Leon McCarron
Leon McCarron (born 1986) is a Northern Irish adventurer and filmmaker.
He grew up in Articlave, Northern Ireland and attended Ballyhackett Primary School and Dalriada Grammar. He studied Film at the University of Kent, and subsequently set off on a 14,000 mile bicycle ride from New York City to Hong Kong. It took him 14 months to complete, and film footage from the journey was used in the cycling magazine show 'Better Than Four.' A book about this adventure will be published in summer 2014.
Upon finishing the ride, he immediately began planning the next adventure - joining Rob Lilwall on a 3000-mile walk across China. National Geographic Channel commissioned a 4-part series, and McCarron signed up as primary cameraman for the journey. Together, with no support crew, he and Lilwall completed the walk in just over 6 months, starting in Sainshand, Mongolia, crossing the Gobi Desert, walking along the Great Wall, down the Yellow River, through Xi'an in central China and finally finishing in Hong Kong on 26 May 2012. The TV series, Walking Home From Mongolia [1] premiered in Autumn 2013 on the Nat Geo Adventure Channel.
Since then, McCarron has also trekked 1000 miles through the Empty Quarter desert with adventurer Alastair Humphreys, using explorer and author Wilfred Thesiger as their inspiration. Together McCarron and Humpheys filmed the journey, and the resulting film, Into The Empty Quarter,[2] was premiered at the Royal Geographical Society in London in November 2013.[3]
McCarron now lives in London, and works as a motivational speaker and writer (contributing to publications such as the Sunday Times and the Guardian.) In the summer of 2013 he will take on a new UK-based expedition.