Last night we hosted a wonderful conversation with travel writers Ben Aitken and Ash Bhardwaj where they talked about their latest books Here Comes the Fun and Why We Travel. They spoke about discovering the connections between our need for fun and our desire for travel, and exploring how a bit more of each can enrich our lives and boost our wellbeing – without breaking the bank or the planet.
About the books:
Here Comes the Fun: A Journey Into the Serious Business of Having a Laugh
£18.99
Increasingly flat and decreasingly zen, bestselling travel writer Ben Aitken gave boredom the boot and stress the cold shoulder by embrking on a whimsical journey into the serious business of having a laugh.
He did a pilgrimage in Spain, a summer camp in Kent, and a cruise of the Baltic with 2,000 grannies. And when he wasn’t on the road, he searched for merriment at home: by giving bridge a go, volunteering a chance, and gardening a crack of the whip.
By incorporating the thoughts of key thinkers and boffins, Here Comes the Fun offers a satisfying balance of the playful and the profound, the serious and the silly, the daft and the deep.
Why We Travel : A journey into Human Motivation
Why We Travel, what motivates us and what do we gain from venturing out into the world?
Why We Travel is a smart-thinking travel book, which uses travel as a window into human motivations. It explores what we can gain from venturing out into the world.
It threads together reflective memoir, evocative travelogue, research, conversation, advice and big ideas. Some of the travels are epic adventures; others are closer to home; and some are journeys of internal exploration.
Each journey is a window into one of 12 motivations for travel: Curiosity, Inspiration, Happiness, Creativity, Serendipity, Hardship, Service, Healing, Wonder, Empathy, Eroticism, and Hope. By unpacking these motivations, and digging into the science of where they come from, this book asks how travel intersects with the rest of our lives, answering key questions such as:
Why do we travel? How do we do it better? Can it help us to live more fulfilling lives?
‘Ash is a great storyteller, whose book weaves together adventure, big ideas and inspirational tales from around the world.’ Levison Wood
About the speakers:
Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He is the bestselling author of five books: Dear Bill Bryson, wherein he followed Bill Bryson around the country for no good reason; A Chip Shop in Poznan, wherein he worked in a fish and chip shop in Poland; The Gran Tour, which involved six budget coach holidays with people much his senior; The Marmalade Diaries, which involved moving in with an 85-year-old widow on the eve of a national lockdown; and Here Comes The Fun, which takes a playful look at the serious business of having a laugh. He was conceived by a nurse and a shipwright, grew up in Portsmouth, then worked as a carer throughout his twenties, all the while scribbling on the side.
Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. He has reported from over 50 countries for BBC Radio 4, The World Service, The Telegraph, Times, Guardian, BA Highlife, Conde Nast Traveller and many more, and he appears as a travel expert on BBC Morning Live and Sky News.
He Walked 1000km through Uganda and Sudan whilst filming Walking The Nile for Channel 4, travelled 2500km through India and Pakistan to present Expedition Borderlands for Discovery Channel, and explored 8500km of Russia’s European border for The New Iron Curtain.
Ash wrote & presented the BBC Radio 4 documentaries How Ukraine, Made Us Care and Nato’s Newest Member, and present The First Mile and The Human Advantage podcasts.
Before travel writing , Ash was a ski instructor, science teacher and wannabe cowboy. He is a captain in the British Army Reserve, a lecturer in journalism at City University of London, a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, and a former judge of the Edward Stanford Travel Writer Awards.