Tristan Gooley (born 1973) is a British writer on natural navigation.

Early life and education

Gooley was born in 1973; his father is Sir Michael Gooley, the founder of

Trailfinders Trailfinders is a British travel company in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the largest independently-owned travel company in the United Kingdom, and has 39 travel centres in the UK and Ireland. The company "specialises in tailormade tr ...

, who was knighted in 2021 for services to business and charity. Gooley has a BA in history and politics (1996) from

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

. He climbed

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world: above sea level and ab ...

while in his teens, and, aged 19, he spent three days lost on the slopes of Gunung Rinjani, an active volcano in Indonesia.

Travel and navigation

Gooley has walked with the Dayak in Borneo, and in 2009 studied and practiced natural navigation methods with the Tuareg in the Libyan Sahara. In 2012 he led a short-handed small boat voyage, from the Orkney Islands into the Arctic Circle, to test Viking methods and determine whether nature can help a navigator estimate their distance from land. He has walked from Glasgow to London and parachuted off a building in Australia. After years of extreme journeys, aged 36 he turned towards smaller journeys and studying nature. In 2008, he became the second person, after Steve Fossett (1944-2007), to have both sailed solo and flown solo across the Atlantic; , he is the only living person to have done so. Gooley specialises in interpreting nature's signs, and has been referred to as the "Sherlock Holmes of Nature". He has identified a type of

path A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

, which has been recognised by the Royal Institute of Navigation. The "smile path" is a ( smile-shaped) curve, formed when walkers avoid an obstacle or, during Covid, seek to preserve safe distance from other people.

Writing

Gooley has written for the ''New York Times'', the ''Sunday Times'', the ''Wall Street Journal'' and the ''BBC''. He is the author of books which have been translated into 19 languages, and have been referenced by artists including David Hockney.

Recognition

Gooley is a fellow of the

Royal Institute of Navigation The Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) is a learned society and a professional body for navigation. The RIN was founded in 1947 as a forum for mariners, pilots, engineers and academics to compare their experiences and exchange information. Toda ...

and of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. In 2020 was awarded the Harold Spencer-Jones Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of Navigation in recognition of an outstanding contribution to navigation.

Personal life

Gooley is married to Sophie and they have two sons. They live in

Eartham Eartham is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located north east of Chichester east of the A285 road. There is an Anglican parish church dedicated to St Margaret and a public house, The George, for ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

. Gooley is vice-chairman of

, the travel agency founded in 1970 by his father.

Selected publications

Books

* * * * * * *

Articles

* Gooley, Tristan (March 2010)
"The Natural Way of Not Getting Lost"
BBC Radio 4, Today. Retrieved 5 May 2023. * Gooley, Tristan and MacDonald, Ross (July 2010)

New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2023. * * * Gooley, Tristan (May 2019)
"Walking"
The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 May 2023. * Gooley, Tristan (April 2023)
"How to use a tree as a compass (and other tricks)"
The Times. Retrieved 5 May 2023. * Gooley, Tristan (April 2023)
"A captain’s-eye view of weird, wondrous weather at sea"
The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 May 2023.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gooley, Tristan 1973 births Living people 21st-century British male writers British navigators People from Chichester District Alumni of Newcastle University