By Their Own Compass

<p>Our Marco Polo episode was the most downloaded show in the history of By Their Own Compass. This week, we go deeper into the world of Marco and the Mongols as we sit down with Nicola Di Cosmo, Professor of East Asian...

<p>It’s a question that’s puzzled historians for centuries: did Marco Polo really go to China – or is history’s most famous traveller also its greatest liar?</p><p>In this episode of By Their Own Compass, Jeremiah Jenne...

<p>From Fanny Trollope's war on American manners to Alice Roosevelt's pet snake to the Empress Dowager Cixi's private theme park: a travel history of women who refused to behave.</p><p>Every traveller knows one. You...

<p>It’s rare that one of history’s most iconic travellers has a living relative we can speak to – but that’s exactly the case with Annie Londonderry, whose great-grandnephew Peter Zheutlin has a remarkable story of his...

<p>On June 25, 1894, five hundred people gathered on the steps of the Massachusetts State House to watch a young woman named Annie Londonderry climb onto a Columbia bicycle and ride off to circle the globe. She carried...

<p>If you’ve ever Googled “how to avoid scams in [destination],” you already know the genre: YouTube videos breathlessly (and ominously) exposing the 15 tricks that will ruin your trip to Florence, Bangkok, or...

<p>It’s one thing to read about Leif Erikson’s epic journey from Greenland to North America in the 10th century as a child; it’s quite another to build a replica Viking cargo ship and attempt the same journey as an...

<p>Around the year 985 A.D., Icelandic exile Erik the Red, a man renowned for his fiery temper, founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. Years later, his ambitious son Leif Erikson went on to become one of the...

<p>When the writers on Netflix’s Bridgerton send Colin Bridgerton off on the Grand Tour in season three, it’s treated as a throwaway plot device. </p><p>In reality, the Grand Tour was one of the most influential – and...

<p>David Livingstone spent thirty years wandering across Africa. In our main episode we spent forty minutes talking about him. We may have missed a few spots. </p><p>Dan Kobayashi, a writer and longtime Africa analyst...

<p>In 1871, Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813-1873) was hanging out in the village of Ujiji, in what is today Tanzania. He wasn’t exactly lost, but the last few years had been rough, full of...

<p>In this bonus episode of By Their Own Compass, we go behind the scenes of our Sacagawea episode to unpack one of the most misunderstood figures in American history — and the creative choices involved in telling her...

<p>In this episode of By Their Own Compass, we explore the extraordinary journey of Sacagawea, a nursing teenager travelling across North America with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Corps of Discovery from...

<p>Pour yourself something strong (we suggest a nice scotch for reasons that will become clear a few minutes into the episode) and settle in for a festive tour through history's most spectacular travel...

<p>If you enjoyed our deep dive into the life of the New Yorker correspondent, Emily Hahn wild times in China, you won’t want to miss this special bonus episode. Sarah sits down with Tina Kanagarathnam of Historic...