Dr Bradley Garrett
Writer · Photographer · Explorer
A cultural geographer who began his career as an archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management. An MA in maritime archaeology took him underwater to dive ruins, and a PhD took him underground to trespass with urban explorers. After a decade as an academic, working at Oxford, Southampton, Sydney, and University College Dublin, Brad struck out to work independently as a writer and photographer, publishing in the world’s most prestigious outlets. Author of five books in four languages, with a sixth forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press.
Education
Royal Holloway, University of London
PhD Geography
Place Hacking: Tales of Urban Exploration
James Cook University, Queensland
MA Archaeology
History Submerged: A Legacy of Modernity
University of California, Riverside
BS Anthropology · BA History
Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude
Appointments
Underground Media LLC
Founder
Concurrent: Honorary Fellow, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney · Senior Fellow, Homeland Defense Institute (NORAD, NORTHCOM and the US Air Force Academy) · Fellow, Collapse Survival Institute
University College Dublin
Assistant Professor in Human Geography
University of Sydney
Research Fellow
University of Southampton
Lecturer in Human Geography
University of Oxford
Researcher in Technological Natures
United States Bureau of Land Management
Assistant Archaeologist (GG-07), Alturas Field Office · Seasonal
Archaeological survey, mapping, GIS, report writing, excavation and Native American tribal liaison for the State Historic Preservation Office and the United States Federal Government. STAR Award for exceptional government service.
Books
Groundbreaking: How Tunnels Define the Modern WorldForthcoming
St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan
Reported a kilometre beneath the Australian Alps on Snowy 2.0, inside Cheyenne Mountain, along the border with the CBP Tunnel Task Force, and through the underground cities of Cappadocia.
Bunker: Building for the End Times 2020
Penguin Books · Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Book of the Year 2020, selected by Sir Richard Evans for the New Statesman. Four continents of doomsday prepping. Excerpted in GQ, The Times and the Guardian Weekend Magazine; reviewed in the Financial Times, Los Angeles Review of Books and Literary Review. Covered by dozens of outlets worldwide, including 60 Minutes, The Joe Rogan Experience, 99% Invisible and the BBC World Service.
Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City 2013
Verso Books
Best architecture books of 2013, The Observer. Top ten literary travel books of 2014, Booklist. Translated into Korean and Japanese. Optioned for film by Shane Salerno (Story Factory). Inspired The Maccabees’ Feel to Follow.
London Rising: Illicit Photos from the City’s Heights 2016
Prestel / Random House · Photographic monograph
Edited with Alexander Moss and Scott Cadman. Featured in Time, the Guardian, Time Out London and the Toronto Star.
Global Undergrounds: Exploring Cities Within 2016
Reaktion / University of Chicago Press
Edited with Paul Dobraszczyk and Carlos López Galviz. Translated into Simplified and Complex Chinese. Institution of Civil Engineers Book of the Month.
Subterranean London: Cracking the Capital 2014
Prestel / Random House · Photographic monograph
Sold out within four months of release; expanded paperback, 2015.
Photography
Film, Television & Radio
Co-producer, Points of Presence (with Dr Adam Fish) — screened in over 20 countries.
Host, Underworld, a virtual reality experience for the Guardian — supplied the location and the photography it was built from, and guided viewers through it. Screened at IDFA, CPH:DOX, the San Francisco International Film Festival and the PHI Centre.
Selected Writing
From roughly 57 bylined pieces.
2026‘Surviving Nuclear War’, RECOIL OFFGRID, 75th Anniversary edition.
2024‘Pools and parks, but no sunlight: my strange journey into the fallout bunkers of the super-rich’, The Telegraph.
2022‘”Our top search term is nuclear”: US bunker sales soar as anxiety over Russia rises’, The Guardian.
2020‘We Should All Be Preppers’, The Atlantic — among the magazine’s five most-read pieces that month.
2020‘Enter the Killdozer: how a 2004 rampage inspired today’s right-wing preppers’, GQ.
2020‘Welcome to the Pleasure Dome’, Guardian Weekend Magazine · ‘The Bunker Builders Preparing for Doomsday’, BBC Future.
2018‘Who owns the space under cities?’, Guardian Cities · ‘Demanding public rights in private spaces’, Vox.
2017‘Malta’s secret tunnels: inside the newly discovered underworld of Valletta’, Guardian Cities.
2015‘Meet the rooftoppers: urban outlaws who risk everything to summit our cities’, Guardian Cities.
2014‘Access Denied’, Times Higher Education — cover story.
2013‘For urban explorers, the Underground revolution is a bitter blow’, Financial Times · ‘Scaling the Shard’, Domus (2012).
Selected Speaking
From 32 keynotes and 88 further presentations.
Google Zeitgeist, Phoenix — ‘When Less Security Means More Creativity’
Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House — ‘Place-Hack Your City’, and a panel with Lydia Cacho and Masha Gessen
Tate Modern — ‘Mapping the Unseen’; ‘Place-Hacking the City’, with Iain Borden
Barbican Centre, London — ‘Kiss the Sky’, in conversation with Will Self
British Library — ‘Mapping Armageddon 1945–2045’; ‘Mapping the Age of Dread’
5×15 Events, London — ‘Building for the End Times’, in conversation with Robert Macfarlane
TEDx — Grosseto, Southampton and Vienna
WIRED Next Generation · Chicago Ideas Week · Cheltenham Literature Festival · Guardian Masterclass
Greater London Authority — ‘London Under London’, Infrastructure Coordination Service (2025)
Awards & Grants
Selected from 22 awards totalling approximately US$700,000. ‡ denotes project funding won and held collaboratively.
2025Ubisoft Entertainment podcast funding, Tenacity — $26,000
2018Area Paper Prize, Royal Geographical Society
2017University of Sydney Fellowship — A$289,620
2016Google Research & Development project funding, with Guardian News — £200,000 ‡
2015Outstanding Early Career Alumni, James Cook University
2012Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Oxford — £64,000 · Journey of a Lifetime finalist, RGS and BBC Radio 4