To start let’s have a quick update from this year’s Explore at the Royal Geographical Society. Did you know there are more than 90 organisations on the RGS’s books looking for volunteers or staff to join their expeditions?

To give you a prime example, the gates have just closed for gap-year students with a lust for adventure and a passion for environmental science on The British Schools Exploring Society’s Extreme Arctic expedition to Svalbard this spring.

To find out more and search the database of organisations looking for people just like you, go here.

In the next two articles I’ll be profiling some of the opportunities available and giving you ideas for two years of space exploration, driving skills and tactical firearms on British soil.

Being Bedouin - A Talk

The evenings are drawing in, but it’s time once again to girdle your loins and brave the weather for an evening at the National Geographic on Regent Street.

This months speaker, Mark Abouzeid, is flying in directly from expedition in Jordan to join us on the 24th. His talk “Being Bedouin” will be about the disappearing desert culture of Wadi Rum, accompanied by video and images.

“How do you capture the entire character of a culture that has no written record, has lived for centuries in relative isolation and exists in complete harmony with one of the world’s most extreme environments?”

I’ve worked closely with Mark over the last couple of years, from the North Pole to the desert, and I can guarantee that he is a totally engaging speaker and this is an opportunity not to miss.

He is one of the founders of the Bedouin Heritage Project and I’ll be featuring some more videos from them over the coming weeks.

As ever the talks are free and last an hour and you will retire to a local hostelry after.

WHERE: 1st Floor, The National Geographic Store, 83-97 Regents Street, London W1B 4EW (see map)

WHEN: 6.30pm, Tuesday, 24th November, 2009.