Gibbering Madness: Snapshots of a Bizarre Life is a very interesting site to be sure. There, Alex weaves his web of real life adventures. The entries are written in true “mystery novelist” style and Alex will have you wondering if he’s been “channeling” Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) or Herman Melville (Moby Dick). Something says the answer is “Yes” to both.

© Gretchen for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Gibbering Madness: Snapshots of a Bizarre Life | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: Africa, Asia, Canada, living abroad, sea travel, solo travel

What started off as a sailing trip in the South Ocean has turned into an exploration of New Zealand in an old beat-up van for this family of three. Antonia, the family scribe, is a great storyteller, sharing their tales with a dry, witty style.

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2010. | Sereia Rides Again | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: family travel, New Zealand, road travel, road trip, sea travel

Many people dream of going on big adventures; only a few ever do it. For this article, I found 13 individuals, couples and families who had the guts to embark on epic adventures. You may envy them, or you may think they’re crazy. But I guarantee that their stories will inspire you.

Karl Bushby: Walking around the world

Karl Bushby is attempting to break world records by walking around the world. He set off from South America in 1998, walked north to Alaska and walked across the frozen Bering Straits (the first man to do so) into Russia. That alone took 8 years, and Karl has been delayed in Russia with visa problems for the last two years. Ultimately, his aim is to end up in London. By that time, he expects to have been walking for 14 years, with over 36,000 miles covered. Visit his website: Goliath Expedition.

Manon Ossevoort: Traveling by tractor from the Netherlands to South Africa and onto the South Pole

Manon Ossevoort’s tractor in Egypt.

Manon Ossevoort is a theatre maker and actor from the Netherlands who is travelling from the Netherlands to South Africa by tractor. Along the way, she is collecting the dreams of people she meets (on pieces of paper). From South Africa, she will travel by boat to Antarctica, where she will continue on foot or by tractor to the South Pole. Here, she plans to build a snowman and place the pieces of paper containing people’s dreams in the belly of the snowman. She is also raising money for War Child. Visit her website here.

Becky Sampson: Travelling by horse from London to Tokyo.

From London to Tokyo, by horse. Becky Sampson and her piebald pony, Bertie’s Quest, are setting out on a 15,000 kilometre, four-year quest through Western and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China and Japan. Becky is aiming to raise £15,000 for SOS Children, an organization that works to provide safe places for orphan children to live and grow. Her journey is slated to begin in February 2009. Visit here website: Expedition Equus.

Ted Simon: Motorcycled around the world, twice

Back in 1977, Ted Simon set off on a 4-year motorcycle journey through Africa, the Americas, New Zealand, Australia and across Asia into Europe. He covered 78,000 miles on a 500cc Trumph. 25 years later, at the age of 70, he did it all again. He’s written books about both his journeys, which you can order from his website, Jupitalia.

Fire at Torres de Paine, Chile. Photo by Marlis Seelos.

Kinga Freespirit: Hitchhiked around the world

In 1998, Kinga Choszcz and her husband Chopin set off with $600USD and hitchhiked around the world for five years. Their amazing journey took them through the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, Asia and Russia before culminating in Europe. She wrote a book about the experience called Led By Destiny. In 2005, Kinga again set out, this time to Africa. Sadly, she died from malaria in Ghana in 2006. Read about her earlier adventures on her GeoCities website, or her more recent ones here.

Christoph Rehage: Walking from China to Germany

Christoph Rehage is walking from China to Germany, a journey that will take at least two years. After almost a year, he’s still making his way through China. He writes about his trip on his website, The Longest Way.

Frank Muldowney: Pushed an empty wheelchair across Australia

Frank Muldowney with Harvey

Frank Muldowney pushed a wheelchair containing his invisible friend “Harvey” from Perth to Sydney, a 4,000 mile journey undertaken to achieve world peace. Visit his website: Believing in Harvey.

Tim Cope: Travelled by horse from Mongolia to Hungary

Tim Cope followed in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan and travelled 10,000 kilometres by horse from Mongolia to Hungary. The journey took him over three years. Visit his website: Tim Cope Journeys.

Colin and Julie Angus: Completed the first human-powered cirumnavigation of the globe

In 2004, Colin Angus, his fiancée Julie Wafaei and someone else (the website doesn’t say who) took off from Vancouver and began a two-year cycling, skiing, canooing, hiking and rowing trip that became the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. They’ve done other similar adventures, which you can read about on their website: Angus Adventures.

Rory Stewart: Walked across Afghanistan in 2002

Rory Stewart may not have covered as much distance as some of the other people mentioned here, but consider where he was walking and when. He wrote a book about his adventure called The Places in Between, which you can order from his website: Rory Stewart Books.

The Vogels: Cycling from Alaska to Argentina

The Vogels are a family of four (mom, dad and ten-year old twin boys) cycling the full length of the American continent over 2 and 1/2 years. Read about their adventures on their website: Family on Bikes.

The World by Road: Driving from New Zealand to New York

OK, so they’re not driving all of that, but The World By Road expedition crew are on one very big road trip. So far, they’ve driven through Australia, Asia, Russia, Europe (including far north Scandinavia), Africa and South America. After over 50,000 miles and a year and eight months, they’re on the home stretch. Check out their website: The World By Road.

Amy and Wim: Cycled from Belgium to China for their honeymoon

Now isn’t that romantic? After tying the knot, Amy and Wim rode from Belgium to China, covering almost 11,000 kilometres. Read about their journey on their blog: Amy and Wim.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2008. | 13 Epic and Slightly Crazy Travel Adventures | 9 comments |
Post categories: Round-Up
Post tags: adventure travel, Becky Sampson, Christoph Rehage, Colin Angus, cycling, danger travel, epic adventures, Frank Muldowney, hiking, hitchhiking, horse travel, Julie Angus, Karl Bushby, Kinga Freespirit, long-distance walking, Manon Ossevoort, motorcycle travel, overland travel, road trip, Rory Stewart, Round the world, sailing, sea travel, Ted Simon, Tim Cope, Vogels

© Gretchen Wilson-Kalav for TravelBlogs, 2008. | The World By Sea | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: activism, Africa, charity work, Dominican Republic, sea travel, volunteering

Debby Lee Jagerman has travelled up and down Europe, Vietnam and Alaska on her own, and she’s visited Australia, New Zealand and Iceland with friends and family. Most recently, Debby circumnavigated the Baltic Sea for a little over two weeks, squeezing in visits to seven capital cities.

Debby now blogs about her travel experiences on Beth Whitman’s Wanderlust and Lipstick, a site dedicated to encouraging solo women travellers.

I caught up with her to talk about her recent trip to the Baltics and her perspective on travelling solo.

Your latest trip was a voyage around the Baltic Sea. Was that the first time you’ve made a trip by boat?

No. I have actually traveled by boat a few times prior to my Baltic Sea voyage. During my first two-week solo trip several years prior to the Baltic Sea, I took the Alaska ferries from Washington State through the Inside Passage into Alaska. I spend about a week of my two weeks riding the ferries, and getting off to visit various towns, such as Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, and Skagway. I wanted to experience travel as a “backpacker,” so on these ferries, I did not get a cabin, like I did on the ferries of the Baltic Sea. Instead, on the Alaska Ferries, I slept in my sleeping bag on lounge chairs on the deck of the ferries, next to others who were doing the same, or had pitched their tents. It was an exciting way to travel, a good way to meet people, and a beautiful way to see Alaska, both by day and by night. It was this Alaska ferry experience that helped to inspire me to travel around the Baltic Sea by ferries.

I have also been on several cruises to Mexico and to various places in the Caribbean. While these cruises are obviously more luxurious than ferry travel, I must say that I much rather enjoy the more down-to-earth experiences of my ferry trips.

What attracted you to the Baltics?

Several years prior to my Baltic trip, I spent five months backpacking around Europe on a solo journey, where I ended up visiting 17 countries. However, during that trip, I did not have a chance to get to the either the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, or Finland), or to the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. A few months before I actually took my Baltic trip, during my planning phase of my travels, I was trying to decide where a new adventure would take place. I looked at a map of Europe, and realized that these two groups of countries that I had not yet been to, essentially surrounded the Baltic Sea. This discovery led me to my concept of circumnavigating the Baltic Sea in only 15 days…utilizing not only boats, but also buses, trains, and other modes of transportation.

Why do you think many women are hesitant to travel solo?

I actually found that it is quite enjoyable traveling alone, as I am able to choose what I want to do and when I want to do it, without needing to consult with anyone else. It gives me a sense of freedom.

I would say that the safety of solo travel is a concern for many women. It is even a concern for myself, even though I do travel solo. But, I have found that with choices of which countries to travel to, of where I travel to within each country, when to be sightseeing, when and where not to be out alone, (such as I choose not to be out alone by myself at night), awareness of my surroundings, and taking other safety precautions, some safety concerns can be minimized. I find that the way I carry myself, such as with confidence, and looking like I know what I am doing and where I am are going (even if I don’t) helps. This is not to say that something could never happen, but I have been fortunate enough in my travels, that I have not encountered any thing that has jeopardized my safety. (Knock on wood, and let’s hope that I continue to travel that way.)

A sense of loneliness is possibly another concern as a hesitancy of solo travel for women, as it was actually one of my concerns before I started to travel as well. But, once I started traveling, I actually found that it is quite enjoyable traveling alone, as I am able to choose what I want to do and when I want to do it, without needing to consult with anyone else. It gives me a sense of freedom. Also, I have found that when traveling alone, I am more approachable by others. Of course, I take safety precautions as to whom I am being approached by. But what I mean is that I believe that I have had encounters with several local people of the countries that I have traveled in, that maybe I would not have had those experiences if I were traveling with someone else.

Another way that I have prevented potential loneliness when I travel is I usually stay in hostels, where I can easily meet other fellow travelers in order to either just get into conversations with, or to find a travel partner for a day.

A spectacular way to discourage a sense of loneliness that I have done on my solo journeys is I keep in touch with friends and family via email (and now via blogging). For example, during my five-month solo European journey, I wrote back home, sometimes weekly, to about 60 people, sharing with them my stories and experiences. My friends and family would often write back, making me feel close to them, even if I was far away.

I would like to add, that while I do enjoy solo travel, I also very much like traveling with others as well, whether with friends or family.

Are there places you wouldn’t travel on your own?

Actually, yes there are. Without naming specific countries, there are some places that I would not travel to on my own for various reasons. For example, some obvious countries are those that due to political reasons these days, no one wants to travel to, whether traveling solo or with others. Then, for me, there are certain countries that I think would actually lend themselves better to going on a guided group tour. (Ok, I’ll name a continent for this one – my dream trip on a safari somewhere in Africa.) I also would not travel on my own if I wanted to do an adventure trip, such as a hiking/camping trip. These trips aren’t due to a specific country, but rather due to the type of vacation that I am considering. Finally, with regards to safety, as mentioned above, again without naming specific countries, there are probably a few countries out there that I would just not consider traveling to as a woman traveling on my own.

When did you have your first solo travel experience?

Well, that depends on the length of experience you are asking about. My very first solo experience was a two-day trip to a lighthouse in my own state. (I have an attraction to lighthouses.) It was on this journey that I stayed in my first hostel, ate in restaurants on my own, and even walked a distance of eleven miles round-trip by myself down a sand spit to the lighthouse. This trip was to test my waters (no pun intended) to see if I liked solo travel, and I think is a great way for any woman to test her waters – by starting simple and enjoyable.

My next longer solo experience was my adventure to Alaska, where I was gone for two weeks, much further from my home, although still within my own country. In a way, this was another “test” trip for me. I spent my first week on the ferry, as mentioned, getting off in various towns. The second week was spent getting around by train up and down Alaska, including a visit to Denali. This was truly a confidence-building, independent-making trip for me.

But, what I would consider my real first solo travel experience was the five months that I spent backpacking in Europe. Here I was exposed to other cultures, other people, other languages; I had to figure out how to use transportation when I did not know a language; I had to arrange for where I was going to sleep the next night, as many times, I was spontaneous in where I wanted to visit the next day. I ended up covering 17 countries, and had so many amazing experiences that I never imagined, seeing museums and buildings and artwork and churches and memorials, etc. etc. etc.. I absolutely loved it! It was quite a learning experience as well, not only about other countries, but also about myself. This trip gave me so much more confidence and independence that I knew for sure that I was hooked on traveling.

Do you have any future trips planned?

Why, yes. The next trip I have planned going to the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador. I am very excited about this trip. It will be a lot different than my other trips, as I will be focusing on seeing the animals and birds of the islands, rather than seeing sights, such as museums and churches, that I experienced in Europe, and rather than the people experiences that I have had in countries, such as Vietnam. Ironically, this trip will be on yet another boat – a small 16 passenger cruise ship. And, technically, this trip is a solo trip, as I am going there by myself; although once I get on the boat, I will be with the other passengers and crew members for over a week. Fun, fun!!

Check out Debby’s blog, Debby’s Departures.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2008. | Going Solo: Interview with Debby Lee Jagerman | 7 comments |
Post categories: Interviews
Post tags: Baltics, Europe, female travellers, sea travel, solo travel

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2007. | Slow Travel | No comment |
Post categories: Blogs
Post tags: couples, green travel, overland travel, Round the world, sea travel, slow travel

Ed and Fiona are a couple from the United Kingdom on a year-long trip around the world, with one major twist: they’re doing it flightless. Passing up the convenience of flying, they’re travelling by bus, train, cargo ship, bicycle, or any other flightless mode of transport.

They’re avoiding air travel to keep their environmental footprint to a minimum, but also because they relish the journey. Rather than jetting miles above the earth’s crust, they prefer travelling slower, savouring the cultures and landscapes they encounter along the way.

TravelBlogs caught up with Ed to learn more about how and why they’re doing this trip.

First of all, tell us a bit more about yourself and Fiona.

We are in massive collective denial about what changes need to be made in our lives to reduce our own individual carbon ‘footprints’

Fi and I met six years ago during an extremely alcoholic Hogmanay (New Year celebrations in Scotland) in the Orkney Islands where we both have friends. There it is traditional to go ‘first-footing’ – visiting all your close friends and family over the first few days of the New Year, so it was actually the early hours of January the 2nd (as the celebrations continued) that we met. We’ve been together ever since!

I’m a former marine biologist, undertaking research in New Caledonia in the South Pacific and in Brisbane, Australia, who has since moved onto more general environmental campaigning. Around six and a half years ago I co-founded my company Futerra Sustainability Communications Ltd (www.futerra.co.uk) with my business partner Solitaire. Our mission is to make a more sustainable, ecological way of life so desirable it becomes normal, so people aspire to be more environmentally friendly. We try to excite and inspire our clients and their audiences and we now have offices in both London and New York and a team of 25 fantastic and dedicated ‘Futerrans’. Changing the world one client at a time!

Fi also works in communications, principally in the charitable and governmental sectors and one of her last jobs was with the British National Space Centre (yes, we do have one!). We have no plans to twang ourselves into space with Richard Branson however!

Why did you decide to take a year off from work to do this trip?

Futerra is extremely demanding on my time when I’m at home as anyone who runs their own small business can no doubt relate to – especially as there isn’t much of a dividing line between my personal and professional life. We started Futerra because we wanted to change the way that sustainability is perceived, it’s more than a day-job, it’s a personal passion so I’m never ‘off duty’ as it were. As a result after nearly six years of intensive activity I was concerned about ‘burning out’ and wanted an opportunity to refresh my perspectives, get some reflection time in and recharge my batteries.

The travel dream has been there for a long time for both Fi and I. Fi lived in New Zealand for a short time when she was 18 and has wanted to travel more ever since. I have spent several years living and working abroad, beginning with a year as a volunteer teacher in Jamaica 17 years ago which whetted my appetite for more diverse and challenging cultural experiences, and we both wanted to travel the world again. I wanted a proper sabbatical, not just a short break and Fi and I had both saved for over four years for the trip so we wanted to make it worth our while.

Also because of our method of travel (avoiding flying) and our aim for a global circumnavigation we needed 12-13 months to ensure the trip was to live up to the ‘slow travel’ ethos and not be too rushed. We certainly didn’t want to go round the world in 80 days!

Why did you decide not to fly? Are you principally opposed to flying?

I get asked this question A LOT! I’m not opposed to flying in principle, and am less anti-flying and more pro the alternatives. I have done a lot of flying myself in the past and there is no doubt that the increased accessibility of flight has probably been a good thing in terms of global understanding. However, the threat of climate change is what really scares me and we are in massive collective denial about what changes need to be made in our lives to reduce our own individual carbon ‘footprints’. Flying is very carbon intensive – a trip from London to Paris for example by plane releases ten times more carbon than taking the train.

We are all flying more, even when there are good land/sea alternatives, largely because it is cheaper but we are wreaking climate havoc as a result! The growth in aviation in the UK threatens to cancel out all the carbon savings we make from energy efficiency and use of renewable energy – taking us right back to square one in the battle against climate change. So something has to give!

Yes flying is more convenient, in the same way that a McDonald’s burger may be quicker, cheaper and more convenient than going to a market buying fresh produce and cooking a meal yourself at home.

I made a personal decision not to fly on holiday about four years ago, since then I’ve had to take one flight to China for a five week working visit (ironically on a major climate change project!). It certainly hasn’t stopped me travelling, I’ve been all over Europe my train and ferry and there is something very satisfying about slow travel, it’s more contemplative, relaxing and the journey is the reward not just an essential sufferance to get you to your destination.

So the decision not to fly on this trip was two-fold. Firstly because it would be an adventure. Any idiot (no disrespect!) can get on a plane and fly around the world these days, and it can still be quite challenging undertaking extensive overland journeys and long sea voyages. Secondly because of the climate change impacts of the journey, by avoiding flying we are dramatically reducing the environmental impact of the trip.

A common reason people give for why they fly is because it’s more convenient. How inconvenient have you found it to not be able to fly?

Yes flying is more convenient, in the same way that a McDonald’s burger may be quicker, cheaper and more convenient than going to a market buying fresh produce and cooking a meal yourself at home. But arguably the latter is a far more satisfying and rewarding experience! The bigger issue is time. People feel unable to take time off and still want to have their travel cake and eat it so they more or less feel they HAVE to fly if they want to enjoy that two week break in India. One of the aims of our trip has been to encourage more people to take sabbaticals, travel less often but for longer periods and to travel more slowly without always assuming that the plane is the only option available.

Probably the only time we wished we could fly was in New Zealand when the opportunity to do a sky-dive came up. Actually, that’s a complete lie. Not being able to fly was the perfect excuse not to have to throw ourselves out of a plane!

What have been some of the advantages of not flying?

If you walk you see absolutely everything, if you cycle you see almost everything, if you drive or go by train you see most things but if you fly, apart from some admittedly impressive views at take-off and landing you don’t really get to relate to the landscape you are travelling over not through from 50,000 feet!

You don’t have to go to airports – which in my view are often the most depressing places. Though they are often architecturally interesting you have to arrive hours before departure and loiter around in crowded lounges with other tried and irritable or stressed passengers whilst running a gauntlet of commercial outlets determined to bleed money out of your sheer boredom!

You meet amazing people when you travel overland or by sea. On trains you can move about and it is much more social. The mode of transport tends to attract a different type of traveller, one whom tends to be of an entertaining, if slightly eccentric, disposition!

Of all the types of transport you’ve used, what have been the highlights?

My favourite modes of transport have to be the trains and the cargo ships. Trains often follow different routes to roads and we have travelled some of the world’s great railways during our trip. We took Die Semmeringbahn through the Austrian Alps on our way across Europe which offered breath-taking alpine scenery. We then boarded the Trans-Siberian Express, this is the ‘Daddy’ of slow travel and an absolutely brilliant experience where you can make life-long friends, sample vodka and the fare of Baboushka’s on the platforms and get an insight into the ‘big Russian soul’. It was brilliant. We also rode the Circum-Baikal railway around Lake Baikal, the oldest, deepest lake in the world, while the water was still frozen offering us stunning views across the ice sheet to the huge, craggy snow-capped mountains 60 miles away. We also trained our way through China, a fantastic cultural experience in itself and just a week ago we took the Copper Canyon railway up through northern Mexico, where the line runs along the side of precipitous valleys and through a mind-boggling 80+ tunnels and over 30+ bridges and viaducts. Simply incredible.

Cargo ships are also wonderful, if you have reasonable sea-legs! They are working vessels but they welcome passengers warmly and we have had some great fun singing drunken karaoke with Filipino merchant seamen, roasting a whole suckling pig on the back deck of a ship in the middle of the Pacific and on a French vessel we sailed on being provided with free wine at every meal! Marvellous stuff! There is something very special about the sensation of being literally 2000 miles from land in either direction when you are sailing across the Pacific. It is splendid isolation in its purist form and I would recommend it to anyone.

Your boat crossing to Spain was a pretty rough one. Have you had many other negative experiences like that, or has it been mostly smooth sailing, so to speak?

Funny how your memory works in hindsight but I even recall our Pride of Bilbao with affection now even though it was pretty hellish at the time! Our sea crossings have actually been remarkably smooth since then, though we have yet to cross the Atlantic, by far the stormiest stretch of ocean we must traverse, and that treat still awaits us on the final leg of our journey in the end of the winter storms in March. We are a little nervous!

Our biggest cock-ups and negative experiences have been during overland travel and crossing borders in particular – something you have fewer problems with when flying overhead in a plane! We didn’t realise we needed a Belarus transit visa to get from Warsaw to Moscow so had to do a last minute 36 hour haul by bus via Lithuania and Latvia to get into Russia which was thoroughly unpleasant. We also arrived on the Chinese border after our visas had expired, which was both embarrassing and a major hassle, though the Chinese border police were very kind and let us enter after paying a small fine. We did feel like idiots however.

Actually, overall the trip has been remarkably smooth so far with very few painful glitches or problems to contend with. I’d even go so far as to say I’d happily do it all again without changing anything (though I would get a Belarus transit visa next time!).

Keep track of Ed and Fiona’s latest adventures through their blog, Slow Travel.

© Eric Daams for TravelBlogs, 2007. | Flightless Round the World: Interview with Ed Gillespie | No comment |
Post categories: Interviews
Post tags: couples, cultural experiences, green travel, Round the world, sea travel, slow travel, train travel, Trans-Siberian Express