do that.

I think of all the magazines distributed in the uk, 50% go unsold.

That’s 50% of all UK magazines are being pulped.

So, yeah.

Just give it a go.

It’s more or less the price of a cup of coffee in Starbucks.

Something I’d love to see, and I don’t know if

we’re likely to see this or not.

I wanna see news agents change what they do.

I know at the moment they’ve ripped the cover off and they pulp them.

They should give them to local schools, if they are appropriate magazines,

because Mountains Magazine, sitting in a school library could inspire

somebody to change their life.

Absolutely.

I would be extremely happy for my magazine, once it’s reached its sell

by date to be given away for free.

It would give more value to me as a writer and my other writers that I use.

certainly to the advertisers as well.

Like they don’t care if I’m making money for it.

I’m sure they do, but they would appreciate it if that magazine

had a file, wider circulation.

So yeah, give it a, give it away for free, doctor’s surgeries, the amount of

outdated magazines you find in there.

Surely someone can find a way of getting these, not that

old magazines to them as well.

That’s a business idea.

Somebody goes into a news agent buys all of the out of date magazines

for a, an absolute minuscule fee and just distributes them

to places where they add value.

I dunno if it’s a business that makes any money, but it’s community minded.

Even if you’re selling that magazine for one pound, you’re

making one pound more than nothing.

I think that’s a golden opportunity for someone.

If I wasn’t doing this magazine and travel writing, having started this magazine,

I would absolutely be doing that.

’cause I know you can make a lot of money from that.

It’s a win-win.

You’re saving things from being pulped.

You’re helping out the news agents by taking these things off your hands.

You’re helping the publishers because they’re getting a wider audience.

Like it’s a win for everyone,

Everybody, the whole ecosystem.

ecosystem.

Yeah.

Back to mountains themselves, you mentioned that the book that really

got you thinking about mountains initially was set in Tibet.

Mm-hmm.

Did you then follow in the footsteps and

go there?

I have tried a couple of times.

the first time, my wife and I, she was then my girlfriend, we did an

epic overland trip, with the aim of getting to Tibet without flying.

So we took a coach through Europe to Latvia, another coach to Moscow,

trans Mongolian trains and buses down through China and Southeast Asia.

Took a cargo ship across to India.

Trains and buses up through India.

Beijing Olympics and Tibet got shut down.

, So we were on the, on the, almost at the border of Tibet, but couldn’t

get in on that particular occasion.

The next occasion I’d booked flights to Xian in China.

Really wanted to explore that city as well.

I love, like China’s a fantastic country, really love the people.

The cuisine’s amazing.

The mountains are spectacular.

Wanted to do that Xian to Lhasa Railway, the one that goes so high that

they pump oxygen into the carriages.

So booked the flights, booked, everything.

So yeah, that’s two for two.

I’ve two opportunities, two missed opportunities.

Still wanna go to Tibet still very much top of the list, like

30 years later, pretty much.

So I’ll get there.

It’s just been a long time coming.

It’ll be even more meaningful when you finally do make it.

Where else is on the list then?

Oh, uh, I’ve ticked a lot of places off.

I’ve been very lucky, like I’ve now visited every continent.

I’ve been to the foot of mountains, even on Antarctica.

There’s regions I’d go back to.

There’s more of the Andes I’d like to explore.

I’ve, I’ve a really good travel writing acquaintance called Ian Packham.

He writes a lot about Africa.

He is currently, I think, in Cameroon and he has been up Mount Cameroon,

which looks incredible as well.

Would really love to go there.

The FCO, I think is currently a bit ambiguous, if not outright saying

don’t go to Mount Cameroon at the moment, but it’s on the list.

Similarly, the mountains of Congo would really like to go there.

There’s a lot of Africa I’d like to go to have not seen en lot enough of.

In the march issue of the magazine, there’s an interview with Hillary

t, the legend that is Hillary Bradt, and she’s got a love for Madagascar.

Would love to see some of the mountains and Highlands of Madagascar as well.

You’ve got me going there.

I, I’m just going spend hours listing places I want go to now, so I’ve

confined it to Africa, so there you go.

But yeah, plenty of places, not just the snowy ones.

Well, that’s true.

Yes.

Not all mountains have to be snowy.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

The Simeon Mountains in Ethiopia, sticking with Africa, they are huge.

They are huge and spectacular.

They have these things called gelada.

They call them baboons but they’re not actually baboons.

They’re running around.

You can just walk up to them or they’ll walk up to you pretty much.

There’s no one else there.

Like there’s very few tourists there.

But they are spectacular mountains.

You can easily walk and hike there.

acclimatize for a couple of days.

but yeah, plenty of places.

And when you do go to a place where you’ve not been to before,

so one of these places on your list right now, do you go independently

or would you go with a group trip?

I have become enough in an experienced traveler that I am happy to

go independently now, and I kind of enjoy the deep level of planning that involves.

so yeah, I, I tend to go independently and plan accordingly.

That is not to say that I’ve not been on tours before, either on a press

ship or as a paying customer as well.

There’s some really good companies out there that I’ve

used to go to the mountains.

I did a really good Hill Tribe trek in northern Thailand

with Intrepid many years ago.

Sometimes it’s just easier to let someone else deal with their logistics, but yeah,

now very much an independent traveler.

If you’re doing an early trip, say for me, I’ve not

really done mountains much, so maybe I stick with a group so that

there’s a bit of comfort there.

I know somebody’s with more experience gonna guide me through it.

, Are there things which would make a trip, oh, that’s, that’s the one that’s

worth going to, but watch out for this one because even though you think it

sounds great, actually from experience, I can tell you that, that that’s not.

The good trips you can usually tell by how much detail they

give you pre-trip, down to which hotels or lodges or wherever you’ll be staying.

Just so that if you want to do a little bit of independent research, you can then

look up where you’ll be staying online and see, actually that’s an absolute dive.

It’s probably not safe to be staying there.

And also the destinations that some of these tour companies choose to go to.

You want to be able to trust that you’re going somewhere safe.

Some companies do go to places that might not be advisable, but they do

it with deep levels of Expertise.

Untamed Borders is a really good example.

They go to Afghanistan and Iraq.

But they know the people on the ground.

I’m not saying that these are safe places to go to.

But yeah, if you want to go to places like that, you want to use people

that can display that level of detail in the description that show you

actually, they know what they are talking about: they have clearly

been there before and multiple times.

Ideally there’ll be as well from customers.

That’s always a good sign.

And I think another thing, and this is why I love

the magazine so much, it’s about talking to expert travelers.

And the easiest way to talk with expert travelers is to go to magazines

like Mountains Magazine and hear what people are saying directly and travel

writers become an expert in their style of travel or location around the

world , and can share that guidance with people in an entertaining way.

Yeah, absolutely.

The writers that I commission, they have been to the places they are writing about.

I would only write about places I have been to.

So you can trust what I and what they are saying.

And yeah, I, and they are experts in their field.

So like I said, Ian Packham, he’s an expert in Africa.

I commissioned someone called Emily who wrote about Albania for the first issue.

She knows that country very well.

So these are people that you can totally trust what they’re saying.

Their recommendations are gonna be gold dust.

So yeah, read those magazines and get that advice from those sort of people.

To draw us to a close.

I’ve got some quick fire questions for you.

What would you say is the top thing to see or do in a mountain holiday?

The top thing to do is to have an unforgettable experience.

And that may well be climbing a mountain.

It may well just be sitting in a restaurant with a spectacular view.

That’s the number one thing to do.

Have that incredible experience that you’re never gonna forget.

It’s a tough one to answer.

’cause that could be hiking, that could be rafting.

It could be, yeah.

Just sitting there having a nice Aperol spritz in a really scenic bar.

And that changes depending on the destination.

So some places that, that experience is gonna be a hut

to hut hike somewhere remote.

Switzerland’s a place I love doing that, and Austria.

It could be going to see some impressive infrastructure.

And again, places like Switzerland, I’d mentioned this rotating

restaurant on a mountain called Schilthorn, which is where On Her

Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed.

For me that’s just so spectacular.

It’s equal to the experience I have hiking somewhere remote because you are

literally on the very top of a very high snowy mountain in a restaurant that’s

just revolving around the peak, which is just bonkers when you think about it.

But yeah, the Swiss, they can do that sort of thing.

It’s next stage.

Yeah.

What would you say is a tourist trap to avoid

if you’re looking at heading out onto a mountain for your holidays?

it depends on the season.

With ski season, you’ve gotta be really cautious about how crowded

some of these places can be.

You don’t wanna be waiting for a cable car to the top of the

mountain for what can be hours.

So be cautious about that.

How many people are going, when you’re going, and how busy it might be.

The other thing is like if you are doing a tour or something like that,

you don’t want it to be too intense.

You don’t wanna be moving all the time.

You want to have a bit of time to just sit or stand and appreciate the views as well.

When’s your favorite time of year to be out on the mountains?

Shoulder seasons.

So mentioned September.

October’s also good.

I’m talking about Northern Hemisphere here.

So the equivalent in the southern hemisphere as well.

It’s not gonna be too crowded, the weather’s still gonna be okay.

You can book into a remote mountain hut pretty easily.

That’s exciting.

What is a top book or film for somebody who’s interested in spending

a bit more time on the mountains?

Well, of course, I’m gonna say seven years in Tibet.

It’s a really good book.

The author probably a bit problematic, but if you can oversee that, this

It’s a very good inspirational book.

In terms of actual films, there’s like disaster films, which I’d absolutely

recommend you do not watch, because they tend to be the more extreme

things like climbing, so don’t, don’t necessarily bother with those.

I’d say stick to books.

I’m a writer.

So yeah, good books, books by people like Hillary Bradt, who’s written about her

life in travel, and how she uncovered this very remote trail to Machu Picchu.

Find any of her books and be inspired.

Read Seven Years in Tibet and maybe you’ll be very much inspired, like I was.

Now typically for this next question, I ask for a top food or drink

to try in wherever we’re talking about.

Given that we’re talking about the entire world of mountains, what do you think?!

Like I said before, you can’t really go wrong with melted cheese.

That seems to be fairly ubiquitous.

Bit tougher in Asia, but yeah, melted cheese and chocolate.

In terms of drink, go for something local, there’s some

really good local mountain drinks.

If you go to Austria, you’re gonna find it hard to avoid the local schnapps.

Give it a try.

You might only try it once, but at least you’ve given a go.

Is there something that you always carry when

traveling in the mountains?

This seems like a really obvious answer,

but I always carry my phone.

And on my phone, I’ve got a really good app that has all the

trails I need to follow on it.

so I always carry a phone either to kind of find a way along a trail

to take some photos and if need be, let people know where I am.

A phone is extremely useful in the mountains whether

or not you’ve got signal.

What’s the app that you use?

I use one called Mapy, MAPY.

It’s one of these freemium ones, so you can download one country at a time;

anymore you have to pay a little extra.

But I’ve used it in the remotest parts of Chile, in the most popular parts of the

Alps, in Asia, every continent it seems to have good level of detail for trails.

A final question.

If you were looking to get a really good souvenir, maybe something that

you can build a little collection of as you go around and explore the world’s

mountains, what sort of thing would you recommend keeping an eye out for?

lot of mountain destinations I’ve been to have like

a little sew on patch, that reflects that place in quite an authentic way.

A little picture of the destination or the local mountain and the

elevation and that sort of thing.

So keep an out for them.

You’ll have to sew on yourself or just stash it, stash ’em somewhere.

But yeah, they are pretty ubiquitous.

Olly Beckett, editor of Mountains Magazine.

Thank you so much for unlocking mountains for us.

My absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much, Daniel.

Well, thank you very much indeed.

Again, to Olly Beckett, the editor of Mountains Magazine, and if you’re

you are just in time to grab the latest issue of Mountains Magazine.

Hot off the shelves.

That’s mountains-magazine.com

if you wanna get it online.

And if you are based in the UK, you can get it in any of those TG

Jones shops up and down the country.

Indeed, you can pick it up in the airport as well in WH Smiths when

you are heading on your next flight.

Who knows, to a mountain somewhere around the world.

Make sure you are subscribed and follow the podcast.

destinationunlocked.com if you wanna see more, and I’ll see you next time.