I hope you’re feeling good today. I’ve been pretty despondent about the state of the world and the planet recently, but I feel I’ve regained my mojo. I can’t change the climate, but I can make a tiny dent, so I’m feeling enthused about starting writing a new book loosely aligned to adventure + purpose. We all can (should? must?) do our tiny bit to tilt the arc of the universe in a better direction. Think global, act local.

And from such a noble rallying call, I now turn to *checks notes* flogging you stuff… Sorry! The usual newsletter continues below this short commercial break.

If you enjoy reading my newsletter, please, please do consider gifting someone one of my books this Christmas. I’d be really grateful!

• My new book, Local, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize (a competition I got way too emotionally invested in, and then did not win!). Buy it for: nature lovers.
• Microadventures was 10 this summer, but I still think it looks fab. Buy it for: people who love planning their own adventures.
  
• The Boy Who Biked the World is my best-selling book. Buy it for: kids aged 6-10.
  
• Great Adventurers is an illustrated book about the adventurers who inspired me. Buy it if you want to look more generous than someone who buys The Boy Who Biked the World.

You can buy them from my website in the UK, Amazon or Bookshop in North America, or here if you live in a land where shipping books is pricey.

Thank you for your support!

Some things I’d like to share with you today:

•  Two brothers traveled alone from the suburbs of Boston to the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal by pony cart! Do today’s children need more parent-free adventures?
•  The Golden Mole was one of my favourite books of last year. Katherine Rundell is now donating ALL royalties from its sale to environmental charities, in perpetuity. Reasons to treat yourself to a copy?
•  It’s time to Get Out and Do Stuff with a new grant which could help fund your next adventure.
•  Important stuff most people have misconceptions about.
•  Gently entertaining mockery of most of my friends.
•  Podcast listen: Welcome to the 200-mile underground race where hallucinations are all but guaranteed.
•  Video: Watch Rickey Gates run every single street in San Francisco.
•  Bored of your usual run route? Randomise your next session.
•  Drive and Listen drives you around cities across the globe, playing local radio stations as you go.
•  Live animal webcams from around the world (I’ve just been watching some hippos have a nice wallow.)
•  Have a calm gaze out of someone else’s window.
•  Launch randomly to somewhere in the world with StreetView. To my delight, I just landed somewhere I recognised, having camped by this lake in Kyrygzstan!

Let me know if you have a relevant project that my readers would appreciate.

Here’s what you guys have been up to recently:

• Film: I signed up for a month of Disney+ purely to watch The Rescue. It was brilliant. (You can also watch the incredible Free Solo and the Beatles’ Get Back, which is worth it for this astonishing demonstration of how creativity comes through perspiration, not inspiration.)
• Books: This is a neat way to explore the World Map of Books and broaden what you read. So far this year I’ve read a novel from the top ten most populous countries. It’s a fine way to travel the world without leaving my armchair.
• Article: One man’s epic journey from Togo to Greenland.

And some quick snippets… 

•  How blooming lovely is this? “Bothy Project is a charitable organisation operating in rural contexts, providing creative residences in bespoke small-scale, off-grid bothies to explore creativity, landscape, and living simply.” Sign me up, please!
•  A new 575km coast-to-coast bikepacking route along Britain’s oldest road. (Thanks to Tomo for the link.)
•  If you love maps, you’ll love this Twitter account.

• Can I begin today by asking for a favour? If you have read (or listened to) My Midsummer Morning, would you be so kind as to take 30 seconds to leave a review? It makes a massive, massive difference. Thank you!
• A Twitter thread filled with recommendations of good adventure books about walking.
• The 5 Best Books by Adventurers. I’m posting this link mostly just to encourage you to dive into their archives and search for what interests you (even if it’s nothing to do with adventure). Fantastic resource.
• An interview I gave about travelling the world at 10mph, microadventures, and not quitting.
• A Twenty-Four-Thousand-Mile Walk Across Human History. A journalist’s effort to retrace, on foot, the path blazed by Homo sapiens.
• Biotime, or biological time, runs at a very different pace and rhythm to human time. But how can we reconcile that with how tourists are loving nature to death?
• A lady in a wheelchair: Scuba diving.
• Food you can forage: A nice book for the summer.

(If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here.)

Cheers,

Alastair

• Would you like to try out my other newsletters: The Working Adventurer, The Doorstep Mile or Adventure + Purpose?
• I have four podcasts you can listen to: Living Adventurously (a series of interviews), Adventure + Purpose (me trying to figure out my life), There Are Other Rivers (a story about walking across India), and The Doorstep Mile (a friendly kick up the bum).
• I’ve written 16 books, for both adults and children. Hopefully one of them might