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Hot off the press: I've just heard that my radio documentary, The Other Guantánamo, will be repeated by the BBC World Service during the autumn. No need to wait that long though - you can listen to its first outing (broadcast in May) as a podcast right now. When we hear the word 'Guantánamo', most of us think about the US naval base, most recently used to house detainees suspected of working for Al Queda and the Taleban. But the naval base is just a tiny pocket of Guantánamo province, the easternmost province of Cuba. It's a region of deserted beaches, rugged mountains draped with banyan and banana trees, and a rich musical tradition (and that's before you start on the cricket). I went to Cuba over Easter with a producer from Whistledown Productions, and we made this programme about the real Guantánamo. According to the Daily Telegraph's column The Week in Radio: 'Travel writer Polly Evans gallantly drew attention to a story that everyone else had ignored in The Other Guantanamo...a welcome riposte to journalistic tunnel vision.'

Secondly: my story of travelling across the length of Australia, published in the Independent on Sunday, can now be read online. I followed in the footsteps of John MacDouall Stuart, who was the first white man to reach the centre of the Australian continent 150 years ago, in April 1860. Well, I kind of followed in his footsteps. A purist might argue that he actually walked (and nearly killed himself in the process) while I drove an air-conditioned jeep rather effortlessly along the highway named after him.

And of course, if you click on those little buttons to the left, you'll find lots, lots more about my journalism, books, and photographs. Read on.

 

Recent articles

  Following in the footsteps of a trailblazer...but not on a camel (in: Journalism)
May 5, 2010
Independent on Sunday, 18 April 2010. It was 150 years ago that John Stuart reached a part of Australia that other colonialists had failed to reach. Polly Evans retraced his journey, only with a few more home comforts
  If you go down to the woods... (in: Journalism)
Jul 12, 2009

Sunday Times Travel, May 2009 ...You don't want to end up as bear bait. Polly Evans contemplates the Yukon wilderness from a canoe – and finds distance lends enchantment.
  March 2009 (in: Newsletter Archive)
Jul 10, 2009

Spring is in the air, and I have hayfever. In February. Yes, it's ridiculous. I also have unsightly gashes across my shins following a truly extraordinary accident in which I became tangled up with the leash of a small dog as I was running down the river path near my home...
  Three things at your peril (in: Competition)
Jul 10, 2009

Three things at your peril; sex on the beach in Saudi; punching a copper in Bulgaria, and disturbing a Frenchman having drinks on his yacht. We did the last...
  Travels in Mao's China (in: Competition)
Jul 10, 2009

I was travelling in those days to take secret aid to the churches who were very underground then as if the local Christians were caught  running a house church the penalties didn't bear thinking about...
  To find Alaska's wildlife, follow the pipeline (in: Journalism)
Apr 26, 2009

Independent on Sunday, 26 April 2009. The oil industry is providing an unlikely aid to tourism in this US state. Polly Evans takes the Dalton Highway into the heart of the wilderness
  First Time In...Dublin (in: Journalism)
Mar 20, 2009

Voyager, February 2009. It must be something they put in the Guinness: Dublin has bred more than its fair share of pen-wielding, string-strumming, hell-raising geniuses...
  The Hospedaje (in: Competition)
Mar 3, 2009

Our Hospedaje in Puyuhaupi was cheap, and I would love to have said cheerful but in reality was pretty grim. The walls were made of plywood, the gas cooker dropped in by plane, the patchy linoleum floor (at one time a flower patterned design now indecipherable) was almost level and the ceiling and door lintel was low as my forehead will testify...
  March 2009 (in: Books of the Month)
Mar 3, 2009

A few months ago, my friend Gavin’s mum Pat very kindly sent me a book through the post that she thought I’d enjoy. It was Will Randall’s Botswana Time. I liked it immensely, and told her so – and then, a few weeks later, another book dropped through the letterbox and onto the mat: Indian Summer by the same author. So given the many happy hours I've been spending on the sofa with Will Randall, so to speak, those are the two books that I’m reviewing this month.
  On top of the world (in: Journalism)
Feb 7, 2009

Condé Nast Traveller, March 2009. And now for something completely different: how about a high-latitude escape for spring?
 
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