Matt Doyle
Title: Co-founder, senior editor and writer
Areas of expertise
Hiking, trekking, mountaineering, planning and preparation, world travel.
Skills I bring to the table
Photography, videography, writing, editing, creative direction.
Background
Photography has been my passion since I was a teenager. I studied photography in university and every job I’ve ever had has somehow been linked to photography. Before This Expansive Adventure, I worked as a printer in traditional darkrooms; Managed archive scanning projects in a museum; Assisted on advertising shoots, ran a successful production and post-production studio and worked in press and pre press. All the skills and experience I built up through this have bene channelled into what I do at This Expansive Adventure.
What I write about
Naturally a little geeky, I specialize in writing reviews on more tech focused products and high altitude, mountaineering and alpine products as this is where I spend most of my time outdoors. I also focus on writing specialist travel guides and hiking guides and contribute strongly when it comes to high altitude routes.
Living in the mountains and traveling through the year to a high percentage of adventure focused destinations means that the travel and hiking guides and gear reviews I work on come from in the field experience.
About me
I always thought of myself as a city person: until recently, I had never not lived in a big city. However, whilst I’d never really describe myself as sporty or athletic, the outdoors has also always been very important to me. My parents and relatives would take me out on long hikes from a very early age and as an adult, I would use long-distance cycling as a way to wind-down from the stresses of work.
Around 2015, I started travelling regularly and seeing, amongst other things, high mountains, glaciers and deserts for the first time really woke something up inside of me. The desire to start what would become This Expansive Adventure came at the same time as we struggled to find resources that were generally useful for novice hikers.
Today, I’ve settled on the Lake District in the UK as my home for the time being whilst still traveling extensively throughout the year. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel fortunate to be able to spend time in the outdoors for my living!
Why I care about what I do
Time spent outdoors has positively impacted my health both physically and mentally. I strongly believe that there are beneficial effects to time spent in nature for everyone. This is one of the reasons why I care so deeply about everything we do at This Expansive Adventure.
I believe strongly that the outdoors should be for everyone and that regardless of your ability, fitness and budget, that there’s some way you can enjoy nature and this belief underpins everything that I write.
