The Adventure Story Podcast: For lovers of Adventure, Archaeology, and Historical Mysteries.

About The Adventure Story Podcast: For lovers of Adventure, Archaeology, and Historical Mysteries.

Ever wonder really lies beneath the Great Sphinx? What secrets are hidden in Tesla’s lost notebooks? And seriously, where did they put the Ark of the Covenant? Hey, I’m Luke and spend my time writing adventure novels and daydreaming about ancient mysteries (Probably 30% writing, 70% daydreaming). The Adventure Story Podcast is my excuse to talk with the dreamers and the doers of adventure—those who craft epic quests from their laptops, and real-world explorers who laugh in the face of GPS. Plus, I'll share some of the misadventures that inspired my books and look back on some of the classic adventure stories we all know and love. Each episode is part Indiana Jones, part behind-the-scenes adventure novel, and part late-night conspiracy session—but with better jokes and less tin foil. *Disclaimer: This podcast is based on true events. Maybe. Possibly. Okay, probably not. But that's half the fun. For fictional international adventures, check out my books: https://www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/ I’m also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lukerichardsonauthor/ Or email: hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com

Publisher

Luke Richardson

Category

fiction · history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Jan 2025

Latest episode

12 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

46 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   12 Aug 2026

   2,000 Miles, Templars, Cathars and One Missing Alchemist: Our French Campervan Adventure(season 2 finale!)

   Two thousand miles, one campervan, and a trail of unanswered questions. For the final episode of the season, join Mrs R and I me as we retrace our recent camper van adventure — from Dover to the foot of Mont Blanc and back — and the stories we picked up along the way. We start in Normandy, at an abbey built on a tidal island that no army ever managed to take. Then south, to the mountain where two hundred people walked into the flames rather than say the words that would have saved them. We follow the Templars to the point where the trail simply stops, and nobody has ever picked it up again. We visit the village where an alchemist may or may not have hidden something in a chateau, and where a hotelier's tall tale grew, quietly and accidentally, into an entire genre of fiction. What struck me by the end wasn't any one of those stories. It was how close together they sit. You can drive between them in an afternoon, and often we did — parked up somewhere with the kettle on, ten minutes from a place where something genuinely strange happened eight hundred years ago. That's the thing about doing it in a van. History stops being something you visit and starts being something you're camped in the middle of. This also marks the final episode of season two. Thank you for coming along for the ride! We'll be back in a few months so make sure you're subscribed and signed up to the Adventure Society. The episode features lots of the settings in my upcoming book, the Alchemist's Codex. Check that out here. (https://geni.us/alchemistscodex) The Alchemist's Codex will be the eighth book in Eden's adventures, and this time she's heading to France. What if Notre-Dame's fire wasn't an accident? What if it was a ploy — a way to find something that's lain hidden beneath the cathedral for hundreds of years? That's where Eden's trail begins, in the shadow of Notre-Dame, chasing a secret someone was willing to burn a cathedral to reach. From there it winds through Renaissance châteaux and down into the Pyrénées. Eden and her crew pursue the ghost of Fulcanelli — the master alchemist who vanished without a trace and left behind only whispers of a lost codex. But they're not the only ones hunting for it. The man on the other side of the trail has reasons of his own — reasons that run a great deal deeper than gold. Some say Fulcanelli cracked the oldest secret of all, but Eden's about to find out whether the legend is worth dying for. Takeaways for today's episode: This episode of the Adventure Story podcast embarks on an extensive journey across France, exploring diverse historical sites. We delve into the intriguing tales of monks, Templar knights, and alchemists that enrich the narrative of our travels. Noteworthy is the discovery of an abbey built to house a sacred relic, a compelling story of faith and legend. The podcast reflects on the beauty of travel, emphasizing the unexpected experiences that emerge through exploration. Got a Story Idea? If you have a mystery, legend, or adventure you’d like me to explore, drop a comment or email me at hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com. I’d love to hear from you! Join the Adventure Society! Need more adventure in your life? (And let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) Join The Adventure Society, my weekly newsletter, where I share real-world explorations, book updates, and exclusive podcast insights. Sign up at: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/AdventureSociety (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com/adventuresociety) Get a Free Adventure Thriller! A missing Picasso... A master thief... A thrilling race against time! When a priceless Picasso disappears in Paris, legendary thief Bernard Moreau is the prime suspect. But as two unlikely allies—Eden Black and Adriana Villa—hunt him down, the chase turns deadly. It’s a race through the shadowed streets of Paris, where every twist is as unpredictable as the city itself. Grab your FREE COPY of The Paris Heist here: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/Paris (https://www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/paris) Love Adventure Stories? If you enjoyed today’s episode, you’ll love my books—fast-paced thrillers packed with action, history, and mystery. Check them out at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com) Thanks for tuning in! See you in the next episode of The Adventure Story Podcast. 🏆🎙

2. 

   5 Aug 2026

   Aviation Adventures with Nate Van Coops

   Picture this: you're flying your trusty Cessna above the crystal-clear waters of the Caribbean when the engine note changes in a way you know it shouldn't. That's the world Nate Van Coops writes from and lives in. Nate has spent 30 years in aviation as a commercial pilot, mechanic examiner, and certified flight instructor. He's poured all of it into the Archangel Aviation series, following former Black Hawk pilot Luke Angel through sun-soaked mysteries across coastal Florida, the Gulf, and the Bahamas. In this episode, Luke sits down with Nate to find out how real flying experience becomes gripping fiction and why aviation and adventure have always gone hand in hand. In This Episode, We Explore: From art school dropout to aviation author — Nate started flying lessons at 15, detoured toward fine art, then found his way back to the sky and eventually realized the smartest move was writing about the world he already knew. Putting the aircraft front and center — Rather than treating planes as a way to get characters from A to B, Nate makes flying itself the adventure — right down to the golden-age Grumman Mallard flying boat he casts as his hero's aircraft. Real airports, real risk — From setting scenes at St. Pete's actual Albert Whitted Airport to calculating exactly how far a plane could fly on its fuel tanks, Nate explains why he'd rather mess up almost anything else in a story before the aviation. The detective who happens to be a pilot — Luke Angel solves mysteries using aviation knowledge nobody else in the story has, but Nate deliberately made sure being a pilot isn't what makes him special, since everyone in his world is one too. Episode Timestamps: 02:33 - Early Aviation Spark 05:27 - Planes as Adventure 07:52 - Golden Age Flying Romance 10:16 - Vintage Flying Hands On 13:04 - Writing Authentic Aviation 17:55 - Building A Relatable Hero 21:15 - Accuracy Versus Drama 31:16 - Stories That Inspired Nate Links Referenced in This Episode: Nate's Instagram (https://instagram.com/nathanvancoops) Nate's Website (https://www.nathanvancoops.com/) Got a Story Idea? If you have a mystery, legend, or adventure you’d like me to explore, drop a comment or email me at hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com (mailto:hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com). I’d love to hear from you! Join the Adventure Society! Need more adventure in your life? (And let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) Join The Adventure Society, my weekly newsletter, where I share real-world explorations, book updates, and exclusive podcast insights. Sign up at: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/AdventureSociety (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com/adventuresociety) Get a Free Adventure Thriller! A missing Picasso... A master thief... A thrilling race against time! When a priceless Picasso disappears in Paris, legendary thief Bernard Moreau is the prime suspect. But as two unlikely allies—Eden Black and Adriana Villa—hunt him down, the chase turns deadly. It’s a race through the shadowed streets of Paris, where every twist is as unpredictable as the city itself. Grab your FREE COPY of The Paris Heist here: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/Paris (https://www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/paris) Love Adventure Stories? If you enjoyed today’s episode, you’ll love my books—fast-paced thrillers packed with action, history, and mystery. Check them out at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com/) Thanks for tuning in! See you in the next episode of The Adventure Story Podcast. 🏆🎙 Mentioned in this episode: Join us on the trail of the Knight's Templar www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/templartour For the first time ever, we're inviting you to join us on one of our adventures. And what better place to start than one of my favourite destinations… Portugal. But we’re not just going for the beaches and the wine, we’re following in the footsteps of one of history's most enigmatic organisations... the Knights Templar. We're going on the trail of the Templars in Portugal! Over five days and four nights, we'll guide you from the winding streets of Lisbon to the hilltop castle of Almourol, the sacred halls of Tomar's Convent of Christ, and the enchanting esoteric grottoes of Quinta da Regaleira—the very place that inspired my book The Templar Enigma. www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/templartour

3. 

   29 Jul 2026

   Pandora, Greece, and Paradise at the Edge of the World with James Richardson

   We all know the story: the first woman ever made lifted the lid on something she'd been told to leave alone, releasing sickness and sorrow and death into the world, and we've been paying for it ever since. It's the tidiest morality tale in the whole Greek canon, but almost every part of it is wrong. In today's episode I sit down with James Richardson (no relation!) to talk about the real story behind Pandora and her jar — that's right, it wasn't even a box — and why he found this myth so inspiring that it shaped his latest golden age archaeological thriller, The Olympus Vendetta. James has spent years retelling Greek mythology to his own sons, and he traces these stories back through Hesiod, the Bronze Age collapse and three thousand years of retellings. We cover what Pandora's myth actually says, where the Land of the Hesperides might really be, and why Heracles keeps solving his labours with his brain instead of his fists. Grab a copy of the Olympus Vendetta HERE (https://geni.us/olympusvendetta) Here's what it's all about: AN ANCIENT GREEK LEGEND. AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE. AN APOCALYPTIC WEAPON. December 1939. New York P.I. Jackson Raine thinks he's hunting kidnappers. He's wrong. A missing persons case drags him onto the trail of a secret stretching back to the dawn of civilization, and into the path of the Spanish Inquisition, returned from the shadows and allied with the Third Reich's elite occult division. Both are racing to find the Well of Sorrows — the real Pandora's Box — and the weapon sealed inside it. From a floating fortress to the caves of Greece to a long-lost island, Jack has to unlock the past before the gods take their vengeance. Perfect for fans of Indiana Jones, James Rollins and Andy McDermott. Grab a copy of the Olympus Vendetta HERE (https://geni.us/olympusvendetta) In This Episode, We Explore: The real Pandora myth — no box, no accident. Hesiod's original Greek describes a pithos, a massive storage jar, and Pandora herself was less a careless woman than a "beautiful evil" engineered by Zeus specifically to punish mankind. The Land of the Hesperides — the Greeks' mythical western paradise, guarded by a never-sleeping hundred-headed dragon and shifting location on the map as Greek sailors pushed further west — from the Atlas Mountains to the Canaries. Heracles, the thinking man's hero — how the "world's strongest man" solves most of his twelve labors through cunning rather than brute force, and the surprising family tie that links him directly to Pandora's bloodline. The Temple of Artemis as sanctuary — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, four times the size of the Parthenon, and a literal place of legal asylum where women fled persecution under a matriarchal religious order. Episode Timestamps: 03:41 - Zeus and Prometheus 06:22 - Hesperides Paradise 09:25 - Apples Atlantis Avalon 13:40 - Heracles and Myth Variants 17:44 - Pandora Lineage Link 22:18 - Temple of Artemis 27:33 - Pandora as Propaganda 32:42 - Childhood Myth Origins 36:58 - Olympus Vendetta Overview Links Referenced in This Episode: James' Website (https://jamesrichardsonauthor.com/) Got a Story Idea? If you have a mystery, legend, or adventure you’d like me to explore, drop a comment or email me at hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com (mailto:hello@lukerichardsonauthor.com). I’d love to hear from you! Join the Adventure Society! Need more adventure in your life? (And let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) Join The Adventure Society, my weekly newsletter, where I share real-world explorations, book updates, and exclusive podcast insights. Sign up at: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/AdventureSociety (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com/adventuresociety) Get a Free Adventure Thriller! A missing Picasso... A master thief... A thrilling race against time! When a priceless Picasso disappears in Paris, legendary thief Bernard Moreau is the prime suspect. But as two unlikely allies—Eden Black and Adriana Villa—hunt him down, the chase turns deadly. It’s a race through the shadowed streets of Paris, where every twist is as unpredictable as the city itself. Grab your FREE COPY of The Paris Heist here: LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/Paris (https://www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/paris) Love Adventure Stories? If you enjoyed today’s episode, you’ll love my books—fast-paced thrillers packed with action, history, and mystery. Check them out at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com (https://lukerichardsonauthor.com/) Thanks for tuning in! See you in the next episode of The Adventure Story Podcast. 🏆🎙 Mentioned in this episode: Join us on the trail of the Knight's Templar www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/templartour For the first time ever, we're inviting you to join us on one of our adventures. And what better place to start than one of my favourite destinations… Portugal. But we’re not just going for the beaches and the wine, we’re following in the footsteps of one of history's most enigmatic organisations... the Knights Templar. We're going on the trail of the Templars in Portugal! Over five days and four nights, we'll guide you from the winding streets of Lisbon to the hilltop castle of Almourol, the sacred halls of Tomar's Convent of Christ, and the enchanting esoteric grottoes of Quinta da Regaleira—the very place that inspired my book The Templar Enigma. www.lukerichardsonauthor.com/templartour

Who has been a guest on The Adventure Story Podcast: For lovers of Adventure, Archaeology, and Historical Mysteries.

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• James Richardson
• Nadine Slavinski
• Andrew Warren
• Rolf Potts
• Annie Sisson

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 38 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

63

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact The Adventure Story Podcast: For lovers of Adventure, Archaeology, and Historical Mysteries.

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Shows with a similar audience

• 

  The Ancients

• 

  Earth Ancients

• 

  Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhat

• 

  The Rest Is History

• 

  Making Sense with Sam Harris

• 

  Revisionist History

Questions about The Adventure Story Podcast: For lovers of Adventure, Archaeology, and Historical Mysteries.