Adventure always! Hackney Tours has been up to the North following Ermine Street to its Roman conclusion; nightwalking in Kent on the trail of Dickens with Inspiral London; wild camping to report on shipping movements and smuggling history as part of the Lookers Watchers art project and following the trail of the shipping containers that bring 90% of our things to us (at Container Cult).

And of course, remembering 1968, reading up on Situationism and the events of Paris in May of that year as part of the long term project to find the metaphorical beach. And generally dabbling in everyday adventure and psychogeography.

Some of this will bear fruit at the forthcoming Stoke Newington Literary Festival, but there are free adventures coming up before then:

Sat 5^th May sees a daytrip to the Margate Bookie literary festival in Hackney Tours’ experimental guise of Half Day Holidays  (book here). It’s 50 years since the tumultuous year of 1968: year of student revolutions; worker strikes; Soviet invasions and American war. Under the guise of Half Day Holidays, we’ll be recreating the charabanc to the seaside experience while also exploring the Dérive, a kind of self-guided way to clear your head of all the rubbish that we are surrounded by and discover what’s really important. Let’s look Sous les Pavés for that metaphorical beach?

If you want to know more, just look up Dérive and Guy Debord. Most importantly, it’ll be fun. There’ll be an included art session with Lookers Watchers too, a chance to explore our maritime history and connection to the sea. Just pay your train fare, and any sessions you want to book with the Margate Bookie (nobody will mind if you want to nip off to enjoy the fantastic authors and literary events at extremely reasonable prices).

Sat 21^st or Sun 22^nd July will be a council walk on the marshes looking at the tremendous biodiversity there and also a little local history. It’ll be announced shortly on the Hackney council page here and of course I’ll flag it on the Hackney Tours social media so please stay tuned.