Unplugged Newsletter

Unplugged is a newsletter about outdoor and nature writing, photography, and analogue counterculture in adventure. Presented by professional writer and editor Alex Roddie.

What we believe in:

A more intentional life through quieter adventure. Slow, positive, real; analogue and a bit digital, or digital and a bit analogue, you decide. Writing with a pen, photography on film, nature, art, stories, poetry, people. Real life, not FOMO. Unmediated experience. Creativity and culture, not clicks and consumerism. Ever so slightly political. Human values, not machine values.

Only by disconnecting, by seeking silence and wonder, can we truly know ourselves and understand our place in the natural world. But community and conversation are an essential part of that too! So how do we find that community, share our perspectives, without losing our own distinctive voice in the online crowd? How can we use adventure to retain our humanity in a technological and economic environment that wants to strip it from us?

As editor of Sidetracked magazine, contributing editor and writer to others, and an author of non-fiction outdoor and travel books, Alex is well positioned to ponder these questions and more. In an increasingly digital world, Unplugged aims to break down barriers between genres and provide a conversation space for how we communicate the true value of adventure. And – here’s the important bit – whether we can do better.

Browse the Unplugged archive here.

Unplugged is cross-posted on alexroddie.substack.com. Please feel free to subscribe on the platform that works for you. This is an ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication.