Max Leonard on the secret geography of cities

In this episode of RGS Presents: The Future of Exploration, urban exploration pioneer Max Leonard challenges our ideas about where exploration happens, who gets to do it, and what discovery can mean in a world that has already been mapped and photographed from almost every angle.

From forgotten railway tunnels and abandoned power stations to hidden infrastructure beneath our cities, Max reveals the extraordinary worlds that exist in places we pass every day. He argues that exploration doesn’t mean travelling further or climbing higher, it simply means looking differently.

The conversation  also raises difficult questions. Who owns these spaces? Who has the right to explore them? Can trespassing ever create public value? And when does documenting a hidden place help preserve it or put it at risk?

For Max, urban exploration is ultimately about curiosity and imagination, seeing familiar places in new ways and asking what remains hidden in a world that can seem completely known. At a time when so much of our planet is mapped, monitored and documented, this episode asks whether exploration is really running out of places to go, or whether we simply need to learn how to look more closely.