Picture the scene... Lisa and Simon Hunter (Madrid based journalist) are in the centre of Madrid at the fabulous Ocean Drive Hotel with a balcony over- looking over the Opera square having a chat about politics, celebs, nightclubs, tapas and more before heading up to the rooftop pool for a Vermouth...On this episode we talk..the short trip that turned into a lifetime love of Madrid, becoming the go-to person for British news on Spanish TV, big stories in the busy newsroom in El Pais, the...

Barbara Buczek spent ten years in the management team at the Port of Dover but over two years ago moved continents to establish Saudi’s new cruise scene with Cruise Saudi. Born in Poland she felt that travelling at an early age to Kentucky to attend a US high school gave her the travel bug. On this episode we talk about the special relationship with the UK have with Dover, the emotional tug of those white cliffs, how travelling by sea gives you a different perspective, feeling like she is...

Ash Bhardwaj travel-writer, film-maker & author of the new book Why We Travel is today’s wonderful guest – discussing… the rugby trip to New Zealand that changed his life, walking the Nile with his friend Levison Wood, getting dangerously lost Walking the Himalayas, the magical Sufi festival in the Sudanese desert,  the pilgrimage with his father’s ashes to the Ganges, an 8500km route through Russian borderlands, ayahuasca therapy in Geneva, the curiosity gene which makes people more...

Faisal Sheraiff, influencer and entrepreneur, lives in Saudi Arabia with his fashion designer wife and two children. He was born in the US to a diplomat father and an anthropologist mother and has travelled to 50 countries. We discuss Saudi’s changes and international tourism, living in Jeddah by the sea, beach days, coffee shops, large family gatherings, Cristiano Ronaldo, F1, tennis & golf, the bustling old markets in Jeddah and Riyadh, the dream-world desert landscapes of Alula and...

We’re back for our new season and starting with an extra special episode recorded in the beautiful Maldivian resort of Dhigali where our presenter Lisa recently spent an idyllic week. Who better to give us a real look at life in the Maldives than resort manager Hassan Saeed who, having dropped out of school age 14 and one of 11 siblings, very quickly had to start start work. We talk growing up in the islands, happy days working in his grandfather’s tin workshop, how the arrival of tourism...

We are happy to announce the imminent arrival of our new season of episodes and as usual we have a few wonderful surprises for you – some on location episiodes from destinations as varied as Copenhagen to the Maldives – some new partners for sponsorship and also a very exciting annoucment as to what Lisa is up to with some travel plans that can also involve you! Yes you. Watch this space. In the meantime feel free to say hello on social media - Lisa Francesca Nand - and subscribe to the...

Hello and welcome to The Big Travel Podcast Christmas Special 2023 special…featuring the Casual Birder Podcast’s Suzy Buttress on celebrating the winter solstice in Antartica, Countdown’s Rachel Riley and her husband’s post-Strictly wind down in the blue lagoon in Iceland, musician and writer Nitin Sawhney having a Hallmark picture perfect Christmas in the US, actor Warwick Davies being towed on sledges behind huskies in Lapland, motoring journalist Ben Oliver on a Marrakesh rooftop...

Nitin Sawhney’s Kent childhood included regular attacks by racists, but he threw himself into music, joining school friend James Taylor’s band. Flying to India via Kabul aged 8 he found himself a child mascot riding horseback through the streets, he felt liberated by Liverpool at university, he studied accountancy but ending up creating a hit comedy show with Sanjeev Bhaskar, he’s recorded with indigenous musicians the world over, including Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Spain,...

Motoring journalist Ben Oliver was born amid the troubles in Belfast with the family moving to ‘slightly dull Reading’ when he was 6. On this episode we talk about his life-changing teen travels to Israel, Syria, Gaza & Kurdistan, the glory 90s and noughties days of magazine journalism, how LA porn sets are like a clinical operating room, driving an open-top Bentley up ‘the blood highway’ to the Arctic Circle in winter, the road sliding away in the Monsoon on an insane Himalayan trip in a...

Actor Warwick Davis' first trip abroad was to California at the age of 11 to star in Star Wars, a big jump from his day to day childhood in Surrey. On this episode we talk…Carrie Fisher feeding him cookies in the Redwood forest, sweltering in a rubber head-mask in the deserts of Tunisia, being a Goblin with David Bowie, causing mayhem in India on An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington, entering a panda enclosure dressed as a baby panda in China, family holidays in Dubai, the poignant trip to...

Rachel Riley, Maths expert, Gadget Show & Countdown host, MBE for services to Holocaust education grew up in Essex by way of Manchester. We talk about the astonishing story of her Jewish mother’s family escaping from what’s now Russia, the family member who was stabbed by a mounted Kossack and ended up a Gaucho in Argentina, taking in Ukrainian refuge, spontaneously marrying her Strictly co-star, Russian dancer Pasha Kovalev in Las Vegas, roping in Robbie Williams for the entertainment,...

Robert Munns, CEO of sailing charity Oceans of Hope UK, left the graft and glamour of West End theatre for a life on the seas. He’d not long had a shock diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis when a chance encounter in a harbour changed the course of his future. Rob and Lisa talk West End theatre’s transformation, working with Madonna, happy days sailing the Med, the ‘raw shock’ of his diagnosis, the physical and emotional enormity of sailing across the Pacific (with or without MS!), committing to...

Freya Ridings’ beautiful, heartfelt music, gives you a wonderful sense of her warm and open personality and you’re going to LOVE Freya’s stories here on the podcast; Learning to play on her Nana’s piano, growing up in a musical, talented family (her Dad is the voice of Daddy Pig!), Lost Without You being played on Love Island, getting engaged in Lake Como, battling back from Australia before lockdown, struggling to allow herself to travel for fun, but, how the beauty of travel allows for (and...

A teenage trip around the galleries of Italy sparked a life-long love for the arts, and as soon as he could Simon Martin, art historian, author and the director of Pallant House Gallery, returned. After a ‘Swallows and Amazons’ childhood he’s studied in the most prestigious institutions in Venice, been knocked out in a train station in Delhi, experienced an inexplicable rush of energy when being touched by the Dalai Lama, curated exhibitions in Japan, explored visual artists’ response to...

It was a passion for birding and indeed podcasting that lead Suzy Buttress to establish the wonderful Casual Birder podcast, for which she travels extensively, tracing birds and indeed other wildlife around the world. We discuss her recent expedition cruise to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica, dealing with anxiety when having heard two people sadly lost their lives on the same journey, how whale-watching in Baja California brought her to tears, the truly awesome experience of...

With… Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos in New Zealand, podcaster & author Iszi Lawrence in Australia, charity founder Kevin Chaplin in Cape Town, celebrity vet Marc Abraham building a sand Christmas tree in Thailand, author Hannah Bourne-Taylor rescuing a pangolin in the rainforest in Ghana, Hollywood actor Minnie Driver on beach Christmases in California, comedian & podcaster Cally Beaton ice skating in Central Park, singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt’s winter wonderland in Iceland,...

Kevin Chaplin left behind his banking career to establish South Africa’s Ubuntu Foundation and rescue the Amy Foundation, named after American student, Amy Biehl, from bankruptcy. Kevin and I talk about growing up under apartheid, the hardship of life in the townships, the challenges faced by Cape Town’s children and young adults, taking a team of young singers to LA, taking a team of young hockey players to Northern Ireland, his book Can Do – Making the Impossible Possible and how the boys...

Author, historian, comedian, podcaster and co-presenter of the travel that doesn’t actually go anywhere – ‘Your Place Or Mine’ with the wonderful Shaun Keavney – Izsi Lawrence is on the Big Travel Podcast. Iszi and Lisa talk… Britain’s most fixable landmarks, The British Museum, Ju Jitsu fighting suffragettes, de-colonising history, dinosaurs, earthworms, the slave trade, Charles Darwin, Bovril, flying solo to AUSTRALIA age 6, the Moroccan side of her family and so much more.  Learn more...

Tony Michaelides finds it uncomfortable to call himself legendary, as one would, but he is indeed legendary in the music business…promoting acts including U2, The Stone Roses, David Bowie, New Order, The Police, Depeche Mode, Simply Red, Bob Marley, Massive Attack, REM, Matchbox Twenty, The Pixies, Elvis Costello, Genesis, Johnny Cash, Whitney Houston, Annie Lennox, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel…and many more.  Born in Manchester he resolutely made it his mission to promote home grown bands and...

Instagram Expert, Creative Coach, Photographer and Author Sara Tasker spent lockdown obsessing about the perfect French house and if you follow her on @me_and_orla you know she’s an expert in making things look beautiful. We talk French bakeries, river beaches, Insta retreats, West Yorkshire, how she got into her work, the challenges she faces when travelling as a person with a disability, getting left on a plane due to her wheelchair in airports, growing up with parents that didn’t have...

Cyber Crime Expert, climber and caver Lisa Forte has been voted one of the 100 top women in tech, starting her career plotting against Somalian pirates in the Middle East. Having travelled extensively for both work and fun we talk offending the locals in South Korea, climbing frozen waterfalls in the Alps, scaling skyscraper-height granite in Kazakhstan, spending her 21st birthday on Kilimanjaro, the deeply humble experience of tracing journeys of long-ago Welsh miners deep underground, cyber...

Singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt grew up half Swedish and half Scottish in a little Scottish village, kicking off her career age 15 on YouTube before very quickly making a name for herself. Nina talks about touring with Ed Sheeran and Example, overcoming stage fright, fainting in Hong Kong, the confusing familiarity of Australia, a surreal radio tour of the US, deep dish pizzas in Chicago, Philly cheese steaks, having her ex Ed Sheeran write a song about her and going straight to LA after...

‘Something special happens in Ibiza…’ say our guests on this episode and indeed it feels like this is true, especially for these lovely brothers. Born in Ibiza to a Scottish mum and Spanish Dad, with their parents’ Café Mambo attracting world famous faces from music, fashion, stage and screen, Christian and Alan Anadon aka Mambo Brothers, eagerly awaited boxes of the latest vinyls to be delivered from Scotland. We talk about their perpetual childhood on the magical island, touring the world...

Ibizan hotelier Marc Rahola went from hotel telephone exchange boy to founder of a chain of boutique hotels and properties by, in his own words, making a series of happy accidents and mistakes. Od Hotels now have many properties all over Europe including the beautiful Ocean Drive Talamanca where Lisa and Marc have coffee and explore… how a Paris Hotel CD inspired Marc’s boutique hotel concept, expanding to the Cote D’Azure, Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, London and more, feeling at home in...