Matt Pycroft on Everyday Adventure, Wadi Rum & The Right To Roam

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In this RECAP EPISOE (listen to the full episode here) , filmmaker and expedition leader Matt Pycroft shares two closing reflections that land like calls to both action and awareness. The first—a Call to Adventure—challenges how we define the word “adventure” itself.

Matt offers a twofold prompt: shift your mindset, and shift your map. You don’t need a plane ticket or a passport to have a meaningful experience in the wild. Start by walking somewhere familiar, but notice it differently—what are five things you’ve never seen before? What does it smell like now, and what might it feel like in six months’ time? That’s adventure, too.

And then, for something a bit bolder: visit Wadi Rum, Jordan’s desert jewel. Sandstone peaks, Bedouin guides, and remote starlit bivvies—this is the backdrop of Lawrence of Arabia and Dune, and it’s accessible, affordable, and unforgettable.

For his Pay It Forward, Matt names two causes close to his heart:

1. 1% for the Planet – A movement built around giving back. Members commit 1% of income to environmental causes, connecting everyday people and businesses to vetted charities. Matt’s own team partners with Moors for the Future, supporting local conservation in the UK.
2. The Right to Roam Campaign – A sharp, necessary conversation about land access in England and Wales. Matt advocates for civil trespass as a political act, inspired by Nick Hayes’ Book of Trespass. In Scotland, the right to roam is enshrined. Elsewhere in the UK, it’s not. If that surprises you, it should.

📍 Topics in this episode:

• Redefining adventure through awareness and mindset
• Wadi Rum travel guide and cultural insight
• Ethical travel, conservation, and supporting local guides
• 1% for the Planet and sustainable giving
• The politics of access and the Right to Roam

🎒 Follow Matt Pycroft:
Instagram: @mattpycroft
Podcast: The Adventure Podcast
Company: Coldhouse Collective

🎧 Subscribe to Adventure Diaries on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to catch more conversations like this—where adventure meets reflection, and where action begins with awareness.

Transcript

 So now my two closing traditions. So I'm saying that like I'm a veteran, but they are the call to adventure, which is a recommendation that, a suggestion from you, the guests to listeners to get out and do something adventurous and then a paid forward suggestion.

So a call to adventure. Matt, what would you recommend? I actually did rehearse this, 'cause you sent me this beforehand, but I'm gonna mix it up. So I think my call to adventure is twofold. One is. The whole state of mind thing, I won't repeat it in detail, but like my call to adventure is you do not need a passport or a plane ticket to have an amazing adventure.

Al Humphreys is a perfect example of this, but I also don't wanna go down the micro adventures cliche. I wanna champion the state of mind. So self-help style ending, go for a walk in a place, but switch your brain up. Start noticing things. It's that meditative mindset. What are five things you can notice there that you've not seen before?

What does it smell like? What does it look like? What does it feel like? Would it feel the same in a month? Go back there in six months. What's different? That's adventure for me? And you can find that absolutely anywhere. But equally, I think this whole idea of permission for adventure is something I luckily managed to just completely smash through in terms of the glass ceiling.

Like you do not need permission to be a rock climber. Go rock climbing. You do not need permission to do a first ascent. There are some very easy first ascents to be bagged in Scotland. Someone needs to do them. Doesn't need to be Dave McLeod. Yeah, I'll end that bit there. It's mindset. Then if you want somewhere specific, I'm gonna say it again.

Wadi Rum and Jordan. So one of the most interesting, adventurous, cultural experiences I've ever had, and you don't need to have the expedition skillset to go there. You fly to Jordan, you take a three hour taxi, you arrive in Rum Village, Lawrence of Arabia, all of that colonial malarkey and a Bedouin guide will take you out into the desert in a four by four will set you up with a remote camp, which means a mattress on the sand and a SpongeBob square pants blanket.

And they'll feed you and they'll take you and they'll climb all the old Bedouin routes with, when I say climb, basically walk and scramble the old Bedouin hunting routes in the mountains. And if you've seen Dune or The Martian or Star Wars, this is where they film Sandy space scenes because of how it looks.

It is spectacular as a landscape and the better end of this light. Just wonderful, cheeky people. I go once a year now and I love it. I'm gonna take my kids as soon as they're old enough, but that would be my go hair, do that. Fantastic. Fantastic. And then finally a Pete Forward suggestion. So a charity, a Worthy Cause.

Anything to get, raise awareness of something that's important to you and get people spreading the word and contributing. What would you say is a paid forward suggestion? Again, you can have two. So my first one is 1% for the planet. So it's a kind of a, I love it because it's a coverall. I've been a 1% for the planet member for seven or eight years, and you basically commit legally to donating 1% of your turnover to the planet.

You can join as a personal member. So if you earn the average salary in Britain, committing to 1% for the planet is the equivalent of giving it one flat white a week. And we want with 1% of the planet, half of your 1% can be an in-kind donation of time. So at Cold House we're partnered with Moores for the future and we go out on like team days to go and see the places and plant trees and do cleanups.

And we've donated enough money to have actually funded projects and you can through 1%, they've got all these verified, vetted charities. So whether you're into pandas or rocks or oceans or polar bears or whatever you might be into, they'll help you find somewhere and something that you can donate your money to.

And it's this rather than this one off, once a month or going out to Africa to build toilets or wells. It's like this tangible thing you're committing to. And because it's a lifestyle choice, it's constant. And I, we find quite a lot of power in that as a company, 1% for the planet. I feel like I wanna live in a world where not donating 1% for the planet.

It's weird. It feels like tax, like if you use the outdoors. Here's your car parking style tax to say, I use this place and I'm gonna protect it by donating 1% of my income. And for us, pandas are all good if you wanna do pandas, but the fact that mores for the future, protecting peak bogs on our doorstep, when we go out to these places to run or cycle or whatever we do there, we feel like we've got a sense of stewardship over that place.

And in a world that we feel like is on fire, it's a very nice thing to walk those paths and look at that landscape and think we're doing something to protect it. With that in mind, my final point I'm taking liberties here is, and I am gonna advocate for this and I'm gonna say it bluntly, is go trespassing.

So my big believer in the right Toro movement and the right Toro campaign, Scotland have got it right. The rest of the UK have got it wrong. It's easy for a bald, tattooed, bearded man to go trespassing because we don't feel as confronted by angry farmers. But I've never had a bad experience. And I trespass every week.

Civil trespass. It's a political act. It's an act that I'd fully advocate. And if this makes you feel uncomfortable, please go and read The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. And Nick will do a much better job than me of explaining why you should trespass. If my comment makes you angry, feel free to email me or go and read the Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes and he'll explain why I'm right.

We have one of the most diminished accesses to nature on the planet, as a country, as a nation apart from Scotland and, just saying labor of pledge to bring in a Scottish star right to Rome. Have they across the uk. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. As I understand it, don't you know, fact, check me, that might be fake news, but yeah.

That's it. Fantastic soap. Yeah. Soapbox over. Take liberties all day though. Those are fantastic suggestions and it still blows my mind. The right to Rome thing has came up because I did speak to Alistair Humphreys not so long ago as well, and he brought that up. He's a big advocate of that.

I just can't believe that. The difference between Scotland and England, it's, and the laws are so different. It's, yeah. There is now nowhere in England you can wild camp. Yeah. So if you decide to go and camp on a health on a fellow side in the lake district, you are committing a crime.

Yeah. It's capitalism gone mad. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's the old aristocracy. Yeah. Yeah. Mark, this has been fantastic. It's, I'm still in a little bit of shock and awe impinging me moment that we're having this conversation. So I do thank you for inspiring me in this show and everything that you're doing through Cold House and Adventure podcast.

It's, yeah, just keep at it Please. 'cause it's fantastic. It really is. No, thank you, mate. It means a lot. I will, I'll try my best. Yeah. And if you're diversifying by all means, but yeah, keep back the adventure podcast. It's it's, it is phenomenal. Yeah. I won't stop. I have my moment. Yeah. But I won't stop.

Yeah, thanks and sorry to you and everyone else. This wasn't full of more rip roaring adventure stories, but, no, I, they're out there when find them. I think we'll hopefully do something again in, in future, because no, this has been, I don't wanna sound cliche, adventure being a state of mind, working, kinda navigating some of the kinda more philosophical armchair, adventures as you, you coined it.

Which I think is important. We try and break down barriers and think about things and reframe things a little bit differently as well. So I'm all for that as well. Yeah, I think that's it. I suppose my closing, parting shot if I'm allowed one, is, to contradict myself deliberately. Because adventure is a state of mind and you can find it on your doorstep.

That's amazing. You can go and have these adventurous experiences, but I also think if there's a little part of you lying dormant in the back of your brain that says, I want to go on expedition, then do, because you can. Yeah. I think that's the other point is like this little old boy from Grimsby who was badly bullied at school now climbs mountains, Alex Ho, and that's rad.

Yeah. And that I am not special and I really mean that. I just got lucky and I tried really hard. Yeah, it's I mean in a bit of a digression, but tangentially linked. I've just roped 10 mates or nine 10, including me, into going to a mini expedition in June actually, and they are not adventurous at all.

And yeah, so we are going kayaking while camping on some of the islands in the west coast, so that's going to be fun. But if we get them and anyone else just thinking this way and living a little bit differently then. Great. We're doing our job. Yeah, we are. Thank you, mate. Yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure.