Shows
Books And TravelFacing Fears And Finding Resilience In Midlife: Long-Distance Walking With Zoe Langley-WathenHave you ever considered a radical change to mark a new chapter in your life? What fears hold you back from taking on a huge challenge, like walking for weeks on your own? Zoe Langley-Wathen talks about conquering her fears on the 630-mile South West Coast Path, and how it led to an even bigger […]
The post Facing Fears And Finding Resilience In Midlife: Long-Distance Walking With Zoe Langley-Wathen appeared first on Books And Travel.
2025-08-2846 min
Action Packed TravelMidlifing on the South West Coast PathZoe Langley-Wathen walked 630 miles around the coastline of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset – and then she wrote a book about it. Music: © Barney & Izzi Hardy Support the show
2025-06-2233 min
Tough Girl PodcastZoe Langley-Wathen: 630 Miles Braver: Mid-lifing on the South West Coast Path. The reality of imposter syndrome, facing solo adventures and the warmth of personal connections.Zoe Langley-Wathen is a writer, speaker, and adventure seeker who has spent over a decade inspiring others to embrace the outdoors. From solo-walking the South West Coast Path in 2011 to becoming the first woman to walk the Wales Coast Path in 2012, Zoe has continually pushed her boundaries—while navigating the realities of midlife, imposter syndrome, and solo adventures. In this episode of the Tough Girl Podcast, Zoe shares the journey behind her latest book, 630 Miles Braver: Mid-lifing on the South West Coast Path, which chronicles her transformative experience walking the iconic trail. She opens up about the ch...
2025-04-151h 05
HeadRightOutThe Big Swim for IWD and Cold Adventures 021: Nicky ChisholmShow Notes The Big Swim: 1,000 Women, One Epic Wild Swim! In this episode of HeadRightOut, I chat with Nicky Chisholm, adventurer, blogger, and founder of The Big Swim—an empowering International Women's Day event bringing together 1,000 women for a sea swim in Brighton & Dorset. We dive into the power of adventure, resilience, and community, plus why Surfers Against Sewage needs our support now more than ever. Whether you're a seasoned swimmer or just wild-swim curious, this conversation will inspire you to take the plunge—literally or figuratively!
2025-02-1247 min
HeadRightOutTrailblazing the Wales Coast Path in 2012 & other adventures - 020: Arry Cain Arry Cain set off in March 2012 to run the equivalent of 40 marathons in 40 days along a brand new trail, the Wales Coast Path. She would become the first person to run around the perimeter of Wales, including the Wales Coast Path. and officially launched the opening of the Path in Cardiff Bay, as she ran her last mile of a gruelling 1027 miles on 5th May. Ten years on, Arry shares her determination, her difficulties and more about the doubters that she could even achieve such an immense challenge. The impact of...
2022-05-0556 min
HeadRightOutA Donkey, Children & Slow Ways; inspiring human-powered home travel: Hannah Engelkamp - 019 Hannah Engelkamp talks about walking Wales with a spirited donkey, children, adventures and the pandemic. Her current passion is inspiring others to walk Slow Ways routes, a new network of direct paths, from settlement to settlement, across Great Britain. Hannah is a writer and editor with a background in adventure magazines and websites. In 2013 she travelled waywardly around the circumference of Wales, 1000 miles, with a characterful donkey called Chico as her companion. In 2015 she published 'Seaside Donkey', a book and a feature-length film of the same, detailing h...
2022-03-231h 08
HeadRightOutFell Running, Marathons & Mountain Biking; Founder of Element for Active Women - 018: Ruth Pickvance Ruth shares her passion for the mountains, becoming an international fell running champion, fast marathons and how mountain bike orienteering has captured her interest aged 60. She is the founder of Element, offering active courses for women in Wales. In 2012, Ruth Pickvance, an adventurous, retired international fell running champion and super-fast marathon runner, left her well-paid head of faculty role at a Sixth Form College, to set up Element. The business offers women the opportunity to find confidence in outdoor pursuits such as Yoga for Runners, Beginning Fell Running and...
2022-02-091h 01
HeadRightOutTruffles, Tribes & Tragedy; Healing Through World Foods & Adventures - 017: Sue Plastow After the sudden death of her husband, Sue Plastow and her family left their Italian truffle orchard to return to the UK. Less than 12 months later, she is finding her feet again with exciting plans ahead that involves outdoor adventures, good food and a space for women to walk and talk. Her children experienced a wonderfully feral upbringing of travel and freedom. Now it's Sue's turn to find adventures to honour her late husband's memory. Her positivity and zest for life is infectious. While she is aware that she is still...
2022-02-0248 min
HeadRightOutA Do or Die Decision on Weight Loss: Discovering a New Life Outdoors - 016: Maria Roberts This is a compelling conversation between Zoe and Maria Roberts about transitioning from size 26 to size 10. Self-loathing and lacking in confidence, her family needed her. She knew that she would have to make changes. She had to start moving her body and change her lifestyle, despite attempting many unsuccessful diets from the age of ten. After her amazing 8 stone weight loss in her late forties, Maria has now discovered a new-found love for staying fit, being in the outdoors, cycling, canoeing and particularly going on mountain walks and challenges. Her most recent challenge...
2022-01-271h 03
HeadRightOutMiles, Mountains & Menopause: Getting My Life Back : Jo Bradshaw As a business advisor who feared heights, Jo Bradshaw never would have dreamed that just a few years later she would summit Mount Everest and lead expeditions across the world. Having now reached six out of the seven highest peak summits, on each of the seven continents, Jo shares how her biggest challenge found her learning to manage the blended symptoms of grief, menopause and lockdown, and how new adventures have since been born. In her conversation with Zoe, she is so incredibly honest about how severely her perimenopause symptoms affected her and h...
2022-01-191h 11
HeadRightOutVan Life, Challenging Ageist Attitudes & Pro-ageing; Retire Adventurously & Positively - 014: Siobhan Daniels Siobhan Daniels inspires young and old alike. As a woman who has endured a variety of pains life had to throw at her, she is now not only living her best life into retirement, she's on a mission to encourage others to do that too, and to promote the enjoyment of growing older. Siobhan retired from the BBC, two years ago, after a thirty-year career working as a reporter, presenter, and producer in local news. Her life's rollercoaster involved being a single mum, taking a gap year from work to backpack solo around...
2022-01-1256 min
Sports Podcast AwardsHeadRightOut - ENTRYFeeling fearful about trying something adventurous? Listen in to a hub of vibrant, honest and motivational audio content, designed to encourage women to head out of their comfort zone within the outdoors. Featuring both the everyday and longer, planned challenges, Zoe Langley-Wathen invites stories from resilient women about facing their own HeadRightOut Moments, despite potential personal barriers. With the aim to inspire and empower midlife women to question and remedy their own levels of resilience, Zoe knows first-hand the power of facing fears after beginning long-distance hiking, solo at the age of forty. With life-long benefits to physical and mental he...
2022-01-0610 min
HeadRightOutOceans Seven & 1111km Extreme Ultra-Triathlon; Strength, Meditation and Mindful Music - 013: Abhejali Bernardová Only the 10th person in history (the 4th woman and first swimmer from the Czech Republic), Abhejali Bernardová has completed the coveted 'Oceans Seven' - a physically gruelling and mentally demanding open-water swim across seven channels around the world. Zoe talks with Abhejali about her more recent challenge; an Extreme Ultra-Triathlon, crossing 1111kms from Dover to Prague. This conversation is definitely not just about swimming, running and cycling, however, as the deep and powerful methods of self-talk and managing the mind during endurance challenges are shared. With such a positive, thought-provoking a...
2022-01-0552 min
HeadRightOutExplore, Challenge and Observe: The Three Pillars of HeadRightOut - 012: Zoe Langley-Wathen In this Solopisode, Zoe shares in more detail about the three pillars of HeadRightOut, EXPLORE, CHALLENGE, and OBSERVE. She talks about what they mean for her, for the podcast, and HeadRightOut as a business, and ultimately, what they mean for YOU. They have, after all been written with you in mind. Zoe knows she's not alone in the way her brain operates and that there are billions of people, women in particular, who share the same fears, and the same pain points as her. Zoe believes these pillars will...
2021-12-2940 min
HeadRightOutThe world needs an Adventure Revolution: and midlife women to organise it! - Belinda Kirk Zoe chats with Belinda Kirk, who has over 26 years of experience in leading expeditions. She has witnessed the positive impact of undertaking outdoor challenges on mental health and wellbeing and believes that now, more than ever, adventure should be the go-to for ALL age-groups. She shares the foundations of her ground-breaking book, Adventure Revolution and the importance of having a mindset that includes comfort zone stretching in order to grow in confidence, developing long-lasting self-efficacy, self-esteem and resilience. Welcome back to Season Two Thank you for returning if you have l...
2021-12-2455 min
HeadRightOutFinding a Way Into Confidence; 5500+ miles on foot, Kyiv to UK, via Spain, bears and a pandemic - 010: Ursula Martin Zoe talks to the inspiring Ursula Martin, who has built resilience and confidence over the years simply by realising she has to get on and do it - whatever that 'IT' is. She shares many powerful messages and despite the enormity of her challenges, Ursula is humble and profoundly honest to the end. She talks about how she doesn't want to be treated as a hero just because she walked over 3000 miles around Wales, following a cancer diagnosis, or over 5000 miles across Europe. Zoe struggles to comprehend the stories of the...
2021-11-101h 20
HeadRightOutAn Accidental Adventurer & a World Record: collecting kindness acts & building resilience Self-described as a 'blind optimist', Nahla cycled 3000 miles across America, despite not having owned a bike in twenty years and walked 500 miles the length of England, relying only on the kindness of strangers. In 2020, she made a world record by travelling 5007 miles on an ElliptiGO bike, through every UK city, in the middle of a pandemic. At the same time she was creating the biggest Strava art in England that spelled out the word, 'KINDNESS'. Nahla's unique selling point is that she completes these challenges, asking for people to pledge an act of...
2021-11-031h 04
HeadRightOutA Curvy Woman in Love With Hiking: 700 miles of the Appalachian Trail & founding Trail DamesZoe chats to Anna Huthmaker, host of the Trail Dames Podcast. They discuss discovering hiking as a curvy woman, and the lack of representation that Anna felt while she was out on the trails. They also talk about the empowerment of organising, yes, organising and attending a hiking and backpacking summit, exclusively for women. Anna had NEVER organised anything like this before. The way she tells her story is so engaging. Anna hiked 700 miles of the Appalachian Trail, in her words 'looking like a little watermelon in a tube sock', broke her foot in two places and still returned to...
2021-10-271h 06
HeadRightOutSolo hiking & wild camping heaven vs. the darkness of depression and early menopause Zoe Langley-Wathen 00:17 Hello, and welcome back to the HeadRightOut Podcast. This is the show that hopefully will launch you into doing something that is way beyond your comfort zone. Something that you never believed you were capable of doing. Perhaps there's just a little seed of an idea growing and hopefully this is going to be the show that will spur you on that will give you the encouragement that you need to HeadRightOut. Now today, I have a lovely, lovely guest, somebody who I've been friends with online for many years. Her...
2021-10-201h 08
HeadRightOutThe Triumph is in the Trying: from grief and menopause to the joy of rowing and SUPing with Jo MoseleyJo Moseley promotes positivity to a midlife audience as a writer, speaker, mid-life adventurer, and award-winning film-maker. Jo says that joy is simply knowing there is a blue sky above the clouds, which many women will relate to. After losing her sense of self, Jo realised that she desperately needed to do something to help herself and to rediscover that joy. She talks with Zoe, sharing honestly about her experience with the menopause and how the grief of miscarriages, divorce and the death of her mother washed over her like waves. Jo offers golden advice for dealing with the many...
2021-10-131h 00
HeadRightOutNever Too Old For Adventure: Cruel Tanzania Amoeba, Beating Shyness to Antarctica & Over 500 Days of Walking at 73 yrs - Cherry Hamrick Cherry Hamrick exudes positivity and resilience. Her mindset is that of adventure. Every corner of her life, whether work, play, family or vacation is treated as an adventure. At sixty-five, she faced her shyness to travel alone to Antarctica. At seventy-two she was seriously ill in Tanzania, with the sickness known as the 'amoeba'. Yet all she wanted was to climb Kilimanjaro and appreciate running in Africa. At seventy-three, she has now recorded a streak of over 500 consecutive days of walking. A splits extraordinaire, avid runner, kayaker, dancer and...
2021-10-0645 min
HeadRightOutHeadRightOut Into SUP School: Mindfulness and Jelly Legs on a Paddleboard With Blorenge SUP - Helen Jenkins Helen Jenkins, co-founder of the newest stand up paddleboarding school on the Mon and Brec Canal delivers their very first session to Zoe and her husband. Sharing the business start-up considerations for Blorenge SUP while still working full-time, Helen also offers the importance of a paddleboard session with an instructor and what students can expect to learn under her tuition. Concentration and mindfulness are key to not falling in! Helen is keen to encourage everyone to try stand up paddleboarding and talks with enthusiasm about what it means to her personally and how...
2021-09-2929 min
HeadRightOutWhy so many women are scared to adventure and recognising our female role models with Tough Girl, Sarah Williams #003 A powerful conversation with Tough Girl Challenges founder and Tough Girl Podcast host, Sarah Williams. As friends, we easily cover multiple topics across our conversations. These include how to meet fear head-on and deal with it; why Sarah is inspired by two specific female role models/mentors and the moments in her life that nearly broke her. Interestingly, she elaborates on how those darkest times taught her the most and benefitted her in ways she could never have imagined. There are references to many long-distance trails, in the UK and overseas...
2021-09-251h 08
HeadRightOutLive Your Bucket List: Super Powers and Angry Man on the South West Coast Path Author, Julia Goodfellow-Smith talks about her need to adventure, and how it was spurred on by a personal health scare and the death of her mother. We chat about why it took her 25 years to realise that there were many things on her bucket list. One in particular that really needed conquering, she discovered she could actually do it. The resilience and positivity of this woman is incredible. Julia shares insights about our superpowers and how we can harness them to use to our advantage. Zoe Langley-Wathen 00:20 Well, hello lovely people...
2021-09-1754 min
HeadRightOutStay Strong: an introduction to HeadRightOut, Zoe's fears, her plans and the backstory... 001: Solopisode Zoe Langley-Wathen - host of the HeadRightOut Podcast Zoe Langley-Wathen introduces her aims for HeadRightOut, and the fears she regularly faces. As an experienced solo long-distance walker, she wasn't always the brave soul people seem to think she is. Her mission is to encourage more midlife women to head out of their comfort zone, within the outdoors. It's hoped that Zoe's honest approach and storytelling style will encourage you to take more Outdoor Medicine as you listen and look forward to her conversations with many resilient women.
2021-09-1749 min
Tough Girl PodcastWhy so many women are scared to adventure and recognising our female role models with Tough Girl Founder Sarah WilliamsI was delighted to be interviewed by Zoe for her new podcast HeadRightOut. Here is our conversation which we recorded on the 8th September 2021 (2 days before my 40th Birthday)! I hope you enjoy! Words by Zoe: "A powerful conversation with Tough Girl Challenges founder and Tough Girl Podcast host, Sarah Williams. As friends, we easily cover multiple topics across our conversations. These include how to meet fear head-on and deal with it; why Sarah is inspired by two specific female role models/mentors and the moments in her life that nearly broke her. Interestingly, she elaborates on how those darkest...
2021-09-101h 11
HeadRightOutHeadRightOutHow many times have you wanted to try something new, but that mean little voice in your head has held you back? How often do you really step out of your comfort zone? Come on, be honest. Have you even explored what this feels like or is it simply too terrifying for words? I know I've been there. HeadRightOut is a new podcast looking at exactly this topic. You can expect conversations with resilient women who have stepped, jumped or dived headfirst out of their comfort zone. We'll be sharing HeadRightOut Moments, and you can follow me...
2021-09-0903 min
Living Life DifferentlyEP5 | Zoe Langley-Wathen | Living on a Canal BoatAfter 13 years of teaching and a life changing experience of a long-distance walk, Zoe decided to change her life.She quit her job in teaching to follow her passion for adventures and writing. In addition to this, she moved from her home in Dorset to live on a canal boat with her partner, Mike.Now moored on the beautiful Monmouthshire-Brecon canal in Wales, Zoe spoke to us about the challenges of making big life decisions. She also speaks about the realities of canal boat dwelling!
2021-04-031h 02
The Trail Dames PodcastEpisode #94 Lagniappe - "630 Miles Braver" by Zoe Langley-WathenZoe describes herself as a mid-life blogger, speaker, and adventure seeker. She set off to walk the UK's longest national trail in 2011–solo–and soon realised that despite her many fears of going alone or not being fit enough, she had, in fact, left it way too long. Realising that many women experience the same anxieties and doubts as her, Zoe is now on a mission to encourage more women to head out of their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day. Zoe has written about her first 630 mile...
2021-03-0933 minThe Trail Dames PodcastEpisode #89 - Zoe Langley-Watham (a Trail Dames story)Zoe describes herself as a mid-life blogger, speaker, and adventure seeker. She set off to walk the UK's longest national trail in 2011, solo and soon realized that despite her many fears of going alone or not being fit enough, she had, in fact, left it way too long. Recognizing that many women experience the same anxieties and doubts as her, Zoe is now on a mission to encourage more women to head out of their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day. Zoe has written about her first 630 miles, solo adventure in...
2021-02-0217 min
Extraordinary Ordinary You#E8 - Zoe Langley-Wathen - Boat Dweller and Long Distance Hiker - Don’t WaitMoving to a boat, solo hiking the South West Coastal Path and doing 100 days of things that scare her. In this episode Zoe shares a whole range of incredible stories. She tells us about the one time she followed the river Yeo, right along a sewer pipe under the M5 Motorway. She tells us why she challenged herself to 100 “Mappy days” fitting in adventure around caring for family. Leaving with the advice “Don’t Wait, if you have a dream, don't wait. Just get on and do it.”
2021-01-041h 05The Trail Dames PodcastEpisode #77 - Zoe Langley-Wathen (Part 2)Zoe describes herself as a mid-life blogger, speaker, and adventure seeker. She set off to walk the UK's longest national trail in 2011, solo and soon realised that despite her many fears of going alone or not being fit enough, she had, in fact, left it way too long. Realising that many women experience the same anxieties and doubts as her, Zoe is now on a mission to encourage more women to head out of their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day. Zoe has written about her first 630 miles, solo adventure in...
2020-11-1055 minThe Trail Dames PodcastEpisode #75 - Zoe Langley-Wathen (Part1)Zoe describes herself as a mid-life blogger, speaker, and adventure seeker. She set off to walk the UK's longest national trail in 2011, solo and soon realized that despite her many fears of going alone or not being fit enough, she had, in fact, left it way too long. Realizing that many women experience the same anxieties and doubts as her, Zoe is now on a mission to encourage more women to head out of their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day. Zoe has written about her first 630 miles, solo adventure in...
2020-10-271h 04The Trail Dames PodcastEpisode #74 - Zoe Langley-Wathen (a Trail Dames story)Zoe describes herself as a mid-life blogger, speaker, and adventure seeker. She set off to walk the UK's longest national trail in 2011, solo and soon discovered that, despite her many fears of going alone or not being fit enough, she had, in fact, left it way too long. Realizing that many women experience the same anxieties and doubts as her, Zoe is now on a mission to encourage more women to head out of their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day. Zoe has written about her first 630...
2020-10-2012 min
The Everyday Adventure PodcastCamping, coastpaths and "microbravery" - Zoe Langley-WathenSend us a textIn 2011, Zoe set off to backpack solo along 630 miles of the South West Coast Path. Wild camping solo and wading across rivers terrified her and therefore she had put it off for 15 years. When she finally did it, it changed her life. Since then she has been long-distance walking every year and last year she started her new venture, HeadRightOut, to encourage resilience in others by stepping outside their comfort zones and facing their fears. She recently set up the HeadRightOut Hub, a safe space for women to support each other...
2020-07-2925 min
Light Work PodcastFor Freedoms: Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul: Selections from the Light Work CollectionAugust 27 – October 18, 2018Kathleen O. Ellis GalleryGallery Talk: Thursday, September 20, 6pmReception: Thursday, September 20, 5-7pmLight Work is pleased to announce Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul: Selections from the Light Work Collection. The exhibition is guest-curated by For Freedoms, a platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States, co-founded in 2016 by former Light Work artists-in-residence Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas. Since then, For Freedoms has produced exhibitions, town hall meetings, and public art to spur greater participation in civic life. On...
2020-03-2308 min
Tough Girl PodcastMimi Anderson - Endurance Athlete/Multiple World Record Holder - Running across America, Dealing with Failure, Overcoming Fears, and getting into swimming and biking!We first spoke with Mimi in December 2015, where she shared more about her early life, how she got into endurance running. During the first episode we go into more depth about some of the bigger challenges she has done, for example breaking the world record for fastest women running JOGLE (John O'Groats to Lands End - 840 miles) in the UK in 2008. (This record has since been broken in 2019 by Sharon Gayter - You can listen to Sharon share more about this on the Tough Girl Podcast.) "The only way of finding the limits...
2020-02-201h 02
Tough Girl PodcastZoe Langley-Wathen - Her love for long distance walking, #100mappydays & Head Right OutSince 2010, Zoe has been working on inspiring others to get out and get their soles active to get their souls revived - particularly through this year's challenge of #100MappyDays. HeadRightOut is the brand new face of WathWalk and it's here to encourage YOU to head out and try something new... *Do you need to give yourself more outside time? *Do you need to step out of your comfort zone a little more? *Are there things that you deliberately avoid doing in your daily life in case you get it wrong? *Would you love to find a 'braver', more confident you? If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then take a listen to this podcast episode because it is for you! HeadRightOut is about inviting everyone to become braver on a micro level, in order to face those bigger challenges that may seem unrea...
2019-08-291h 03
Tough Girl PodcastZoe Langley-Wathen - Walking Adventures include the South West Coastal Path, Wales Coast Path & Offa's Dyke. Zoe Langley-Wathen - Walking Adventures include the South West Coastal Path, Wales Coast Path & Offa's Dyke. Show notes Where her love of walking came from? Growing up without a car Going on night hikes Getting married young and having her daughter at 24 Wanting to do something bigger Letting her dreams stay dormant Fears? Are you sure you can do that? Don't put yourself in a position where you will be disappointed The South West Coastal Path! Deciding to follow her dream How to celebrate her 40th birthday in 2011 Accountability Planning - and giving herself 7 months to...
2017-11-071h 10