Peter John Watson

Peter John Watson (born 1984) is a British adventurer and writer. He has climbed four of the Seven Summits, the highest Mountain of each of the seven Continent. He has authored travel guidebooks, contributed to several travel anthologies and written for The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph, The Independent, BBC Travel, I (newspaper)|The i and National Geographic among other publications.
== Ascents and expeditions ==
=== Seven Summits ===
So far, Watson has climbed four of the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on every continent. 
* Mount Kilimanjaro, 5,895m, the highest African mountains (2010)
* Mount Elbrus, 5,642m, the highest and List of European ultra-prominent peaks (2017)
* Mount Kosciuszko, 2,228m, mainland Australia (continent) (2018)
* Aconcagua, 6,961m, the List of highest mountains on Earth in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in both the Southern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphers (2020)
Watson still plans to climb Denali in North America, Vinson Massif in Antarctica and Mount Everest in Asia. He has stated that he also intends to climb Puncak Jaya in Indonesia to complete the two separate versions of the Seven Summits lists, the first of which restricts Oceania to Australia, while the second includes the islands of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
=== Yorkshire Dales Challenge ===
Watson was planning to climb Denali in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down travel and he was forced to put the expedition on hold. Instead, he turned his attention to a series of smaller mountains closer to home and climbed the 41 mountains of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, which he described as "micro-mountains". He completed his challenge in October 2020, naming it the "YDNP 41" after the name of the national park and the number of peaks he summited in the process.
The feat was reported by a number of publications including The Yorkshire Post, Darlington & Stockton Times, This Is Y Magazine, Living Magazine and Wired for Adventure Magazine.
=== Climbing Everest from home ===
During the UK's first lockdown in 2020, the Daily Telegraph reported that "British mountaineer Peter Watson is attempting to climb the highest mountains on each continent using only his staircase. He’s calculated he will need to climb 44,240 steps to scale the 8,848m height of Everest". Watson had written of his plans to climb Everest from his home by using his staircase on his blog before the feat was emulated by a number of other would-be climbers around the UK.
=== Arctic Rescue ===
In 2019, Watson was on a solo expedition trekking the 165km (103 mile) Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland when he was caught in a freak wildfire in the Innajuattoq valley when an "unprecedented" number of wildfires broke out across Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. After attempting to climb out of the valley, he was forced to call for an emergency evacuation. Watson was interviewed about the experience by Anna Derrig for the The Guardian newspaper and also wrote about the ordeal for American travel publisher Fodor's and British outdoor guidebook publisher Cicerone Press.
== Writing and photography ==
Watson has contributed writing and photography to a range of publications including The Telegraph, BBC Travel, The Independent, the i (newspaper), Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Cicerone Guides, The Guardian, Fodor's, Wanderlust (magazine)|Wanderlust, Business Insider, Matador Network, Rough Guides, Outside (magazine)|Outside Magazine and Atlas Obscura among others. 
Watson has also written and contributed to several books including Outdoor Europe, Hike, Unforgettable Journeys Europe, Run and Europe by Train published by DK (publisher)|DK Eyewitness, as well as Lonely Planet's Ultimate United Kingdom Travelist and Best In Travel series. He is currently working on his debut novel. 
In 2014, Watson founded the award-winning outdoor travel blog Atlas & Boots, which has been named best blog of the month by National Geographic, the Best Outdoor Travel Blog in the 2020 and 2021 Travel & Tourism Awards, and Outdoor Travel Blog of the Year 2022 by SME News. The blog is now read by over 250,000 people a month. Watson is an ambassador for international hiking company, Highlander Adventure. In 2022, Watson visited the remote region of Svaneti in Georgia (country)|Georgia to take part in the inaugural Highlander Svaneti trek.
In 2017, Watson shot all the inset photography for the Brick Lane Cookbook by food writer Dina Begum.
Watson is a staunch advocate for spending time in nature and the outdoors and encourages others to make use of their local outdoor spaces by setting themselves "microchallenges".
== Personal life ==
Watson is in a relationship with British author Kia Abdullah. Between his travels for Atlas & Boots, he resides in Richmond, North Yorkshire. In 2016, Peter and Kia were interviewed by Claudia-Liza Vanderpuije on London Live (TV channel).
Category:1984 births
Category:British explorers
Category:British writers