Each fall the Royal Geographical Society in London hosts an event called Explore Week, a gathering of students, scientists, and explorers that is at once an educational experience and a chance for like-minded people to connect. Many expeditions have been put together here over coffee, or drinks in the legendary Map Room. Explore Week is open to anyone who is curious about the planet, and it is a fine thing around which to base a visit to London’s superb museums, many of which are a short walk or hired bicycle pedal away.
Roseann and I have been attending and presenting at Explore since 2016, and this year we did so again. I sat on a panel discussing freelance magazine and book writing, along with Graeme Gourlay, the editor of the society’s own Geographical magazine, and Kate Stephenson, the regional director for the National Geographic Society. Graham Jackson and I led a seminar on arid-lands and vehicle-based travel. Roseann chaired several panels on art and exploration, and we had a table to display and talk about Exploration Quarterly. In the large Ondaatje theater, we heard reports from several scientific expeditions, and Ray Mears, one of the few real-deal bushcraft/survival experts to successfully popularize his classes and videos, gave a talk on expedition preparation.
Lunch is provided for attendees on Saturday and Sunday. The latter proved to be quite a treat, as we were all served truly superior pizza from Dough & Deer, produced from a wood-fired oven secreted in the cargo area of a Land Rover Defender.
Membership in the RGS is open to anyone, and includes not only the society’s fine magazine, but entrance to the historic areas of the society’s headquarters south of Hyde Park on “Hot and Cold Corner”—so named by London cabbies because of the opposing statues of David Livingstone and Ernest Shackleton in recesses on the outside walls.
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