Adventure Diaries: Exploration, Survival & Travel Stories
Oct 1, 2026 · 6 min · 7 segments
Follow Adventure Diaries for more authentic stories of adventure. Oscar Scafidi explains how his Madagascar river expedition relied on people who knew the…
I asked a load of adventure travel companies on the ground back in 2017 if they'd be willing to support us.
Obviously, the vast majority said absolutely not, 'cause they did not wanna take responsibility for two, two foreigners getting themselves into trouble in a very remote part of the country and going through quite an insecure part of the country at that time.
I think the only company that actually got back to me with a yes maybe was an organization called Remote River Expeditions.
And yeah, they have a lot of experience on the Mangoky specifically, not necessarily doing something quite as ambitious as we were doing, but at least going to sections of it.
So they had people on the ground, they had guides, and we engaged in what ended up being a, what? A five-year email chain.
... because I first, I first suggested it to him in 2017, and we didn't end up-
So yeah, we, we had a kinda long history with them before we even got started, and I, I've gotta, I've gotta thank them because they were a real integral part of helping out with the suggestions of where the source might be, what the main issues were gonna be that we encountered, and also hooking us up with really good guides for the areas that we went to.
But I think o- you know, from an end-to-end perspective, they would never have, had never have done that end to end either.
I suppose they were going into a little bit of the unknown with you to, to an extent.
I asked a load of adventure travel companies on the ground back in 2017 if they'd be willing to support us.
Obviously, the vast majority said absolutely not, 'cause they did not wanna take responsibility for two, two foreigners getting themselves into trouble in a very remote part of the country and going through quite an insecure part of the country at that time.
I think the only company that actually got back to me with a yes maybe was an organization called Remote River Expeditions.
And yeah, they have a lot of experience on the Mangoky specifically, not necessarily doing something quite as ambitious as we were doing, but at least going to sections of it.
So they had people on the ground, they had guides, and we engaged in what ended up being a, what? A five-year email chain.
... because I first, I first suggested it to him in 2017, and we didn't end up-
So yeah, we, we had a kinda long history with them before we even got started, and I, I've gotta, I've gotta thank them because they were a real integral part of helping out with the suggestions of where the source might be, what the main issues were gonna be that we encountered, and also hooking us up with really good guides for the areas that we went to.
But I think o- you know, from an end-to-end perspective, they would never have, had never have done that end to end either.
I suppose they were going into a little bit of the unknown with you to, to an extent.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.