Episode 4 – Make Your Future Bigger: Richard Waters on Wild Swimming and Life with Parkinson’s

Rich Waters has written travel guides for the most remote corners of the world, freedived with sperm whales, and investigated allegations of genocide in Laos’ Forbidden Zone. He’s also lived with Parkinson’s for 16 years, and this episode is about what happened when he stopped putting the diagnosis in the bin and started writing about it instead.

In this conversation, Maria and Vicky sit down with Richard Waters, international award-winning travel writer and Sunday Times bestselling author, to talk about his book Swimming with the Viking of Skye. Part memoir, part adventure, part self-help, it tells the story of how cold water swimming in the lochs and freezing pools of Skye helped him find a way to live well with Parkinson’s. Rich talks with remarkable honesty about the early years, the isolation, the difficulty of keeping going with a demanding career, and the unexpected detour into ghost writing that took him somewhere better.

He also opens up about something the book tackles head-on: the impulsive behaviours that can be linked to Parkinson’s and its medication, and the very personal lessons he’s drawn from them. And woven through the whole conversation is a hard-won philosophy: make your future bigger, don’t put things off, and know who is batting for you. Oh, and he’s awaiting a software update for his deep brain stimulation device. If ever there was a reason to stay hopeful, that is it.

About Our Guests

Richard Waters is an international award-winning travel writer and co-author of three Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling books. His work appears in Wanderlust, Elle, National Geographic Traveller, the Sunday Times, Coast, Telegraph, Independent, Observer and the Financial Times. He has special interests in wildlife, which has taken him to wild places like Laos in search of tigers, and Kodiak Island, Alaska, to find the world’s largest wild bear.

For fifteen years Richard wrote travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet, specialising in out-of-the-way places like Borneo, Malawi, Laos, Cambodia and Transylvania. A keen amateur boxer, surfer and wild swimmer, at forty-one he developed Parkinson’s Disease, which has led him to write more about mental health and wellbeing. He has worked on books with Tyson Fury, Adam Peaty and Ollie Ollerton. He recently published Swimming with the Viking of Skye (Quarto Press), an account of how cold water swimming in the lochs and freezing pools of Skye helped him control his Parkinson’s. The book was chosen by the Mail as the second best self-help book of 2025.

Richard’s career highlights include freediving with endangered sperm whales in Dominica, and being one of the first journalists to enter and escape Laos’ Forbidden Zone, investigating allegations of genocide.

Useful Links & Resources

Richard Waters on LinkedIn — Connect with Richard and follow his work
Richard Waters on BookHype — Find all of Richard’s books
Richard Waters on Goodreads — Read reviews and find Richard’s titles
Swimming with the Viking of Skye — Available in bookshops, on Amazon and on Audible
The Dopamine Dunkers — The cold water swimming community for people with Parkinson’s mentioned in this episode
Parkinson’s UK — Support and information for everyone affected by Parkinson’s

Timecodes

0:39 — Maria and Vicky catch up: Maria’s training run and the Cardiff Half Marathon for Parkinson’s UK
1:46 — Vicky: just back from the World Parkinson’s Congress in Phoenix
2:16 — What made the Congress so special: research, community and coming home as a family
3:08 — Introducing today’s guest: Richard Waters and Swimming with the Viking of Skye
5:03 — Maria welcomes Rich to the podcast
5:04 — Chocolate bar question: Galaxy bar, smooth as silk
5:28 — The book: Swimming with the Viking of Skye
6:00 — More than swimming: it’s about Parkinson’s and navigating life
6:41 — The initial diagnosis: 16 years ago, relatively young and healthy
7:05 — Putting the diagnosis letter in the bin and carrying on
7:40 — Vicky: young onset, responsibilities and the pressure to keep going
8:24 — Rich’s experience at a local Parkinson’s meeting: feeling like a different tribe
10:14 — Maria: finding your tribe is one of the hardest things with young onset
10:45 — Rich: feeling isolated and introverted
11:00 — Carrying on: travel writing for Lonely Planet in the arse end of nowhere
11:54 — What the job was really like with Parkinson’s: heat, exhaustion and nearly fainting in Borneo
12:50 — Adapting: still travel writing, but differently
13:01 — Freediving with sperm whales; next goal: snorkelling with killer whales in Arctic Norway
13:20 — The importance of having something to look forward to with Parkinson’s
13:52 — Vicky: the flip side of Parkinson’s, recognising how precious life is
14:08 — Accepting the diagnosis: testing the water with friends
14:29 — The first friend he told burst into tears
14:50 — Rich’s daughter’s degenerative disease; dealing with two diagnoses at once
16:14 — Ghost writing begins; Stand Up Straight becomes a Sunday Times bestseller
16:31 — Three Sunday Times bestsellers in a row
17:00 — Rich: the personal satisfaction, not the kudos
17:08 — First taste of wild swimming in Scotland; meeting Matt Rhodes, the Viking of Skye
17:40 — Maria: tell us about cold water swimming and your Parkinson’s symptoms
17:53 — Rich describes Skye: the mists, the Vikings, the Marble Pools
19:12 — A DNA surprise: predominantly Viking ancestry and a deep connection to Skye
20:55 — Vicky: did your symptoms actually improve in cold water?
20:59 — Rich: temporary relief, a sense of goodness, and room for positivity
21:21 — Maria: cold water swimming as a thinking modality
22:00 — The vagus nerve tingle after cold water swimming
22:14 — Maria: the Dopamine Dunkers swimming group for Parkinson’s
23:07 — Vicky: a 3-degree ice bath and a dopamine increase of 250% for four hours
24:02 — Maria: did cold water improve tremor, or was it more about mood?
24:18 — Rich: it helped mood more than movement, but mood is everything
25:08 — Maria: apathy and low mood as the biggest barriers to exercise
25:44 — Rich watches Vicky’s keep fit classes and gets exhausted just looking
26:17 — Maria: different neural pathways explain why swimming can feel easier than walking
27:07 — Rich: there is so much still to learn about this disease
27:18 — Vicky: the double-edged sword of looking well when you’re not
28:11 — Rich: apathy is the hardest part; learning the difference between yourself and the disease
28:40 — Rich: impulsive behaviour linked to Parkinson’s and medication
30:13 — Maria: a client whose gambling spiralled during marathon training
31:44 — Vicky: credit card debt, job losses and the range of impulsive behaviours
31:56 — Rich: the impact on those closest to you; sharing lessons through the book
32:15 — Maria: Rich as an advocate; helping family members understand
33:23 — Vicky: understanding doesn’t always come automatically, even from family
33:48 — Rich: “a tree struck by lightning is more interesting than one that hasn’t been”
34:31 — Maria: the doors that open after a Parkinson’s diagnosis
35:13 — Rich: we sleepwalk through life until we can’t
35:37 — Vicky: Parkinson’s shows you who the goodies are in your life
35:50 — Rich: knowing who is batting for you
36:15 — Vicky: reading the book while stranded in the Middle East
37:03 — Rich: make your future bigger
37:23 — Maria: don’t put things off
37:45 — Rich: the biggest deathbed regret
37:54 — Vicky: creating memories, a lesson from her dad
38:29 — Rich: at the end of my life, Parkinson’s will have been an adventure
38:40 — Rich: the DBS trial and the upcoming adaptive software update
39:48 — Vicky: we must get you back on when you’ve had it
40:01 — Maria: we’re on the cusp of so many treatments
40:21 — Rich: make your future big; a trip to Oregon with his son to look for Bigfoot
40:55 — The book: available in bookshops, on Amazon and on Audible
41:37 — Maria and Vicky’s reflections: 16 years of hard-won wisdom
42:02 — Vicky: the value of speaking out about your diagnosis
42:19 — Maria: the fear of being defined by Parkinson’s, and why it doesn’t have to be that way
42:55 — Vicky: the lightning-struck tree quote
43:13 — Preview of Episode 5: Melody McEwen on gut health and Parkinson’s