Oliver Smith
@OliSmithTravel
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4-time Travel Writer of the Year | Rep @pfdagents | ON THIS HOLY ISLAND out now from @bloomsburybooks in UK @pegasus_books in US 2025
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In 15 years as a travel writer there was one very personal story I always wanted to write. Today is a big day for me because it’s finally been published. A journey into the Icelandic wilderness, in search of grandpa’s hut at the end of the world
@ftweekend
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Ok. Deep breath! Time to unveil something I’ve been working on for years. My debut travel book is out March from
@BloomsburyBooks
. It explores different kinds of pilgrimage in Britain made across time and landscape. Writing it was an extraordinary journey. I gave it my everything
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In these dark times, this video is 49 seconds of the purest joy
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1 A long, only slightly emotional thread: 11 years ago, when I graduated from journalism school, I pitched a feature about a journey to Syria to this publication: Lonely Planet magazine. At the time, sending in a pitch felt as much of a long shot as buying a lottery ticket...
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Tonight thousands will gather at Stonehenge in an ancient tradition... which isn't ancient at all. It's being going on for just 24 years. The modern story of Stonehenge involves sacramental LSD, police brutality and a young Keir Starmer. It is fascinating. A solstice thread/1
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Minutes silence for these lovely squirrels before they get rejected by every single newsagent in East London
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Some news. Excited to have signed a book deal. It will be about travel, walking, landscape + spirituality. It will see me stomping many trails. It will hopefully take my writing to new places. Thank you
@BloomsburyBooks
and
@PFDAgents
for having the faith. 🙏
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Today is publication day. So far I’ve cleaned up two puddles of toddler sick and learned how to open a broken washing machine door using only a piece of garden twine. Nipped out to celebrate for 10 mins.
Thanks all who came on this journey with me. Cheers to those yet to come x
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Proud to unveil my latest project. More of a collaboration really.
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The Estonian word for the edge of the ice is “jää-äär”. Beautiful
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Stumbled upon this map of Europe's most sparsely inhabited places. Caithness and Sutherland, Don Quixote country in La Mancha, half of Fuerteventura, crumbs of Corsica, a few stray Greek islands. And Nordics, natch. Who wouldn't want to go to all of them?
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8 Thanks to everyone in the London office. And also big love to all the folks I worked with on the road, most of all
@philipleeharvey
@jonstokes
@mattmunro
@christalarwood
@justinfoulkes
who will always live on my shelves.
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Sea, sand, spuds and swab tests - my report from Jersey for
@timestravel
as the island reopens for tourism. Glorious to be travelling abroad again. Well, sort of abroad, still not entirely sure what a Bailiwick is...
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Often asked where the most beautiful place I've been is. Wish I could say somewhere original
#lpinitaly
@lonelyplanet
http://t.co/dwRDIkBbbW
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My adventures pottering around the Empty Quarter – the greatest sand desert on earth
#oman
http://t.co/21skdLqmdr
http://t.co/0aePG8EK9b
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Spent an obscenely lovely morning kayaking off the coast of Jersey aka the Barbados of the Channel.
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Dreamed of writing it for years and here it finally is, strategically positioned to block out the mess in my office. Less than a month to go - but you can preorder it here -
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Hallelujah! Clouds finally parted over over Mount Ararat, resting place of Noah's Ark
#lpinarmenia
http://t.co/iQwWQavTq9
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I've been overwhelmed by the response to this. Thank you all 🙏 I will be tweeting about places profiled in the book in the coming weeks – what power they possess, and the ways in which people gravitate towards them. So watch this space. x
Ok. Deep breath! Time to unveil something I’ve been working on for years. My debut travel book is out March from
@BloomsburyBooks
. It explores different kinds of pilgrimage in Britain made across time and landscape. Writing it was an extraordinary journey. I gave it my everything
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📢 So glad to be able to announce On This Holy Island will be published in the United States by
@Pegasus_books
. Not in my wildest dreams did I think this book would get an American publisher.
American cover to follow: but for now here’s St Cuthbert’s Island with thrift and mist
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2 weeks, 7 beaches, 4 ancient cities, 30 kebabs and 100+ goats trotting along the motorway.
#Albania
it was a blast
http://t.co/Kx0XWo8sKB
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I’ve only written one story in the past six months (been writing a book). But this was a truly special one - solitude, grief and deep time on Chesil Beach for
@ftweekend
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I know proper authors do unboxing videos when their books first land in the post. But - unfortunately - I already opened mine like a ravenous wolf the second it came through the door. And so here I am pretending... Am stoked. It looks beautiful.
#WorldBookDay
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Is this Welsh cave 'the first holy place' in the British Isles? Did people we can call 'pilgrims' journey here in the depths of the Ice Age some 34,000 years ago? And why do some modern pilgrims still today consider this a sacred space? Enter its depths in this thread.. 1/
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Was nominated for Consumer Travel Writer of the Year at the
@travelmediaawards
last night. Didn't win sadly, but won't stop me from re-upping a piece I put in: The Spectacular Solitude of the Desert of Wales for FT Weekend.
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It was heartbreaking to see Lonely Planet magazine - aka the worlds best travel mag - shut down. So it’s wonderful to see this project rise from its ashes. Props to
@amandacanning
for making something beautiful: I’m grateful to play a part. Please support!
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Me, waving like the Queen in today’s
@timestravel
as I travel aboard the first low cost ‘Lumo’ train from London to Edinburgh. It can take you to Scotland for less than the cost of the Heathrow Express
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Covid has meant a long, lonely winter for pubs. But Britain's most remote pub might stage a more profound reopening that any other boozer in the land... A joy to be dreaming of the glens and the lochs in lockdown, in this latest piece for
@FT
🏴
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Here commenceth my career as a luxury travel influencer
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7 What I'll also miss is the minute anyone heard you worked for Lonely Planet mag. Their eyes lit up: they wanted to tell you about their travels. These are, more often than not, the happiest times of their lives.
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Spot the pedestrian. Walking the world's most spectacular footpath in Spain for
@lonelyplanet
#lpinspain
http://t.co/UngxJpvFIc
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The greatest station building in the world. I will not debate you on this.
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I'm not normally a fan of 6am Monday morning.
#lpinitaly
@LPTraveller
@lonelyplanet
http://t.co/h5pYCOXd0i
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Getting texts from the government of Jersey is a bit like getting texts from my mum.
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Just wow. Overwhelmed and overjoyed by this glowing review of On This Holy Island in
@thetimes
today
“An extraordinary picture of British faith at its most eccentric…The book is immensely well-researched and playful. Smith has written something special.”
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Middle aged alert, but the wildflowers on Hackney Downs really are something else this year
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My latest for
@timestravel
on a new luxury train service that swoops across northern Spain. 🇪🇸🚃 Including my fave intro I’ve written for a while…
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Been a while since I’ve seen a feature of mine in a printed magazine - so great to see my piece on canoeing the Spey, Scotland’s most noble river in
@NatGeoTravelUK
. Here it is in the last seconds before my four year old spread his lasagne all over the pages.
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Setting out researching my new book. Big skies: the open road. In every sense a new chapter. I’m stoked.
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Have to say, my 350 quid packraft is one of the best investments I have ever made. Packs down to the size of a shoebox. Sailed the waters of: Iona Sound, Menai, River Lee Navigation, Constable’s River Stour. And now: Tahiti.
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Did an all nighter at the stones, sustained by two red bulls and a twix. Sublime.
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My own love letter to the most beautiful, most hated and most climbed mountain in the world – Snowdon – in
@outsidemagazine
#Snowdon
#Eryri
#Snowdonia
#YrWyddfa
#longreads
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The older I get, the more I become partial to an Iron Age hill fort
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A joy to finally return to some travel writing! My latest for
@FT
on exploring the Norwegian fjords in spring with a 115 year old guidebook.
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Derelict monasteries, empty beaches & heroic sunsets near Himare
#albania
http://t.co/SPNTD1Db2R
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A lovely coda to end the symphony of shit that was 2020: my story on the Accursed Mountains has been shortlisted for Feature of the Year at the Travel Media Awards. Written for the greatest travel magazine that ever there was
@LPMagUK
, RIP
pdf here:
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Fantastic to see – bold upstart
@goodplacemag
has been shortlisted for travel magazine of the year at the
@travelmediawrds
up against veritable giants. Huge congrats to
@amandacanning
@hayleykarenward
especially!
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My debut story for
@timestravel
today: the UK’s oldest working trains, (aged 82!) enjoy one last summer before they trundle off to the big depot in the sky....😢🚃🚃
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It took a lifetime of searching, but I finally found the greatest pub beer garden in the universe.
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My latest for
@ftweekend
- a solitary walk through the remote, contested landscapes of Elenydd - an place controversially known to some as “The Desert of Wales”
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Shameless self promotion klaxon - dead chuffed to win a gold in the
@SATWFoundation
Lowell Thomas Awards for this
@outsidemagazine
piece on
#Snowdon
#yrwyddfa
from last year
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This is definitely the best idea of what to do with controversial statues, as expressed in
@Sathnam
‘s excellent Empireland
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4 The editorial team were the best. There were astonishing writers. It won awards to set shelves creaking. It commissioned photography to set hearts racing. At its best, a turn of the page seemed to summon a faraway breeze.
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The world's most incredible footpath from another vertigo-inducing angle: the Caminito del Rey
#lpinspain
http://t.co/axRlubmANe
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Sometimes I detest England. And other times I could not love it more
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As a travel writer I am often asked 'where's your favourite country you've ever been?' To which there is only one answer. Dydd gwyl dewi hapus i bawb x
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Currently: unloading the dishwasher. In my head: still paddling about the Inner Hebrides
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First time back in mainland Europe since the pandemic… what a view to wake up to
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So very humbled to see absolutely piss all aurora over Walthamstow
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6 I travelled to 40+ countries, set alarm clocks to watch umpteen sunrises, experienced hangovers from every kind of revolting local brew. Working for LP mag was a magic license to chat with people on every continent. Working there was a life lived in technicolour. I'll miss it.
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3 Today I picked up the last ever printed issue of Lonely Planet magazine. I'd say writing for them was always my dream job – but really, to 22-year-old me, travelling the world for a living seemed too far fetched for dreaming.
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Last week it was a £4300 luxury train. This week it’s a £6 tram ride. Anyway: I finally fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition and travelled the world’s longest tramline, the Kusttram. 🚋🚋
(It’s in Belgium). 🇧🇪
My story in today’s
@timestravel
here:
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Few pleasures in life more profound than whooshing through snowy forests in the snug of an express train
#estonianrailways
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They say don’t meet your heroes but they never said anything about Zoom calls. A pleasure to chat with
@PaulTheroux_
in Hawaii about trains, geese, Bill Bryson and being stoked about turning 80, in this piece for
@timestravel
🤟
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Sometimes in journalism you get to write about a thing close to your heart, about which you are deeply passionate, whose story is intertwined with your life. So here is my love song to Nemesis at Alton Towers, ahead of its closure this Nov.
@timestravel
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Cornwall Council’s new “aggressive seagull” policy is truly outstanding 🐦
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Not an infinity pool, not a five star hotel - in fact a reservoir for watering date palms, reached by 2.5h hike down a rugged wadi in Jebel Akhdar. Went for a swim amongst the ribbiting frogs. Paradise.
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5 Lonely Planet magazine was part of a business. But many of us who worked there believed it was more than that. LP started out as a resource for travellers, by travellers – a fraternity of horizon-struck souls. A name to conjure up big skies and the open road.
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Fun to write this book for
@lonelyplanet
about a new golden age of European train travel. Think I listened to Trans Europe-Express by Kraftwerk for a month on loop.
Last night we launched
@lonelyplanet
's evocative new Guide to Train Travel in Europe, in conjunction with
@EurostarUK
and
@thetrainline
, in the stunning setting of
@SearcyStPancras
at the iconic
@StPancrasInt
.🚉🗺️
#lonelyplanet
#traintravel
#event
#pr
#eurostar
#trainline
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Ultra-chuffed to be named Consumer Writer of the Year at the Travel Media Awards. My winning story on Armenia here:
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Grim bellwether of drought - Fannog farmhouse emerges from the dwindling waters of Llyn Brianne. You can still see fireplaces in the bedrooms
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Mega chuffed that this piece I wrote on Noah's Ark and Armenia has sailed onto the shortlist for a new anthology of Best British Travel Writing. Thanks v much
@jessicagvincent
and all the judges for picking it
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Exciting news - I will be taking a break from UK journalism to start my new career as a male model in German language media
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Once again, walking the pilgrims way, through the intertidal zone to reach Lindisfarne. Transcendent as ever
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Was ace to speak with the fantastic
@the_stone_club
at
@BylineTimes
festival at
@DartingtonTrust
in Devon on Friday. Had too much fun and took zero photos. Apart from on that wonderful, wonderful train journey along the River Teign
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2 ... somehow it paid out. After being rejected from reporting jobs covering 1) bank accounts 2) caravans 3) prams & baby carriers, I somehow ended up as a full-time salaried travel writer at Lonely Planet magazine.
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Great to have this new work with
@NatGeoTravelUK
online. A walk between two lonely Highland railway lines – via snowstorms, plane crashes and haunted bothies, with the words of both WH Auden and also Sick Boy from Trainspotting.
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Last bothy of my tour. Lluest Cwm Bach - an old summer farm in a remote nook of Cwm Bach, last owned by Scottish immigrants in Wales. All alone again, apart from owls hooting through the night, and skylarks in the morning.
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You’re not a parent until you’ve heaved a screaming 2 year old in a pushchair through a crater full of volcanic ash
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364 days of the year I am mocked for keeping Russian made ice fishing boots at the back of the wardrobe
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Hiking the Jurassic Coast to Golden Cap, highest point on the south coast of Britain. Low sun, calm sea, cliffs the hue and crumbliness of a digestive biscuit.
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we literally just had water come through the window on our train on the Cambrian Coast line
@swobba
#stormophilia
#opheliahurricane
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Very chuffed to see On This Holy Island included among the
@FT
Best Books of the Summer today.
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Wonderful to be out cruising on the Norfolk broads again
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Little Corn Island, Caribbean. Home to the best signs in the world (especially the last one)
#LPinNicaragua
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A story paid for in blood, sweat, blisters and Kendal Mint cakes: the strange saga of the pub at the end of the world. My first for
@outsidemagazine
#longreads
#scotland
#hiking
A pilgrimage to the pub at the end of the world requires a 3-day hike or a ferry ride—but expect to get a hard time from locals for doing the latter. Only "walk-ins" earn their pint.
#longreads
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A holy island. A seafaring saint. Flaming pillars of fire in the sky. And me pootling about in a plastic kayak. My latest on sea kayaking around Mull and Iona for
@ftweekend
here -
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Super start to the year to see this anthology land on my doorstep. Thank you to editors
@jessicagvincent
@SiWillmore
@monisha_rajesh
@Levisonwood
for including my piece on Noah’s Ark in Armenia. 🐅🐅🦓🦓🦒🦒🌈
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Mariano Zamorano, a sword maker in Toledo. Tried out one of his swords while humming Game of Thrones theme
#lpinspain
http://t.co/E85lBztgSr
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A magical piece to write and research this one. My latest for
@ftweekend
on walking the abandoned villages of Oman’s Hajar Mountains
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London St P - Brussels Midi Zuid - Cologne Hauptbahnhof - Hamburg. To some it might sound like a ball ache. But this is genuinely my dream day. And there can be only one soundtrack…
#endlessendlessendless
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A new milestone for my little packraft this morning. In the last 12 months it’s sailed the Menai Straits and the Polynesian lagoon of Taha’a. And now - a sunrise paddle on Lake Maggiore 🇨🇭
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