Gone To Timbuktu

Sophy Roberts

'Gone To Timbuktu', hosted by the bestselling author and journalist Sophy Roberts, explores the art of travel with writers, poets, photographers and filmmakers. Conversations range from physical journeys to inner landscapes, creative influences and new ideas.

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36 episodes
Updated April 24

Episodes36

Newest first

April 24 · 1 hr 1 min
Series 3 Ep 12: Tom Parker
A masterclass on photography, in this funny, intimate conversation about therapists, the role of luck, Marxist newspapers, and sleeping on the ledge of a bubbling lava lake in the DRC. With multi awardwinning photographer, Tom Parker.
March 27 · 44 min
Series 3 Ep 11: George Butler
The acclaimed British artist George Butler draws in situ with pen, ink and watercolour, his travels taking him to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and more. His reportage illustration is the 'art of travel' at its most urgent — with this conversation zeroing in on the big question: can art make a difference?
March 6 · 59 min
Series 3 Ep 10: Judith Scheele
An extraordinary desert traveller and social anthropologist bursts all the cliches as she takes us on a journey into the heart of the Sahara to reveal its complex human history. Instead of an imagined city of gold, Judith Scheele reveals something of the real Timbuktu, unpicking the myths and the romance in a discussion based on two decades of field research in Mali, Southern Algeria and Northern Chad.
February 19 · 52 min
Series 3 Ep 9: Emile Ducke
The German documentary photographer drills into the challenges and opportunities of making work that matters, for the New York Times, New Yorker, ZEIT and more. A fascinating insight into a photographer at the top of the game, working in Siberia, the Arctic, Ukraine, and the fringes of a rapidly changing Europe.
January 30 · 51 min
Series 3 Ep 8: Adam Weymouth
The British author talks about his latest book, Lone Wolf — following in the footsteps of a wolf named Slavc, who crosses the Alps from Slovenia to the Italian Dolomites in search of a mate.
January 15 · 51 min
Series 3 Ep 7: Lance Richardson
The journalist and biographer Lance Richardson 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.
Dec 12, 2025 · 55 min
Series 3 Ep 6: Steve Boyes
The South African author, explorer and conservationist takes us on a magnetic river journey through the great spine of Africa. His storytelling leads us into the dreamscape of 'Ghost Elephants' — Werner Herzog's new film following Steve in Angola.
Nov 28, 2025 · 46 min
Series 3 Ep 5: Emmanuel Iduma
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, from N'Djamena to Khartoum.
Nov 13, 2025 · 57 min
Series 3 Ep 4: Joanna Pocock
In Greyhound, the Canadian-Irish author Joanna Pocock takes us on a journey across America by bus, in a truly modern blend of memoir, reportage, and the literary imagination.
Oct 31, 2025 · 43 min
Series 3 Ep 3: Leo Damrosch
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. To the likes of Henry James and Italo Calvino, Stevenson's 'kinetic' energy makes him one of the great storytellers of all time.
Oct 17, 2025 · 49 min
Series 3 Ep 2: Monisha Rajesh
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. This time, the focus is on sleeper trains, which are the stars of Monisha's latest book, Moonlight Express.
Oct 2, 2025 · 56 min
Series 3 Ep 1: Lyse Doucet
Lyse Doucet, the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, discusses her first major book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul. An instant Sunday Times bestseller, it tells the story of the last 50 years of Afghan history through the everyday lives of people working in the same hotel Lyse has callled home during four decades of frontline conflict reporting.
Jun 26, 2025 · 39 min
Series 2 Ep 12: Caroline Eden
On journeys through Central Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Russia, the Baltics and Poland, Caroline Eden reveals the kitchen's unique ability to tell intimate human stories. This episode — discussing her memoir, Cold Kitchen, as well as her trilogy of award-winning recipe books, Black Sea, Red Sands and Green Mountains — make for a mouthwatering exploration of place and people.
Jun 11, 2025 · 51 min
Series 2 Ep 11: Damian Le Bas
A father's death, a Romany taboo, and a childhood obsession with Plato's myth about the lost city of Atlantis drives award-winning author Damian Le Bas on a quest to find meaning in sunken ruins around the world. The result is a spellbinding journey among selkies and sea creatures in an underwater world beloved of divers and dreamers.
May 29, 2025 · 43 min
Series 2 Ep 10: Kapka Kassabova
Discussing Anima, the final book in her decade-long quartet, awardwinning author and poet Kapka Kassabova takes us on a journey into a wild corner of the Balkans to meet the the last true pastoralists of Europe. This is a powerful conversation about love, freedom and nomadism.
May 15, 2025 · 42 min
Series 2 Ep 9: Philip Marsden
Under a Metal Sky: A Journey Through Rocks is another travel writing classic from Philip Marsden. Journeying across Europe, from Cornwall to Georgia, he tells a fascinating story about the interconnectedness of rocks, metals, Goethe and Bronze Age imaginings.
May 1, 2025 · 49 min
Series 2 Ep 8: Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane speaks about his new book, Is a River Alive? In a powerful imaginative and physical journey, he takes us from well-worship in Cambridgeshire to an Ecuadorian cloud forest, to an Indian mega-city, finishing in the rapids of Quebec.
Apr 16, 2025 · 58 min
Series 2 Ep 7: Rob Cowen
British writer Rob Cowen speaks about his new book, The North Road, collapsing over 7,000 years of history with the present moment on a 400-mile journey through Britain. Along the way, he encounters bones, bigotries, highwaymen and literary influences from Patrick Leigh Fermor to T.S. Eliot, while raising voices from the dead and excavating his family's fascinating biography.
Apr 10, 2025 · 54 min
Series 2 Ep 6: Bruce Parry
Filmmaker Bruce Parry talks about his return to the BBC with a new three-part series named after his original breakthrough TV documentary 'Tribe'. He explores how much there is still to learn from Indigenous peoples — and how modern living divorces us from the animism and ancestors that hold other cultures strong.
Apr 3, 2025 · 46 min
Series 2 Ep 5: Erling Kagge
Norwegian polar explorer, author and publisher, Erling Kagge, speaks about his new book, The North Pole: The History of an Obsession. In a lively conversation, he and Sophy discuss the difference between Norwegian and British approaches to exploration and Erling reveals an unexpected parallel between legendary Norwegian explorer Fridjtof Nansen and dating app, Tinder.