What is your Side hustle?
This week's newsletter is introduced by Saira Niazi, author of the Renegade Guides Handbook, the research and writing of which she will be discussing on Tuesday 23 September at our next online café.
Around fifteen years ago, I started working on a creative project called Living London. As part of the project, I explored, photographed and wrote about over a thousand hidden gems from bingo halls and burial grounds to artist studios and eco-squats. I recorded my findings on my blog. Around ten years ago, I led my first wandering tour connecting a handful of these gems and bringing them to life through stories of people and place. Since then, I’ve led hundreds of tours in areas across London and further afield.
As a self-taught guide, there were many questions that I continued to ask myself, questions I couldn’t really find answers to.
How do we choose spaces and find stories? Whose stories do we share and what are the ethics of story sharing? How can we make tours and tour guiding more inclusive and accessible? Are there other ways we can preserve stories that are at risk of being lost forever? How can we as guides improve our practice to better serve communities?
In 2023 I was awarded a travel grant by the Churchill Fellowship to carry out a research project that explored these questions. Towards the end of 2024, during a highly contentious election season, I spent two months in the US attending various walking tours and community events, exploring hidden gems and local neighbourhoods and interviewing renegade guides, organisers and storytellers from all walks of life. In response, I created the Renegade Guides handbook. I’m looking forward to sharing some of my findings in the walk · listen · cafe.
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Placecloud
Researchers use Placecloud to mark sites of significance with short podcasts.
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Free for supporting members, open to everyone
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2025-09-23 18:00 UTC
· Online
Towards the end of 2024, during a highly contentious election season, writer, guide and founder of Living London, Saira Niazi, spent two months in the US (New York ... Keep reading
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2025-10-07 18:00 UTC
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The Marŝarto Awards complement our Sound Walk September Awards providing a cash prize incentive to artists to submit their compositions for the only award for walki... Keep reading
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Latest walking pieces
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A deck of 56 prompts, specifically designed for New York City, to help in exploring the city on your own terms. Keep reading
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This sound walk, called “Practical Exercise Of Wonder And Surprise – Silence And Listening,” invites people to slow down and really tune in to the sensory world aro... Keep reading
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A chorus of footsteps reshapes the act of listening: twenty walkers carrying sounds through the city weave a moving composition that unsettles the ear and awakens n... Keep reading
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1000km solitary, nomadic experience around Norway on foot with a trolley Keep reading
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Exploration of the phenomenon of the occupation of public space by young people through portraits of teenagers and unusual places in Quebec City. The images are acc... Keep reading
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Latest podcast episodes
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Join Lynn Hoffman for this upcoming episode with Thom Tran. He shares his incredible journey and the healing power of comedy.Support the show: https://takinawalk.co... Start listening
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Indie Music Journey "Takin ' A Walk"-Music Discovery with Briscoe unpacking new music "Heat of July"
Join Buzz Knight as he speaks with Truett Heintzelman and Phillip Lupton from the indie band Briscoe. They give you a behind the scenes look at the making of their ... Start listening
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The latest album from Welsh triple harpist Cerys Hafana is called “Angel”. It’s inspired by the story of an old man who goes for a walk in the forest and hears an a... Start listening
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Upcoming events
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22 Sep, 2025 · All day UTC
· Online
An Equinox provocation Keep reading
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2025-09-23 18:00 UTC
· Online
Towards the end of 2024, during a highly contentious election season, writer, guide and founder of Living London, Saira Niazi, spent two months in the US (New York ... Keep reading
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2025-09-30 18:30 UTC
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Do you want to know how our 2025 adventure went? How we set off from Badalona and crossed beaches, mountains, and rivers on our way to the Pyrenees — and climbed th... Keep reading
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From our network
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Continuing improving how Dérive app functions, we worked on a completely new deck for New York City. 56 fine prompts will keep you busy when exploring The Big Apple... Keep reading
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I was told this review was coming, but I had trouble believing it would happen. But here it is: Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road has bee... Keep reading
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A walk to celebrate the Autumn Equinox on Monday 22 September 2025, 5.30-7.15pm meeting at The Pitt. Booking link At the Autumn Equinox, there is balance between th... Keep reading
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Here’s a book I’ve meant to read for years, and I finally did it: Sky Dancer Louise Bernice Halfe’s The Crooked Good. The linked poems in The Crooked Good tell the ... Keep reading
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There and Back, an Autumn Equinox community walk in Granton Edinburgh 22nd
Sep 2025 Keep reading
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A walk for 4WCoP25 (the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography 2025), the theme of which is, ‘After That, This’ You can walk in person with me in Swansea, Wales on S... Keep reading
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Exciting news: my book, Walking the Bypass: Notes on Place from the Side of the Road launches at the John Archer Library at the University of Regina on October 7 fr... Keep reading
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Between 2006 and 2013 the writer Taran Khan made multiple trips to Kabul, Afghanistan, a city she felt was misunderstood by many outsiders. She decided to get to kn... Keep reading
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La notion de paysage sonore n’est pas seulement une vision esthétique, poético-sensible, loin de là. Elle convoque et met en jeu, voire en action, un faisceau de pr... Keep reading
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Hello everyone
I'm delighted to share the full details for The Feminist Art of Walking Tour. More information about the book, and pre-otders, available here: https... Keep reading
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WALC
Walking Arts & Local Communities (WALC) is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union, Creative Europe, starting in January 2024 for four years. With seven partners from five countries, WALC establishes an International Center for Artistic Research and Practice of Walking Arts, in Prespa, Greece, at the border with Albania and North Macedonia, backed up by an online counterpart in the format of a digital platform for walking arts.
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2025-09-30 18:30 UTC
· Online
Do you want to know how our 2025 adventure went? How we set off from Badalona and crossed beaches, mountains, and rivers on our way to the Pyrenees — and climbed th... Keep reading
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Stuff we found
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Once a month since September 2022, artist Lian Bell has done a full circuit of the North and South Circular Roads, observing these 14km through the seasons. Source:... Keep reading
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A group of 50 singers walked a route of around six miles through the heart of Constable Country, taking in Stratford St Mary, East Bergholt, Dedham, Flatford and La... Keep reading
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As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost Source: ‘Like walking throu... Keep reading
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