I still have vivid memories of when I was nine, perhaps ten, being with my father as he travelled to some of the fantastic landscapes of northeast Victoria in Australia. Travelling, learning about the landscapes and listening to discussions with people about their work, landscapes, communities and hopes for the future made a big impression. I didn’t realise the significance of this until later in my life.
This combined with being a walker, cyclist, canoeist and camper for a long time – long enough to remember the pain of walking with external frame rucksacks. When I first discovered hiking (bushwalking, tramping, trekking) I embraced the maps and the ideas of getting from Point A to Point B. I’d walk, camp, walk again to the next point and repeat. I was walking through amazing landscapes and layering sights, sounds and smells of the mountains, forests, national parks and world heritage areas I’d visit.
I was drawn to edges—of maps, of villages, of what’s easily understood. I found myself lingering in places where paths were worn by generations, where conversations unfolded slowly, and where knowledge was held not only in texts but in gestures, rituals, and stories. I wasn’t chasing landscapes. I was trying to understand how people lived with them.
Through university studies and professional practice, I focussed on community resilience and its intersection with landscapes. In every place I visited or worked, either in Australia or internationally, I saw that strength wasn’t just in resources—it was in relationships: between people, with land, with history. I began to explore how communities weather uncertainty, how they adapt while holding onto what matters and how they proactively plan for the future. The essence of this understanding? Conversations.
“By being in a landscape, we have conversations with these spaces that are shaped by human activity and also with the people who have been shaped by these landscapes
Layering experiences and understandings of processes of community resilience and their connections with landscapes also gave me the chance to take lessons of community and landscape resilience into the world of travel – in particular that which occurs through walking, cycling and paddling.
This deepened my commitment to LoST—Locally-Specific Travel—as a way of travelling in these layered relationships. It wasn’t enough to tread lightly; I wanted to tread attentively. LoST became a response to extractive tourism and fast movement. It became a way of asking: what happens when travel is not about consumption but about relationships? How do we make travel accountable to place?
So the two threads—LoST and resilience—started to weave together. One is about how we move through the world with care. The other is about how communities stand their ground with strength. Together, they form an approach based on hope, on community creativity and ultimately about transformations.
There is a third thread – my approach to being with communities and landscapes, whether as a professional in the community resilience space or as a LoST traveller. Whether working with communities, travelling, teaching, or writing, I’m guided by questions like What should we do? How can we do it? and Why should we do it?
My attempts at trying to resolve these questions in my professional life and, indeed, in my own travels have led very specifically to LST.
Come and join me. You can get in touch/stay in touch via the links below.
