To me exploration isn't about conquering natural obstacles, planting flags...It's not about going where no one's gone before in order to leave your mark, but about the opposite of that...about making yourself vulnerable, opening yourself up to whatever's there and letting the place leave its mark on you.

We are all explorers...it's part of what makes us human. You don't need to be a professional, like me, hacking through a jungle or listening to the tales of a remote tribe. We all explore, whether working as dealers in the Stock Exchange, or hunting as nomads in the heart of Borneo. And whether we gather what we discover into books, computer files or just memories, these are perhaps our most precious resource. These are our archives; our past and our future. As valuable as any fossil fuel or mineral, they help us mark where we are in space and time.

• Scientific expedition to a volcano in Costa Rica
• Scientific expedition to a remote forest in Brunei
• Scientific expedition to a glacier in Iceland (leader)
• Crossing North East Amazonia (1985)

600 miles on foot and by dug out canoe (Mad White Giant)

• West Papua and Papua New Guinea

Flight from the Obini community in Irian Jaya. Participation in the "Niowra", a male initiation ceremony (Into the Crocodile’s Nest)

• Siberut and Sumatra

An investigation into the "Orang pendek" ape man, via the Mentawai of Siberut and the Kubu of Sumatra (Hunting the Gugu)

• Crossing the Central Mountain Range of New Guinea and the Torres Strait to Australia

‘First contact’ with the uncontacted Yaifo community in New Guinea. (The Proving Grounds)

• Crossing the Amazon basin at its widest point

1,200 miles from the Andes of Ecuador, through the lowland jungle to Mato Grosso in Brazil, helped by the skills of the Matses Indians (Through Jaguar Eyes)

• Cocha Brava

In search of the Wild tigers (ducks of the Lost Lake)

• Walking the Namib Desert (1995)

Three and a half month journey in extreme conditions, with three reluctant camels. Learning from the nomadic Himba tribe to survive with little nourishment or water and to work with, not against, the forces of the desert (The Skeleton Coast)

• Crossing the steppe and Gobi desert

Five and a half month 3,000 mile trek by piggyback and camel through Siberian drylands, Mongolian steppe and across the Gobi desert (The Edge of Blue Heaven)

• In Mato Grosso

Investigating the Kalapalo Mexicans’ story of the disappearance of Colonel Fawcett (The Bones of Colonel Fawcett)

• Attempted crossing of the Bering Straits

Working with a wayward dog team to travel 2500 miles through Chukchi and Inuit communities and beyond (Ice Dogs)

• Visiting spiritual healers of the world

Voodoo witchdoctors in Haiti, the Mentawai in Indonesia, the Huichol of Mexico and shamans in Siberia (Last of the Medicine Men)

As author

• Mad White Giant (1985, published in America as Who Goes Out in the Midday Sun?
• Into the Crocodile’s Nest: Journey Inside New Guinea (1987)
• Hunting the Gugu: In Search of the Lost Ape-Men of Sumatra (1989)
• The Proving Grounds: A Journey Through the Interior of New Guinea and Australia (1991)
• Through Jaguar Eyes: Crossing the Amazon Basin (1994)
• The Skeleton Coast (1997)
• The Edge of Blue Heaven (1998)
• Last of the Medicine Men~ (2000)
• Into the Abyss (2006)

As contributor

• More Great Railway Journeys (1996)

As editor

• The Faber Book of Exploration: An Anthology of Worlds Revealed by Explorers Through the Ages (2002)

• The Skeleton Coast (BBC, 1997)
• The Edge of Blue Heaven (BBC, 1998)
• The Bones of Colonel Fawcett (BBC,1999)
• Last of the Medicine Men (BBC, 1999)
• Ice Dogs (BBC, 2002)
• Travellers' Century (BBC, 2008)
• Unbreakable

Other TV appearances

• The Raiders of the Lost Lake (video diary)

A voyage through the Brazilian Amazon to reveal the secrets of the Cocha Brava (Wild Lake), home to the giant monster snake - which no white man has ever seen.

• Great Railway Journeys: Mombasa to the Mountains of the Moon (1996, BBC)

Through Kenya to Uganda. An account of contemporary life in East Africa.

• We Need Answers, 25 February 2010, A British comedy panel show broadcast on BBC 4.

• On his adventures, Allen considers the primary threat to come from humans, usually non-native. He has never been attacked by a wild animal.
• On his first journey, he was attacked by gold miners and was left without food or possessions. Eventually, Allen had to eat his own dog.
• Allen is the only non-tribe member to have undergone a six week Niowra initiation ceremony on the Sepik, Papua New Guinea. It was designed to make boys into men “as strong as a crocodile”. He has crocodile markings on his back and chest from the sacred ceremony.
• Allen funded his crossing of the Amazon Basin by working in a warehouse. His eight month 3,600 mile crossing was accomplished without the aid of a map or compass
• In Colombia, he escaped from what he believed to be armed drug barons. They tried to pursue him, using the butt of a rifle to paddle. On the same trip, his guides abandoned him, taking his supplies with them.
• In The Skeleton Coast, Allen had to train three camels to help him cross the desert. This was to become his favourite travel memory, “Emerging out of the Namib Desert with my three camels - led by the heroic old camel Nelson. I'd been alone more-or-less for six weeks. I was so proud of my camels, who had become more like professional colleagues than working animals. Nelson hated sanddunes - and the sea, and elephants, and women! Gradually he overcame his fears and helped get me safely out of the desert.”
• In The Edge of Blue Heaven, Allen crossed 1000 miles of the Gobi desert alone
• His attempted crossing of the Bering Straits coincided with the worst winter in living memory.
• During his stay with the Mentawai of Siberut, Indonesia, Allen was offered and received a tattoo on his right leg. A blunt safety pin is used for the decorative tattooing, which the Mentawai believe to reflect the beauty of the spirits around and within them.
• In the Arctic, he lost his dog team. This would have meant certain death if he hadn’t found them after only one night, which he had spent sheltering in a snow hole.