Series Three

Episode One

Lyse Doucet

RELEASED 03.10.2025

The BBC’s Chief International Correspondent discusses her first major book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul — an extraordinary history of Afghanistan told through the walls of its most famous hotel by one of the UK's best loved reporters.

Episode Two

Monisha Rajesh

RELEASED 17.10.2025

On a far-reaching journey from Savannah to the Arctic Circle, we experience the joys (and fears) of night travel as told by one of the great contemporary travel writers on railways as told in her latest book, Moonlight Express.

Episode Three

Leo Damrosch

RELEASED 31.10.2025

The American master of biography talks about the subject of his most recent obsession: the Scottish traveller, South Seas adventurer and prose genius, Robert Louis Stevenson, taking us from Scottish Highlands to the Cevennes with a donkey.

Episode Four

Joanna Pocock

RELEASED 14.11.2025

A compelling journey by Greyhound bus across America takes us into exciting new territory: a modern blend of memoir, reportage, photography, and imaginative literary writing by a truly original author. This is a masterclass on ‘breaking the genre’.

Episode Five

Emmanuel Iduma

RELEASED 28.11.2025

The Nigerian author talks about two books: one a journey across his homeland reaching for fragments of history from his nation's civil war, the other a powerful dreamscape evoking the cities of the Sahel and beyond, from N’Djamena to Khartoum.

Episode Six

Steve Boyes

RELEASED 12.12.2025

The South African scientist, author, explorer and conservationist takes us on a magnetic river journey, weaving in the Nile, Congo, and Zambezi, a new book on the Okavango Delta, and an upcoming film, ‘Ghost Elephants’, made in Angola in collaboration with Werner Herzog. 

Episode Seven

Lance Richardson

RELEASED 15.01.2026

The journalist and biographer takes on a titan of American literature, Peter Matthiessen — novelist, naturalist, Zen teacher, one-time CIA agent, and author of one of the classic travel books of the 20th century, The Snow Leopard.

Episode Eight

Adam Weymouth

RELEASED 30.01.2026

The British author who made his name on a 2000-mile river journey down the Yukon talks about his latest book, Lone Wolf — walking in the footsteps of a wolf named Slavc, who crosses the Alps from Slovenia to Italy in search of a mate.

Episode Nine

Emile Ducke

RELEASED 20.02.2026

The German documentary photographer, most often found in the far edges of Russia and Eastern Europe, drills into the challenges of making work that matters, for the New York Times, New Yorker, ZEIT and more.

Episode Ten

Judith Scheele

RELEASED 06.03.2026

A desert traveller and social anthropologist bursts the cliches as she takes us on a journey into the Sahara. Instead of an imagined city of gold, she reveals something of the real Timbuktu, unpicking the myths and the romance.

Episode Eleven

George Butler

RELEASED 27.03.2026

The acclaimed British artist, who specialises in reportage illustration, takes us on a moving journey into conflict zones — on travels to that ask all the big questions. Among them: can art even make a difference?

Episode Twelve

Tom Parker

RELEASED 24.04.2026

A funny, intimate, honest conversation about therapists, the role of luck, investment banking, Marxist newspapers, and sleeping on the ledge of a volcano in the DRC, from multi award-winning photographer, Tom Parker.

Podcast

Supported by

Visit Steppes Travel website
Visit John Sandoe Books website 
Gone To Timbuktu is hosted by author and journalist, Sophy Roberts

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