Journey of a Lifetime

The Journey of a Lifetime Award, given by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), in partnership with BBC Radio 4, offers you the chance to make a 'journey of a lifetime' and to tell the world about it in a memorable piece of radio documentary-making.

The award offers a £5,000 grant for an original and inspiring journey anywhere in the world. The award recipient will receive training in radio broadcasting from the BBC and will record their experiences for a BBC Radio 4 documentary.

Deadline

4 October (each year)

Apply

  Journey of a Lifetime Award guidelines (PDF) 
  Research Ethics and Code of Practice (PDF)

Listen to previous recipient's shows on the BBC Radio 4 Journey of a Lifetime website

Video by Dave Waldman

This year's recipient

 2012: Jas Jhalli
Indians and Cowboys

Travelling to Argentina to learn about the gaucho way of life, Jas Jhalli lived on an estancia and travelled on horseback with Argentina's legendary cowboys, the gauchos, to the southernmost tip of the Inca Empire.

Growing up in an Indian home in Wolverhampton, Jas draws on her experience of living between two cultures and considers the gauchos’ dual European and indigenous ancestry, and subsequent exclusion from both communities.

The BBC Radio 4 programme was broadcast at 11.00am on 3 September 2012.

Journey of a Lifetime award recipients

 2011: Jane Labous
    The Sand-diggers of Mali

 2010: Nick Hunt
    From Riches to Rags: Dubai to India

 2009: Dan Box
    The flood: Onboard the Carteret Fleet with climate change refugees

 2008: Emily Ainsworth
    The Romance of Reality: An Exploration of Mexico from the Inside Out, Traveling with a Family Circus

 2007: David Waldman
    From Mountain Tribe to Olympic Gold: Why Kenyans are the World’s Runners

 2006: Jessica Boyd and Bill Finnegan
    Deep into the Rubbish with Cairo's Zabbaleen

 2005: Chris Brown
    The high snows of Ladakh

 2004: Luke Freeman
    Cattle roads and motorcades

 2003: Andy Home and Grigori Gerenstein
    Land of black snow

 2002: Damian Welch
    Hoping for a miracle: Tokelau

 2001: Tessa McGregor
    By rocket to Tigerland

About the Award

The award, established in 2001, is a joint collaboration between the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and the BBC generously supported through a private donation. The award aims to support informed travel and learning, through experience rather than scientific research, and to discover new radio talent. The outcome of each of the journey's culminate in a BBC Radio 4 travel documentary.