Stories from winners of The Next Challenge Grant and my own adventures…
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Three years ago, Laura and I walked across Ibiza and called it an “EasyJet expedition”. The idea was to do a trip somewhere you wouldn’t normally associate with adventure (Ibiza = clubbing, right?) and somewhere that you could get to…
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Five Years of The Next Challenge Grant
I have now been running this website for over 10 years. That seems hard to believe, but what I find even more surprising is that my grant has been going for almost half of that time. This year will be…
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Swimming the Sardinian Coast
This video makes me green with envy every time I watch it. It just looks stunning. In 2015, Sebastian Schweizer applied to The Next Challenge Grant for his planned expedition to swim part of the Sardinian coast. His one key…
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Paddle Boarding Lough Neagh
The 2020 Next Challenge Grant opened for applications today. And to the mark the occasion, we have a story from 2017 grant winner Joanne McCallum, who took a paddle board across Lough Neagh. One of the great things about Jo’s…
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Running a Marathon at Marathon (in full Greek garb)
Grant winner Joshua Powell describes his attempt to run a marathon at Marathon dressed as a Greek soldier. Running a Marathon at Marathon by Joshua Powell It was October 2016 and I was approaching the end of English Heritage’s ‘1066…
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Cycling to the Most Northerly Inhabited Part of the UK to Perform a One Woman Mythological Opera in a Lighthouse
Without doubt, this is the best title I have ever had on my blog. When I read it on the application form for my grant, I knew I had to support it. In fact, it’s such a good title that…
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Cycling to the Åland Islands (via the Baltics)
Laura and I are currently on our way to the Baltics and the Aland islands on a cycling trip. You can see our very rough route plan on the map above. Two things are making this trip more interesting for…
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How to Build an Adventure Career from Scratch – Interview with Bex Band
When Bex Band won a Next Challenge Grant to ride a kick-scooter 150 miles around London, it was her first big adventure. In her application for the 2016 grant, she wrote: “Myself and my husband have never done anything like…
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What is the best brand of camping gas canister?
I was recently asked about whether the brand of butane/propane canister used on a camping stove makes a difference. In other words, are MSR or JetBoil canisters better than Primus and Colemans? Or are they all the same, just with…
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The Winners of the 2019 Next Challenge
I am delighted to announce the winners of the 2019 Next Challenge Grant. There are 11 fantastic adventure ideas ranging from prison island “swimming escapes” and fat-biking across a frozen plateau, to crossing a mountain range in northeastern Russia and…
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Kids go free at this year’s Cycle Touring Festival
The UK’s only cycle touring festival is returning for its fifth year this May. Started in 2015 by round-the-world cyclist Laura Moss, the Cycle Touring Festival brings together cyclists of all types, from experienced veterans to those who have never…
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Why Tyre Dragging is the Perfect Preparation for Parenthood
When I was a care-free bachelor, I used to spend my spare time dragging tyres: Ostensibly, this was in preparation for a North Pole expedition which never happened. But really I think I just liked hard physical labour. After getting…
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