Cuban Florida for City AM - Award Nomination!
Cubans are part of Tampa’s original fabric. Ybor might have boutique cafes, upscale bars and art galleries, but they are built on a Cuban heritage that’s very different to Miami’s. A journey between the two cities proves that Cuban America is more than just a monoculture, and that Florida’s modern success is built on Cuban innovation.
How to Write: Lessons From a Physicist
Safi believes that writing has three components: style, story and process. He achieves style and story through having a good process, which he breaks down into five “hats”, or forms of behaviour: two in the research and reading phase, and three in the writing phase.
Estonia: A Travel Story Case Study
Estonia was fantastic, with regional variations that belie its small population. People were keen to share their stories of independence and identity, which shaped my understanding of life in the liminal space between East and West.
Tacos, Tequila and Border Walls
I found the topic to be very resonant in San Diego, with its large Mexican population, and which runs right up the (already existing) border wall. I really enjoyed San Diego, and wrote about the city, and the border crossing, for Telegraph Online.
Ladakh: An article in Adventure.com
Leh is buzzing, as locals make the most of the short tourist season. Four-wheel drives zip through town, with boats tied to their roofs for white-water rafting ; the rhythmic tapping of tiny hammers echo from jewellery shops; and Kashmiri merchants, laden with carpets, shift their latest deliveries into freshly-painted shop fronts.
Being Interviewed for World Nomads Podcast: Albania and Reindeer
The World Nomads team wanted to interview me for their podcast, and they asked me about Albania, which I travelled to in search of a British World War Two secret mission.
What is Adventure Writing?
Epic journeys; new horizons; themes of courage and endurance; and connecting with a different reality or culture. Words to live by.
Meet the Volcano: Mt St Helens, Washington (with video).
Like most young boys in the 1980s, I was fascinated by two things: dinosaurs and volcanoes. The vast power of a volcano, spilling forth red lava after a dramatic explosion, inspired excitement and fear.
Edgelands: A Telegraph project
That was exactly the response I had hoped for. I was at the offices of the Telegraph newspaper, and I had just shown Ben Ross, the travel editor, and Greg Dickinson, the social content editor, my route along the New Iron Curtain.
Exploring Albania for the Telegraph and BBC
The journey gave me enormous respect for members of the Special Forces and underlined once again the horror of war.
Walking The Nile With Levison Wood
In June/July 2014, I joined Levison Wood for the Sudan leg of his Walking The Nile expedition. Due to security restrictions, we had to cross the Bayuda Desert at the edge of the Sahara. I wrote the article up for Etihad Inflight Magazine, and you can read it here.
How To Film An Expedition
But how does one film one’s adventures in the first place? Camera work is a huge field, with masses of terminology and kit to get your head around, let alone thinking about filming a story, constructing a sequence or planning shots. Most adventurers can barely afford their own expeditions, so paying for a camera-man is out of the question. How, then, does a budding explorer-presenter take his first step into the world of media?
Preparing My Feet For Walking The Nile
But as much as conditioning, I've been learning how to stop things going wrong in the first place. And central to this, is looking after my feet.