It is really hard to do something about the tide of change. Fast news, little time and hasty reading is still growing stronger when it comes to all kinds of media. However, I am a firm believer, that sooner or later, we as humans, to feel complete, happy and healthy, we need more time to relax, read good long pieces of writing which makes a difference, which makes people think and contemplate on the meaning of life. We also need to listen to people with experience of life. How else can development be achieved?
Therefore, I am happy to announce that, in cooperation with Basha O´Reilly from The Long Riders Guild, a monthly and exclusive interview called the Voices of Exploration will take place which will see to these important needs of humanity!
The VoE programme will feature a world exclusive interview, hosted by Basha, on my blog every month. The majority of the questions will remain the same, though each interview will focus on that explorer’s speciality. All of the interviews will be publicly available on my blog and the LRG’s Classic Travel Books website, so as to ensure that this valuable open-source collection of exploration oral history is preserved for future generations.
The first one to be interviewed, as an introduction of herself, is Basha O´Reilly!
1. Basha O´Reilly, explorer, author, book editor. Read her interview! 3/1/2011
2. John Blashford-Snell, explorer, author and OBE Dsc (Hon) DEng (hc). Read his interview! 1/2/2011
3. Robin Hanbury-Tenison, explorer, author, OBE and president Survival International Read his interview! 7/3/2011
4. George Patterson, hailed as “Patterson of Tibet,” the 90-year-old is the spiritual guide of the Long Riders’ Guild, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and recently lectured at Cambridge about his travels. Read his interview! 1/4/2011
5. Christina Dodwell, Long Rider, explorer who received the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1989. Read her interview! 6/5/2011
6. John Hare is an explorer, writer and the founder of the founder the Wild Camel Protection Foundation. Read his interview here!
7. Arita Baijeens, Dutch explorer, writer and philosopher. Read her interview here! 29/8/2011
8. Duncan J. Smith, Urban Explorer, travel writer, historian, and photographer. Read his interview here! 3/10/2011
Basha O’Reilly was born in Switzerland and has the blood of most of Europe running in her veins – as a result of which she has no nationalistic tendencies. She attended school in Belgium and speaks five languages. In 1995 Basha travelled to Mongolia on a scientific expedition led by Colonel John Blashford-Snell. During this journey she discovered a taste for adventure. The following year the life-long horsewoman bought a Cossack stallion, Count Pompeii, and rode him 2500 miles from Russia back to England, becoming the only person to complete an equestrian expedition out of the former Soviet Union. In 1999 Basha made the longest known journey by a woman along Butch Cassidy’s infamous “Outlaw Trail”, riding 1500 miles from the Mexican border to Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall hideout in Wyoming. She is currently planning to depart on the World Ride, the first equestrian journey around the planet. Since 2001 she has worked with her husband, CuChullaine, creating The Long Riders’ Guild (LRG), the world’s first international association of equestrian explorers, managing the Guild’s eight associated websites, publishing more than 300 travel books in eight languages and mentoring more than a hundred equestrian expeditions on every continent except Antarctica. As a director of the LRG Academic Foundation, Basha was instrumental in creating a ground-breaking programme entitled “Voices of Authority,” an ever-expanding database of interviews with the world’s leading equestrian experts, including scientists, professors, authors, researchers, historians, social activists, crusading editors and artists.