Between a Rock and a Hard Place

All across Britain, in some of the wildest places you can find, is a network of mountain huts - called bothies. But unlike shelters found in the rest of the world, these were never built for walkers. Former schoolhouses, farmsteads, gamekeepers lodges, coastguards lookouts and miners bunkhouses, there are around 100 buildings (across Scotland, England and Wales) left open for walkers and climbers to use - free of charge. For the last 60 years they have been in the care of the Mountain Bothies Association - an organisation who maintain and look after them and are funded by donation and run by volunteers. To celebrate their diamond anniversary, adventurer Phoebe Smith (who wrote the first ever guidebook to bothies 10 years ago) takes her mum friend Ellie to stay in her first one and speaks to the MBA's chair Simon Birch about what changes have occurred over the last 60 years. Also coming up: Octogenarian publisher Hilary Bradt discusses how travel has changed since her first adventures in 1969 Travel Hack: How to make friends on the road - safely Top 10 places to escape the crowds around the world Meet Katie Wignall, the guide telling the stories of forgotten women in London All the kit you need for wild swimming Nan Shepherd, author of The Living Mountain is our Wander Woman of the Month SPECIAL OFFER: Use code WanderWoman at the checkout on the Cicerone website to get 15% off the Book of the Bothy and all of their guidebooks. Contact Wander Woman @PhoebeRSmith

You can listen to Between a Rock and a Hard Place online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place is an episode from Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast by Phoebe Smith.

This episode is 54:12 long.

This episode was published on Mar 26, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.