Benedict Allen, author, explorer, TV filmmaker-presenter, is best known for his arduous expeditions to remote corners of the globe, journeys famously achieved not with a satellite phone, GPS or any of the usual “backup” but by undertaking a testing journey after a period of training alone with a remote indigenous community. He paved the way for the current generation of TV adventurers.
Already established as one of Britain's most prominent explorers, Benedict Allen went on to pioneer the filming of authentic journeys for television. By not using a film-crew, he has allowed millions of people around the world to witness for the first time adventures unfolding genuinely in inhospitable terrain. Few people alive have been so long isolated and alone in so many different potentially hostile environments.
Uniquely in television, his philosophy is to genuinely immerse himself in extreme or alien environments, going alone and learning from indigenous people. As The Sunday Times put it: “Filming whatever actually happens, without all the hidden paraphernalia of a film crew, and whether in danger or lonely or undergoing various exotic rituals, he has effectively taken the viewers’ experience of adventure as far as it can go.”
However, most of his more challenging journeys – depicted in his first five books – in fact took place before he began filming his exploits. “I belonged to the last generation that might pass through a wilderness for months on end and not encounter a single person of my own culture. It was a privileged time: never in all those years can I remember coming across a single other foreigner, whilst out on a trek.” Such isolation seems inconceivable today.
Twenty five years on, Benedict Allen has narrowly escaped death six times; arguably, no one has more experience of living continuously isolated in as many remote environments.
