Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with Tracy Tucker, education director and archivist of the Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska, about the novelist's life and works. 

The Travel Hour

In the Worlds of Willa Cather

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson walks around the childhood home of the novelist Willa Cather (My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop) with Rachel Olsen, the education specialist of the Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska. 

Red Cloud, Nebraska: Willa Cather

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with guide and historian Bulent Yilmaz Korkmaz of Crowded House Tours in Turkey, about the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, fought for the control of the narrow straits of the Dardanelles—not far from ancient Troy.

Gallipoli, Turkey

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with French correspondent Maurin Picard about his new book, Ils Ont Tué Monsieur H (They Have Killed Mr. Hammarskjold: Congo, 1961. The French Mercenary Plot Against the United Nations - published in France.) They discuss various theories that could have led to the plane crash of the UN Secretary General during the Congo Crisis of 1961.

Ndola, Zambia: Crash of Dag Hammarskjold

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and goes around with Taib and Damir, two guides with Funky Sarajevo, a locally-operated tour company, which is part of the renaissance of the city that was earlier synonymous with war and suffering. 

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits the home in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the writer Robert Louis Stevenson grew up and where he lived well into his twenties. Matthew speaks with the current owner of the house, John Macfie, and explains to listeners how they can stay overnight in the home.

Edinburgh, Scotland: Robert Louis Stevenson

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits the Chester A. Arthur Cottage (it belonged to the president's father, before he emigrated to North America) and speaks with Ms. May Kirkpatrick about the Arthur family's roots in Ulster.

Northern Ireland: With Chester A. Arthur

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits the Free Derry Museum in Northern Ireland and speaks with historian Adrian Kerr about what happened on Sunday January 30, 1972, when fourteen Derry citizens were killed by British soldiers, and more were wounded.

Bloody Sunday 1972

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson, in Gettysburg, PA, visits with the famous Civil War congressman and abolitionist, Thaddeus Stevens, courtesy of Ross Hetrick, president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to preserving the memory of the legislator who opposed slavery and promoted public education.

Gettysburg, PA: With Thaddeus Stevens

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits the Geneva Book Fair and speaks with New York Times senior editor (of the Books Desk) Greg Cowles and Editor-in-Chief of Penguin Books (USA) Patrick Nolan about the many worlds that they visit in the course of their reading, writing, and editing. 

Geneva, Switzerland: To the Book Fair

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with Damian Sadie, general manager of Rovos Rail, the private luxury railways located in Pretoria, South Africa, and with railroad excursions—of the highest standards—across southern Africa.  

Capital Park Station, South Africa

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson talks with Nancy and Adlai Stevenson III (the former U.S. senator from Illinois) about their political family that stretches to the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1850s and includes the presidential runs of Adlai Stevenson II in the 1950s.

Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL: The Adlai Stevensons

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson visits Lecompton, Kansas, and speaks with Tim Ruis, site administrator of Constitutional Hall, where in many ways the Civil War began.

Lecompton, Kansas: The Constitutional Civil War

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with Grady Atwater, site administrator of the John Brown Museum Historic Site, which is southwest by about an hour from Kansas City, MO. It was from here that John Brown fought against slavery coming to the Kansas territories in the 1850s.

Osawatomie, Kansas: John Brown, Abolitionist

Travel Hour host Matthew Stevenson speaks with the director of the James K. Polk Home & Museum, John Holtzapple, about how, as president, James K. Polk added more than a million square miles to the United States.

Columbia, Tennessee: James K. Polk

Join host Matthew Stevenson on his travels around the world.