Rickie is real. The other six writers are characters, like Explorer Tom, with lives that carry on from story to story. The places are real: every fact is checked and every source is listed under the story.
Rickie DohertyFounder of Discover Alone. Owner of ContactCentre.ie since 2014, founder of Dagmor. The real one.
Rickie started Discover Alone because the thing beside the famous place is usually the thing you remember. He enjoyed the Imperial War Museum, but it was Captain Bligh's plaque by his hotel that stayed with him, after watching Mutiny on the Bounty fifty times as a child, or at least it felt that way. He runs the map, hires the writers, and argues with all of them.
Latest: Tripadvisor is a money-hungry hotel advert pretending to be a travel guide (24 so far)
Niamh Gallagher24, from Derry. Cheap days, train rides and catching famous places showing off.
Saving for her first car, a second-hand Micra she's already named. Her sister Clodagh has never been past Letterkenny and thinks this is all a waste of money. Barney corrects her dates. She says she doesn't read his letters. Boyfriend Kyle, a Glasgow sound engineer, comes on trips for the chips. Kyle or Clodagh: whoever gets the passenger seat first wins.
Latest: Mizen Head is brilliant. The road beside it is the real day out. (25 so far)
Barney Quinlan71, retired history teacher from Kilkenny. Knows which century you're standing in, and will tell you.
Writing a book called Which Century Are You Standing In. Eleven publishers have said no; he keeps count. He still follows his late wife Nóra's old route notes. He and Gethin do not get on. Peggy from the bridge club keeps asking him to the Thursday dance. His daughter Siobhán rings from Boston every Sunday to ask if he's eating.
Latest: Stirling Castle needed a bridge. Scotland fought for both. (21 so far)
Shona MacLeod33, hill runner from Inverness. The route that links it all, in miles and minutes.
Training for the Ramsay Round: 24 Lochaber summits, about 58 miles, inside 24 hours. Every story adds to the log. Her mother would rather she settled down. Her girlfriend Kirsty is a night-shift nurse who doesn't run, won't run, and drives the support car with a flask and opinions.
Latest: Staffa and Fingal's Cave: one boat, two walks, the families who left (22 so far)
Ayo Okafor-Byrne45, folklorist from Dublin. Saints, giants, curses, cures, and the real stone they're pinned to.
Her Mayo granny left a notebook of folk stories with a page for every county, most of them empty. Ayo is filling them in, one place at a time. Her father rings after every trip with a Yoruba story to match. Declan drives a Dublin Bus all week and drives her at the weekend, with sandwiches. Their son Femi, 15, is mortified by all of it.
Latest: Holy islands and hermit cells at the sea's edge (22 so far)
Gethin Rees52, ex-tabloid sub-editor from Cardiff. The famous story that's wrong, and the better one next door.
Left a national tabloid after a front page he got wrong. He won't say which. Now he only prints what he can prove, and enjoys catching other people out a bit too much. Divorced, on decent terms. His daughter Megan, 19, studies journalism in Bristol, fact-checks him, and is usually right.
Latest: Merthyr's grand fake castle and the real one up the hill (26 so far)
Maggie Brennan38, mother of three from Cork. Can a family actually do this, and in what order.
Three kids and a husband who says he knows the way. Cian (11) scores every trip out of ten, badly. Aoife (8) takes one stone from every car park. Rory (3) falls asleep at the best bit. Dave drives and gets lost and calls it the scenic route. Her mother Bridie minds the kids on night shifts. Maggie works nights on the same ward as Shona's Kirsty.
Latest: Tresco with kids: the garden, three forts and the boat bill (29 so far)
Terry Marsh64, London cabbie from Bermondsey. Passed the Knowledge in 1986. Knows the street behind the famous one.
Retiring from the cab next year and dreading it. His wife Sandra wants to sell up and move to Spain. He has never willingly been north of Watford. His grandson Kai, 13, films him for a YouTube channel Terry pretends to hate.
Latest: Camden Market is the noisy bit. Follow the horses, boats and trains beside it. (16 so far)
Callum Reid41, ex-soldier from Glasgow, wild camper. Scotland's castles, glens and bothies, and where it's safe to go.
Left the army after twenty years. Restoring a bothy in Glen Affric by hand. Sees his teenage daughter Isla every second weekend; she thinks he's boring.
Latest: Edinburgh beaches: from Joppa to Cramond without chasing ten map pins (13 so far)
Dai Morgan67, retired miner from the Rhondda, choir tenor. Wales, its castles and chapels, and what the names mean.
Widower. His male voice choir is down to eleven men. His grandson Rhys, 16, only talks to him about rugby.
Latest: Top 10 waterfalls in and around Sir Gaerfyrddin / Carmarthenshire (12 so far)
Bríd Ní Fhlaithearta58, runs a B&B in Connemara, Irish speaker, sea swimmer. The west, the islands, and the Irish names.
Her husband Pádraig does the breakfasts, badly. Her son Cathal is in Sydney and won't come home. The guests are a running joke.
Latest: Top 10 holy wells in County Offaly, with a road order that works (11 so far)
Priya Sharma29, junior doctor in Leicester. One day off, one trip, her mum in the passenger seat.
Works nights. Her mum Asha comes on every trip and rates the cafes, not the castles. Her mum wants her married. Priya wants a nap.
Latest: Six old post boxes across west Cornwall, and one painted gold (12 so far)
Ellie Hartley46, birdwatcher from the Yorkshire Dales. Walks, woods and beaches, and whether dogs are allowed.
Her springer spaniel Biscuit has never once done what he's told. Divorced; her ex kept the caravan.
Latest: Top 10 beaches in Cornwall, according to Biscuit's shorter legs (12 so far)
The noticeboard
Letters to the desk. We print them all. We regret most of them.
A cabbie reviewing my Tower piece. Marvellous. I look forward to him charging the reader for the waiting time.
Terry Marsh, reporting for duty. Forty years on the Knowledge and nobody ever asked me to write it down. First piece is the Tower, which I see Gethin's already done, so I'll do the bits he walked past. Kai says I need a 'brand'. I've got a cab. That's the brand.
Tell Cian a 3 out of 10 from an eleven year old is a rave review. I'll take it.
Cian has scored Blarney Castle 2 out of 10 and we haven't left Cork. Aoife wants a stone from the car park. Rory is asleep already, which is a record, we're still in the driveway. Dave says he knows the way. Pray for us.
Barney was right about the chapel. Don't tell him I said that.
Peggy from the bridge club asked again about Thursday. I have told her I am in the twelfth century until further notice. Siobhán in Boston says I should go. Siobhán also says she enjoyed Mr Rees's Causeway piece. I have nothing further to add.
My daughter Megan has read the Causeway piece and wants to know my source for 'just under 60 million years'. The National Trust, love. She says she'll check. She will, too.
No comment.
Mr Rees is welcome to his glaciers. Some of us were taught to check our facts before printing them. I believe he was taught it too, eventually, and at some cost.
Lads. Two grown men writing letters about glaciers. Barney, file the Cashel piece. Gethin, leave him alone till he does. Both of you, back to work.
Barney has been at the Rock of Cashel for three weeks. I've known glaciers file faster. I'm told he's 'checking the twelfth century'. Somebody tell him it's finished.
Tell your granny's notebook that the Irish for holy well is tobar beannaithe. And tell Femi I'll take him for a swim off the pier in Roundstone any day he likes. He won't like.
Small world. Kirsty on my ward says Shona did hill reps in the dark on Tuesday and came home with one shoe. I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying.
Dai Morgan, Treorchy. I see we have another Welshman. Gethin, Cardiff isn't Wales, it's a train station with a castle in it. Looking forward to working with you, bach.
Eight miles twice, Callum. Read it again. And it was a training log, not a dare.
Kyle asked if Hadrian's Wall was 'the one from Game of Thrones'. I said no. Shona said, technically, a bit. Car fund £1,388. Clodagh says I'll never get it. Watch me.
Saw your Hadrian's Wall piece. Eight miles is a warm-up. Glen Affric when you're ready.
Five new faces this week. Callum for Scotland, Dai for Wales, Bríd for the west, Priya and Ellie for England. Same rule as always. Nobody writes about the famous place on its own.
Kirsty says if I write 'Kirsty drove the support car' one more time without saying she also made the soup, she's stopping the soup. Kirsty made the soup.
Training log: Steel Rigg circuit twice, back to back. 8 miles, 520 metres up, one stile argued with. Ramsay Round is 58 miles and 8,600 metres. So I'm one fifteenth of the way there, if you count generously. Mum asked if I'd met anyone nice. I met Milecastle 39.
Granny's notebook has a page for Wicklow with only one word on it: 'deer'. I know why now. One page filled, twenty-five to go in the Republic alone. My father rang to tell me about a Yoruba hunter who spared a doe and was paid in luck for the rest of his life. He says Kevin got off lightly with milk.
Edinburgh cost me £31.40 including the train and a scone I regret. Car fund now £1,212. Tell Barney I didn't read his letter. Also tell him David I, fine, whatever.
Miss Gallagher's Edinburgh piece calls St Margaret's Chapel Margaret's. Her son David I built it, around 1130, nearly forty years after she died. A small point. History is made of small points. I enclose no stamp for a reply because I expect none.
Welcome to the newsroom. One rule. Nobody writes about the famous place on its own. Everyone already knows it's there. Tell them what's beside it.