Welcome to Far From.
In another time, you wouldn’t have clicked on my 'about' page.
We might have got chatting through a Gauloises haze in a Marrakesh café. Perhaps I would have given you my copy of The Sheltering Sky, with the phone number of a Bedouin desert guide written in pencil on the inside cover. Heaven knows, I would like that.
I believe the journey is a gift—yet as its gotten easier, its gotten shallower. Guided by great writers, artists, and thinkers, I look for ways to keep a sense of wonderment alive in the digital age.
I travel hopefully, taking deep dives into wild places where I can learn, unlearn—be astonished—and tell about it. I’m drawn to the slow, the atmospheric, and the true—as attentive to the inner journey as the outer one.
Hut to hut in the Alps. Under the stars in the Sahara. Alone in a cabin in Nevada. At the mercy of the tides on a Scottish Island. Far From has escapism of the best possible kind—into wild places, where the phones go quiet and nature can bestow its gifts upon us.
I’d like you to think of Far From as a quiet café where we share—places, books, ideas and a sense of what travel can still be. I'm not interested in collecting destinations. I share only what I believe is worthy of your attention.
I love to hear when you visited a place I mentioned, read a book I pressed into your palm, or escaped to a cabin because of something I shared.
— Nicholas Holt
PS. If this resonates, I’d love for you to join my community on Substack. Far From is 100% human, AI-free and works best as a newsletter.
THE NEWSLETTER
Join me in the search for wild places, far from crowds and digital noise.
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ABOUT NICHOLAS HOLT
I’m a writer, photographer and creative director focused on journeys, people and place.
I’m drawn to places with integrity and where old-world quiet still lingers — the atmospheric hotel, the secluded lodge, and the end-of-the-road feeling.
I value a bang-on bowl of beans in a medina as much as fine dining. I love simplicity and embrace luxury, if the atmosphere is right.
I feel most alive in wild landscapes — where I can feel, learn and unlearn — hosted or guided by those who understand the land.
I hold an MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism. My photography has been recognised by the Sony World Photography Awards, Les Rencontres d'Arles Open Walls. I was also the recipient of the Royal Photographic Society Environmental Bursary 2023/24.
My writing and photography has been featured in publications including SUITCASE, Geographical, The Royal Photographic Society Journal, Bradt Guides, JRNY, Dark Mountain,and Echtrai Journal.
Formerly, I worked at the Wunderman and Ogilvy agencies crafting campaigns for clients including: Land Rover, Etihad, Great Rail Journeys, Bupa, Visit England and Incredible India.
Delve deeper into my writing practice with this interview. More on my art photography practice on my artist profile and portfolio here. Or my Groundwork Gallery artist profile here.
COMMERCIAL STUDIO
For commercial commissions, creative direction, and narrative strategy, visit Nicholas Holt Studio. I work with travel and hospitality brands to articulate their positioning through world-class visual and written assets.
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words… I fear the disease is incurable.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
A few of my favourite posts: Baptism of Solitude, Led by A Book to the Edge of the World, The Montello Cabin, and Tibet’s Forgotten Kingdom.
