Dan Taylor

On the 21st May I left London with an old road bike, a tent, and two panniers full of useless stuff.

My plan was simple, naive, and way too ambitious: to travel all around and across the British islands, explore the landscape, talk to people about their lives, discover local stories and myths, and generally enjoy myself as much as possible. Being a 27 year old postgraduate student and Londoner with little money, this all depended on the kindness and goodwill of strangers I was yet to meet.

The result is Searching for Albion, chronicling my experiences in words and pictures for each day, as it happened.

Four months later I returned home, not particularly wiser or older. But as I travelled across the country, major events bubbled through communities from European elections to the vote for Scottish independence. There were sports events, cycle rides, international wars and terrorist attacks all kicking off in the background, to which my daily interviews with people captured. Whilst out on the road I encountered all manner of strangeness: I met washed-up actors, boozed with people from every conceivable social class and occupation, talked to worshippers of every major religion, lost my mind stargazing, got hit by a car, climbed a mountain, swam in seas, handled a nuclear missile, lost pretty much all of my belongings (and found them again), encountered the supernatural, camped on cliffsides and castles, and generally had an awesome time. And all that with very little money, and no lycra.

See searchingforalbion.com.