Jonathan Hanson grew up northeast of Tucson, Arizona, with Sabino and Bear Canyons as his backyard, providing him with years of desert expeditions, hunting like the Apaches and building wickiups (which failed spectacularly).
He has since written for a score of outdoor and adventure magazines including Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Nature Conservancy, and Global Adventure, and has authored a dozen books on subjects including natural history, sea kayaking, wildlife tracking, and expedition travel.
Jonathan’s exploration experience encompasses land- and sea-scapes on six continents, from the Atacama Desert to the Beaufort Sea, from the Rift Valley to the Australian Outback, and modes of transportation from sea kayaks to sailboats to bicycles to Land Cruisers.
He has traveled among and worked with cultures as diverse as the Seri Indians and the Himba, the Inuit and the Maasai. Jonathan has taught tracking, natural history writing, four-wheel-driving techniques, and other subjects for many conservation and government organizations.
He is an elected fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, and a charter member of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and lives in Southern Arizona with his wife of 37 years, Roseann Beggy Hanson.
You can follow Jonathan’s Overland Tech and Travel blog and order signed books at ExploringOverland.com.
Author photo by Gary Haynes
A training with game scouts in Kenya’s Olkiramatian Maasai community, South Rift, 2010.
My first sea kayak, a Pacific Watersports Sea Otter, ca. 1986.
Pretty much the model for Clayton T. Porter’s Land Cruiser pickup, as photographed in Nairobi in 2010.
Heading into Seri country, Sonora, Mexico, 1994, with my 1973 Land Cruiser FJ40 (which I purchased in 1978).
In Tuktoyaktuk, Nunavut, Canada, getting ready to strap the boats to a float plane and return to Inuvik, after having paddled with my wife, Roseann, down the MacKenzie River to the Arctic Ocean (1993)