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© 2025 Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast
Description
The monthly Wander Woman Podcast frequently charts in 'Travel and Places' in over 147 countries around the world. It is the first travel podcast to take on a magazine style - rather than the format of just an interview – and has been listened to and downloaded everywhere from the UK to Australia and beyond, by hundreds of thousands of people. It has been selected as “Best of” travel podcasts by The Telegraph, The Guardian and The i newspaper, Globetrender and Tech Times - to name a few.
Every episode, award-winning broadcaster, travel writer, author and photographer Phoebe Smith offers a behind the scenes journey to a different destination which features interviews with locals, audio clips and vivid descriptions to make the listener feel like they are there too - without having to leave home.
The main ‘destination’ story weaves together her passion for finding off-the-beaten track places, undertaking quirky and unusual activities, discovering wild spaces in unlikely mass market destinations, watching wildlife and meeting the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts.
Additionally the Wander Woman Podcast’s regular features a celebrity interview; Best Travel Gear for a life on the road; Travel Hack of the Month; Top 10 in Travel; Hidden Hero; and the Wander Woman of the Month - the traveller whose name is lost in the history books.
Wherever you find yourself - come wander with her…
35 Episodes
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With the rise of the Far Right across the globe, things have never been so tough for refugees and asylum seekers. So I head out with a new social enterprise that’s training immigrant women to become tour guides across Britain so they can celebrate their culture whilst earning their own income and teach us all a thing or too about our most well-known cities. Join Phoebe on an exploration of Syrian-Palestinian culture right here in London. Also coming up: Award-winning chef Ahu Hettema - ...
Think you have to travel far to feel like you've had a proper expedition? Think again. In an effort to prove that you don’t need to travel to far flung lands – or spend very much money at all to have a proper expedition, Wander Woman Phoebe Smith attempts a timed walking challenge with the Long Distance Walkers Association across two counties, to discover the joys (and pain) of walking 50 miles in a single day. Along the way expect epic sunsets, camaraderie and Jelly Baby fuelled hallucinatio...
With scenes of protest erupting in some of the most visited cities and countries in the world – telling tourists to go home – Wander Woman, Phoebe Smith, shows how merely travelling a little north of the Croatian honeypot of Dubrovnik to explore the region of Zadar the rewards can be great - for travellers and locals. From discovering the 3,000-year-old Old Town and dancing to the sustainable (and free) Sea Organ, to birdwatching and kayaking in Vrana Lake Nature Park, paddling and eati...
Would you ever walk the 'Backbone of Britain'? 2025 marks 60 years since the UK got it’s first official long distance pathway - the Pennine Way. As political as it was pioneering, Wander Woman Phoebe Smith delves into the history of this hard-fought-for trail - one that is integral to all the rights walkers enjoy today, discovering a kick-ass, bell bottomed jeans wearing hiker in the 1960s, before heading out with her friend Cerys Matthews to walk a prime 3-day section in the present day, to ...
Can walking a coastal path really heal a broken heart? As bestselling book The Salt Path becomes a major film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs, Wander Woman Phoebe Smith heads to author Raynor Winn's favourite 2-day section of the South West Coast Path in Cornwall - walking from Zennor to Minnack. Along the way she meets other hikers and discovers the power of simply placing one foot in front of the other. Also coming up: Raynor Winn shares who she really thought would play her in ...
What if everything you thought you knew about voodoo was completely wrong? This episode Wander Woman Phoebe Smith heads to Togo and Benin in West Africa - the birthplace of the religion, with Explore, to seek out the real voodoo beyond the sensationalist Hollywood portrayals of evil dolls and sinister spells. Journeying to the rural north of both countries she invites you to experience with her the rituals, practises, dances and truth behind perhaps the most maligned belief system in the worl...
All across Britain, in some of the wildest places you can find, is a network of mountain huts - called bothies. But unlike shelters found in the rest of the world, these were never built for walkers. Former schoolhouses, farmsteads, gamekeepers lodges, coastguards lookouts and miners bunkhouses, there are around 100 buildings (across Scotland, England and Wales) left open for walkers and climbers to use - free of charge. For the last 60 years they have been in the care of the Mountain Bothies...
In the land Down Under one island in Western Australia is in the midst of a bold project to return it to a pre-European state. The Dirk Hartog Island National Park: Return to 1616 initiative has seen sheep farming (the mainstay for the single resident family for over 100 years) be replaced by eco-tourism. All cattle has been removed, invasive species have been culled and slowly, the vegetation and biodiversity is bouncing back. Given that the Wardle family used to earn around AUS$2.5million f...
Adventurer Phoebe Smith heads to the Central American nation of Belize, to see - in the wake of the rollback of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in the USA - how multiple cultures can live in harmony while still celebrating their own uniqueness. The country is found on Central America’s north eastern coast, bordered by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea. It's one of only two destinations in Latin America where English is the official language. This is a country th...
Halloween – with the costumes, pumpkin carving and trick or treating – is believed by many people to be an import from the USA? But where did it really start? Join adventurer Phoebe Smith as she journeys on a mission to locate the home of Halloween. Her research takes here to Ireland, where an ancient Celtic ceremonial fire location was discovered a few years ago that may be the ground zero for it all. Along the way she meet characters from Irish folklore - including a sun goddess Tlachtga, ...
Deep in the Rockies in Alberta, Canada, is a small unassuming hut that - unknown to many - houses a teahouse that has been serving hikers since 1904. In the heat of high summer the cabin swarms with hikers in search of a brew. Early or late in the season, though, it’s possible to bag the best view in the house on the porch overlooking Lake Agnes before choosing from the impressive menu of loose-leaf teas in relative tranquillity. Joanna Magee owns the teahouse and has to get up at 4.30am to b...
What if one simple question could help save the planet? Join Phoebe as she heads to the Maldives to ask the difficult question - can travel to these islands ever really be sustainable? Learn about the unsung hero of marine conservation: underwater seagrass, which so far has been ruthlessly removed in pursuit of the 'perfect' image of paradise despite it capturing 60 times more carbon than terrestrial forests and how one resort is working to save it and get others on board. Also coming...
There’s a new buzzword in travel – “multi-generational” or multi-gen. That is at least 3 generations of the same family travelling together. Grandparents, parents and children choosing to holiday together despite each having their own specific wants and needs. SOUNDS TERRIFYING! Yet it is reportedly a growing trend. Keen to go behind the headlines as ever, Phoebe takes her whole tribe - 75-year-old dad, 3-year-old son, and partner to SE Asia, to travel 1,200 miles from Singapore to Thailand, ...
Saudi Arabia is a controversial place - one that for years was closed off to westerners without a special invite. But that all changed in 2019 with the announcement of a new tourist visa and a huge investment in infrastructure - beginning with the north-western oasis city of Alula. So far, most travellers have been Instagram influencers, keen to get 'that' shot of Elephant Rock or the infinity pool at Habitas. But Wander Woman Phoebe Smith is determined to skew the surface glitz, head off pis...
Pour yourself a glass of Albariño and settle in as Phoebe puts her navigationally inexperienced friend in the lead (and self-guided specialist tour operator InnTravel to the test) as they wander along the Camino Portuguese's Espiritual Variante aka The Old Way. Walking between Tui on the Portuguese/Spain border all the way to Santiago - with much laughter on the way - the question is will they get lost? There's only one way to find out... Also coming up: How to switch from flying to trains o...
Embark on an adventure to Shimokawa, in the heart of Japan's Hokkaido region, where this small town is breaking new ground in the world of sustainable living. Phoebe Smith will take you through the streets and forests of this pioneering community, uncovering how they've transformed from a lumber-dependent economy to a beacon of environmental harmony. From making chopsticks (to avoid the millions that go in landfill each year), to powering homes and public buildings using locally made biomass,...
Strap on your eco-friendly gear and prepare to be immersed in tales of transformation, recovery, and the relentless pursuit of a better world. Join adventurer Phoebe Smith in Egypt's Red Sea (literally) where she meets the resort cleaning up its act - and the ocean. Red Sea Safaris in Marsa Alam (one of the first PADI eco-dive centres in the world) firmly pushes back against the mass tourism model, and empowers divers to be part of the solution by offering the Dive Against Debris course free ...
Unicorns. Not usually the kind of mythical thing you'd think a travel writer would be on assignment to find. Yet in the Canadian Arctic of the territory of Nunavut, on Baffin Island, a sea creature who inspired these fabled creatures lingers beneath the waves. We're talking the narwhal - a small whale that sports a twisted ivory tusk that to this day still baffles scientists. Accompanied by her Inuit guides Phoebe battles whiteouts and icy seas on a mission to find these marina mammals....
Celtic goddess? Catholic Saint? Or master beer brewer? February 1st marks St Brigid's Day – as well as the pagan festival of Imbolc, which elebrates the coming of spring, which the Irish Government have declared to be a public holiday. But who was the Brigid behind Ireland's female patron saint? The stories are many - from the igniter of an eternal flame, protector of the earth, the environment and animals; to the girl who gave away her father's sword to the poor so that they could sell it fo...
Think Thailand and you usually think two things. The first is the vibrancy and hedonism of the capital city of Bangkok. The second is The Beach - the book-turned-film featuring Leonardo DiCaprio that sent scores of backpackers to a tiny island off the coast of Phuket. I pay the Land of Smiles a visit (in association with the Tourism Authority of Thailand) to uncover a different side to the world's busiest city and the country beyond. From visiting the Green Lung of the capital where monks ask...
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