Ben Aitken – Stanfords Blog

Author Event: The Fun in Life and Travel with Ben Aitken and Ash Bhardwaj

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.

‘Walking the Bones of Britain’ with Christopher Somerville

From Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show in London’s Olympia, The Stanfords Travel Writers Festival welcomes Christopher Somerville, author and walking correspondent for The Times. He talks to author Ben Aitken about his newest book Walking the Bones of Britain.

Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville sets out to interrogate the land beneath our feet, and how it has affected every aspect of human history from farming to house construction, the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.

‘8,000 Miles in the Andes by Bamboo Bike’ with Kate Rawles: Stanfords Travel Writers Festival 2024

From Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show in London’s Olympia, The Stanfords Travel Writers Festival welcomes author and eco adventurer Kate Rawles. She talks to author Ben Aitken about cycling the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself.

Pedalling hard for thirteen months, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the ‘end of the world’, she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.

Ben Aitken: An Unlikely Year in Poland: Stanfords Travel Writers Festival 2020

In 2016 Ben Aitken moved to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop. He booked the cheapest flight he could find, to a place he had never heard of – Poznan. Between peeling potatoes and boning fish, Ben spent time on the road travelling the country and learning about its history. Talking to Julia Wheeler, Ben gives a bittersweet portrait of an unsung country, challenging stereotypes and revealing a diverse country, rightfully proud of its colourful identity.