Adventure Series: Tracks: Alone Across The Outback

Word got to National Geographic magazine that a 26-year-old woman named Robyn Davidson was planning a 1700-mile walk across the Australian outback with three camels and no outside support. The magazine sent photojournalist Rick Smolan to interview her. Initially she blew him off, but he persisted and eventually earned her trust—and the invitation to join her a few times along the way. Shot over nine months, these images would become an unforgettable National Geographic cover story and subject of the award-winning feature film TRACKS. Rick Smolan is a New York Times bestselling author with over five million books in print. The actor Adam Driver portrayed him in the award-winning movie TRACKS, based on his National Geographic cover story about Robyn Davidson’s 1700-mile camel trek across the Australian outback. A TIME, Life, and National Geographic photographer, Rick created the “Day in the Life” book series, which featured the world’s leading photographers and combined storytelling with state-of-the-art technology. The Good Fight: America’s Ongoing Struggle for Justice was chosen by TED as the official book club selection and will become a TV series. Natasha’s Story, his TED talk about an 11-year-old child left to him in a dying Korean woman’s will, has been watched by over 1.4 million people. Oprah Winfrey featured Rick’s AMERICA 24/7 book on her “Favorite Things” program and Fortune describes Smolan’s Against All Odds Productions as "One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America.” In 2023, Rick was awarded the “Ellis Island Medal of Honor” presented to individuals who “embody the spirit of American patriotism, tolerance, brotherhood and diversity.” Rick’s latest undertaking is a dramatic TV series based on famed Science fiction author Robert Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky, in partnership with Miles Dale, Oscar-winning producer of The Shape of Water and the producer of Guillermo del Toro’s films.