Intrepid Times

took us to find Joseph Stalin hiding out in Tirana, Albania. We found him, and so much more. New story "Fragments of Old Tirana" by live now at Intrepid Times.

With great difficulty, our editorial team has selected five stories - one winner and our finalists - from the several hundred entries we received for our latest writing competition, “A Human Moment.”

A huge thank you to for sponsoring, to those leaders of writing communities who shared this opportunity with your members (always great to see writers supporting writers), and everyone who participated.

Congratulations to our winner, Charles King, on your story, “The Bridge of Sighs.” We cannot wait to share this story with our readers soon. Well done also to our excellent finalists, whose stories took us from the jazz bars of Amsterdam to the floor of a craftswoman in Peru. Selected stories will be published over the coming weeks.

One finalist story, “The Night I Met Emma in an Amsterdam Jazz Cafe“ by Bonnie Rose is live now at Intrepid Times

There's a new instalment of our series where travel writers put AI travel advice to the test. This time, let ChatGPT take the lead on a night out in Tirana, Albania. He was only scammed once. Read now at Intrepid Times.

Hilary Bradt MBE is one of the living legends of the travel writing world. In 1974, she co-founded Bradt Guides which thrives today as one of the best-loved brands in travel writing and independent publishing with over 200 titles in print.

An award-winning writer and an expert on Madagascar, Hilary has been appointed Officier de l’Ordre de Madagascar – the Malagasy equivalent of an OBE, in recognition of four decades’ pioneering promotion of the country’s tourism potential. She has also been appointed Member of the British Empire; an honour she received with characteristic humility (“I wondered what I’d done to upset Gordon Brown” she wrote near the time).

Hilary generously joined the Travel Writing Podcast to share her journey from the early days stapling together the first copies of her first guidebook to how Bradt is adapting to the changing needs of readers in the digital world.

We discussed Hilary’s article in the recent British Guild of Travel Writers’ anthology Around the World in 65 Years, where Hilary takes a thought-provoking perspective on what ethical travel really means. We spoke about Bradt Guides’ new Journey Books imprint, and why she still believes in the enduring power of print.

Listen here at Intrepid Times or find the Travel Writing Podcast on Spotify or iTunes.

Over 50% of travelers now use AI to assist with their journeys, according to new stats from but is this wise? While AI tools are impressive at amalgamating common knowledge into pithy phrases, they have, by definition, not experienced the world. So what happens when professional travel writers put AI advice to the test?

We’re sending our correspondents out into cities they know well, with a simple instruction: Do everything (within reason) that AI tells you to do, and share the story.

To kick off this series, our Intrepid Times Associate Editor and intrepid correspondent, takes to the streets of Tallinn, Estonia, where his strict adherence to a ChatGPT's instructions soon has locals baffled. Read it now at Intrepid Times.

"If Bourdain had died the way I immediately feared he had, it would not just be a negation of a life, but a way of life. It would seem to invalidate a whole worldview. Individuality, fearlessness, finding humor in darkness, his breathless mix of cynicism and enthusiasm that was somehow deliciously corrupt and blisteringly pure."

As dawn breaks in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa district, an insomniac traveler wanders the streets, listening to recollections of a lost travel writing hero.

Read now at Intrepid Times (intrepidtimes.com)

A huge congratulations to everyone who took part in the "A Human Moment" travel writing competition kindly sponsored by Winners announced in January.

Simply trying to get your head around Natascha Scott-Stokes’ incredible biography can make your head spin. In 1989, she became the first woman to navigate the length of the Amazon alone. Legendary Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy called the resulting book, An Amazon and a Donkey, “a genuine adventure story,” – if anyone would know one, it would be Dervla.

Just a few years later, Scott-Stokes cycled across Eastern Europe as the collapse of the Berlin Wall was still echoing in the fields of Poland. She wrote about that in her book The Amber Trail: A journey of discovery by bicycle, from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean. She also wrote a book about Guatemala and a biography of Margaret Fountaine.

More recently, Natascha Scott-Stokes authored a conflicted love-letter to Chile, Tales from the Sharp End, published by the University of New Mexico Press. Part history, part travelogue, part memoir, the stories invite you into the lives of those who inhabit Chile’s cities and its hinterland, rich, evocative, and full of that intimate access only the best travel writing brings.

Hear Natascha Scott-Stokes talk about her extraordinary life and captivating work on the Travel Writing Podcast. Listen at Intrepid Times or find us on Spotify or iTunes.

Travel happens when you become so immersed in your surroundings that you lose the anchors that normally define and confine you. Your language, your name, your job, your story, all fade away, drowned out by the deafening roar of the now. Can this happen as a parent? When traveling with your child, you’re constantly attuned to their mood, their needs. When traveling without them, you are torn in two, never able to be present when they are absent.

Away from home on a brief work trip, a new parent wrestles with the promise and futility of travel for its own sake. New story now live: "Trying to Get to Derry."

Human connection makes for the best travel experiences...and the best travel writing! Just one week to go to get your entry in for "A Human Moment" the travel writing competition hosted by Intrepid Times and sponsored by . Enter free at Intrepid Times and win up to $300 USD plus publication opportunities.

The Ancient Voodoo Magic of Benin’s Taneka Stone People

"He sat outside on the roots of a tree puffing on a long clay pipe that he passed to us. In many remote societies, this is a ritual of welcome, and to refuse could insult the host. Sometimes it is only to***co, while others, it is a local g***a that can tear your head off. This was the latter."

Join James Dorsey ( ) as he endeavours to document the world's most isolated cultures before they vanish from the planet.

Live now on Intrepid Times.

Many sit in cubicles every day and dream of abandoning the office, the politics, the metrics, and the madness and embarking on a life of creative freedom and fulfilment. Few actually make the transition. Once you’re in the corporate world, it’s hard to leave. The paycheck leads to a lifestyle that is not easy to walk away from, and your whole identity and sense of self get enmeshed with everything that comes with it.

Tim van Es was riding high as an executive at Unilever – at least on paper. He was traveling the world and getting promotion after promotion. But under the surface, things were less than idyllic. In a special two-part series on the Travel Writing Podcast, Tim shares how he made the leap out of the corporate world and reinvented himself as a full-time writer. In part one, published today, he talks about his life, his travels, and the series of events which led to the moment of definitive change. In part two, coming next week, he talks in depth about the resulting book, The Chaiwallah, an Amazon bestseller promoted by Bookbub this week.

Listen at Intrepid Times or find the Travel Writing Podcast on Spotify or iTunes.