Grand Adventures

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WALKED ROUND WALES WITH A DONKEY

Partly, I think that if you go out into the world wide-eyed and enthusiastic and smiley, people respond in that way. Nothing bad happened to me but, you know, I was in Wales and there are much scarier places that one could adventure.

CANDACE ROSE RARDON

DROVE AN AUTO-RICKSHAW 1,900 MILES ACROSS INDIA

What I say to other women who are thinking about going travelling on their own is, ‘The concerns never go away. You never stop thinking about things that could go wrong.’ You know, I really enjoy it. I think being on my own is an invitation for people to connect with me. I think when they see a woman on their own, people generally want to help you and protect you.

SHIRINE TAYLOR

TWO-YEAR CYCLE TOUR THROUGH ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA

As a woman you may be afraid to embark alone, either camping or to a foreign country, but once you begin you realise just how much easier it is for us girls. The reason I have been taken in by countless families in every country is because the women in those countries don’t see me as a threat, but as a friend. I absolutely love adventure, and being a female will only spur me on, not stop me.

KERRY O’NEILL

RODE THE ‘GRAND TOUR’ FOR A GRAND

I am quite a wuss but because I did this one thing one time, now people think I am some kind of intrepid explorer, and I am truly not. I thought I would be scared camping on my own. That was my main fear, but it turns out that I wasn’t at all. It was always somewhere gorgeous. Food was basic because I was on a budget, but having some peace and quiet at the end of a night in a tent was absolute bliss and I didn’t worry about kidnap or anything.

TEGAN PHILLIPS

CYCLED THROUGH SPAIN AND AFRICA

Being female was sometimes helpful and sometimes infuriating. People were definitely more willing to let me into their homes and help me when I needed help – I think if I had been a guy people would have been a little more suspicious. This is the upside of gender stereotypes. At the beginning there were times when I felt like there were certain things that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do because I was a girl travelling alone and that feeling was incredibly frustrating. I had one really terrible harassment experience and I was a bit shaken after that, but as I grew more confident in terms of figuring out how touring and camping actually worked it became much less of an issue. Otherwise, being female had nothing to do with anything – it turns out adventuring has no gender.

© Shirine Taylor

ROSIE SWALE-POPE

RAN ROUND THE WORLD

It’s rubbish! For any age, any gender, some things are more doable than others. But I believe that a woman travelling alone is safer. You have to obey the laws of the wild, certainly – to be polite and tidy, to pay your own way, to act unafraid. I’ve had murderers in Siberia teach me how to light fires. I’ve been to places far too dangerous for men to travel to – they’d have been shot. But I’m not a threat, so again and again I have been OK. And I’m happy, too, and that radiates to people. There are lots of great lady travellers – Freya Stark and so on – it’s not a man’s game. Life is anybody’s game. Whatever you choose to do, you just need to start. I met a man recently; he was longing to travel and I just said, ‘Go on then! Get going!’

SARAH OUTEN

CYCLED, KAYAKED AND ROWED ROUND THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

I guess I do meet women, quite a lot of women, who ask, ‘Is it safe? Did you feel safe? I can’t do it’, and I think, compared to guys, women are often held back by the negative chatter. Mostly people are very friendly and keen to help you. There are no hurdles to stop people having adventures, apart from being dead, really. I think that’s true of anything in life, isn’t it?

PAULA CONSTANT

WALKED THE SAHARA WITH CAMELS

Being a woman is an advantage. In many, many cultures around the world it will help, so don’t be afraid to be a woman. Don’t get me going on this! But one thing that many women do in adventure is try to compete with the boys. Well, we’re women. We travel differently. Embrace it. In most parts of the world, it works to your advantage to be not only a woman, but a beautiful woman, as feminine as you like. Don’t play on that. Don’t be a victim, but rather, stand in your magnificence, I would say. Nomadic cultures have nothing but the greatest of respect for strong women. If you can remain smiling and gentle, but strong at the same time, you are at a distinct advantage to your male equivalent, whom the local men will see as a threat. They’ll see you as something to be fascinated by. And that can usually be an advantage. Yes, occasionally you’re going to be sexually harassed, like every other day. But it all comes down to how you deal with that. And dealing with it, the biggest piece of advice I would give you is the same the world over. You’re polite and civil, but you’re much like a Jane Austen novel, with Mr Collins, you know, you’re polite but firm.

HELEN LLOYD

CYCLED THE LENGTH OF AFRICA

I find it amazing that in today’s society we still make such a differentiation between the sexes. What I do is no more dangerous than if I were a man. Mostly, the risks are the same and as long as you take sensible precautions (as anyone would when travelling) then there shouldn’t be any problems. Of course, you may get unlucky and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, but being a woman shouldn’t make any difference. The only additional risk as a woman, is that of ‘unwanted advances’ from men, but that isn’t necessarily a problem confined to the realms of travel. Actually, in many ways, I think being a woman is an advantage. Most people in this world are good and want to help. Perhaps they see me as a woman and think I may need help, or protecting. As a woman, I am sure I appear more approachable, less intimidating, than a man. And in some cultures, being a woman means you’ll be invited into all kinds of situations that a man never would.

JESSICA WATSON

AROUND THE WORLD SOLO SAILOR

I like to think of myself as first a person and second a girl. Maybe it’s because I’m young and grew up in a family that never treated my sisters and me any differently to my brother. But I struggle to understand why women shouldn’t go on as many adventures as men.

Some of the most inspiring people I spoke to were elderly. Granted, their physical fitness may be beyond the norm for ‘old-age pensioners’, but their enthusiasm and spirit are inspirational for anyone who fears that their adventuring years may be behind them:

KU KING

EXPLORING THE PLANET WITH A PROGRESSIVELY SMALL BACKPACK

One of the things that we have noticed in many years of travel is the increasing number of older independent travellers on the road. Travel is no longer the domain of gap-year students. There are people of all ages out there creating their own unique adventures all around the planet. Nowadays, the economic situation means that redundancy (often with an attractive financial package) is an option for many. Instead of investing in a new kitchen or adding a conservatory, some people are grabbing life by the throat and booking year-long round-the-world tickets. When you are in your twenties, the years stretch ahead of you like a blank canvas. You have all the time in the world. When you hit your forties, and more so your fifties, you become aware that time is limited. We still have an abundance of travel dreams to realise, and we are determined to make them come true before arthritis sets in!

ROSIE SWALE-POPE

RAN ROUND THE WORLD IN HER SIXTIES

Age is one of the worst things. Most of my friends now are younger than my daughter. But as people get older they need to ask themselves ‘who am I?’ and ‘what do I want?’ Life is not a rehearsal! People just give up. There are so many real barriers in life that we should stop making false ones. Don’t make yourself get stuck. It’s a well-off people’s problem: poor people in the world just get on with life when they are older. We give up. Of course, people are different biologically and there’s a reality to ageing. When Paula Radcliffe is old she won’t be able to run as fast, but she can do something different and amazing instead. I’m 68, but I’m overjoyed to be the age I am, to be who I am. You can be 21 and 68. I haven’t grown up yet!’

SVEN YRVIND

75-YEAR-OLD SAILOR, ONCE SAILED ROUND CAPE HORN IN A 20-FOOT BOAT

When I was young I worked 8am to 10pm on my projects. But I’m getting older now, so I am slower. But that’s OK: I am enjoying building the boat. It’s interesting. I’m more knowledgeable now, more patient as well. The mind wanders. I try new things [design details for the boat]. They often don’t succeed. I try again, I try something else.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, young people often worry that they are too inexperienced to set out on a big journey. Everyone needs to begin somewhere, though, and these adventurers demonstrate that age is no barrier to accomplishing extraordinary feats:

TEGAN PHILLIPS

CARTOONIST AND CYCLIST

I am 21. I think my age actually worked to my advantage because, for me anyway, one of the biggest parts of adventuring is unlearning a lot of things that you didn’t even realise you had been taught. A lot of the time I would think things like, ‘Oh no, I can’t wash my hair in a restaurant bathroom, it just isn’t done’. And then I would think, ‘why the hell not?’ Where did I even get all of these silly ideas from in the first place?

ANDY WARD

WALKED ACROSS EUROPE, FROM THE UK TO ISTANBUL

You’ve got to start somewhere. You don’t need experience. Everyone has walked a certain distance, chatted to random people they meet along the way and set up a tent in the ditch, or asked a farmer to camp in their field. It’s just a case of getting up and getting on with it. I’d been a little worried about getting a job afterwards until I was halfway through my walk and I got two emails from two different investment banks in London. Both asked me to come and work for them. I’ve never applied for a job with a bank before. They had just heard about the walk and the blog, and they got in touch. I spoke to them and said, ‘Why on Earth would you want me? You don’t even know my CV or anything else.’ They said, ‘We’ve got enough Cambridge students. We want interesting people. We want people who can talk to clients and talk about interesting things.’

SARAH OUTEN

ROWED THE INDIAN OCEAN

I guess there’s a bit of naivety that comes in at the age of 21. You think you can take on the world, all of these things. I saw it very simplistically. I can’t think what the right word is, but I looked at other big expeditions and I thought, ‘Well, this isn’t rocket science. It’s just a big project and if I chopped that project down then I can make it happen.’

JESSICA WATSON

SAILED SOLO ROUND THE WORLD

It’s incredible how low our expectations of young people can sometimes be. As I was preparing to sail around the world I constantly came up against people who just assumed that a young girl couldn’t do such a thing. I don’t know why we automatically think something’s not possible rather than looking at how it might be achieved.

ANDREW FORSTHOEFEL

WALKED ACROSS THE USA

I graduated from college with a ton of questions, unsure of what I wanted to do, and figured I’d try to create around myself a situation that would help me engage those questions. I thought I might go abroad for a little bit but then I got fired from a job and didn’t have the money I thought I would have. So I figured I’d just start walking and keep it simple. I wore a sign that said, ‘Walking to Listen’. The idea was to get people curious and hopefully they’d stop and share a story or a piece of advice. And that was pretty much it. I had a few basic rules: walk every mile that was possible to walk. And camp out more often than not because that’s all I could afford.

© Daniel Munoz/Reuters/Corbis

BELINDA KIRK

ROWED AROUND BRITAIN

I had towed the line, worked hard at school and felt that I had done what I was obliged to do for my parents, friends, society, etc. So, completely against my parents’ wishes, I told them I was going to Africa to study monkeys and have an adventure for a year before getting back on society’s merry-go-round and going to university and all that jazz. It was without doubt the best step I’ve ever taken, bar none.

Some people say the first step is the hardest. I think it can also be the easiest. Because really it’s a no-brainer if it’s what you want to do more than anything else. I started as part of an organised expedition. I paid to be there – when you have zero experience to offer anyone then I think you should expect to pay to build that experience. I also knew I wanted to be part of some zoological fieldwork and couldn’t have done anything meaningful on my own.

KELLY DIGGLE

CYCLED A LAP OF ICELAND

I panicked at the realisation that, age 22, I was settling down to a life of conformity. It had just become a norm. I turned my back on pouring coffee for a living, sold the car, waved goodbye to my relationship and left Cornwall. I had no idea where I was headed. All I knew was that I had this burning desire to do something. I wanted to travel, to absorb culture, to meet all sorts of people and to purposely step outside of my comfort zone. After all, I was young, commitment-free and, let’s face it, a little bit naive. So far in my experience, these three things have favoured me extremely well.

SVEN YRVIND

PLANNING TO SAIL ROUND ANTARCTICA

My advice for young people considering their first adventure is, don’t trust the grown-ups! You need courage. You have to be a rebel.

A few years ago I rowed from England to France with Phil Packer, a disabled soldier. Two contrasting memories stand out from that experience. The first was that so many things that are easy for me – that I do not even think about – are either difficult or impossible for disabled people. Daily life is so much harder. On the other hand, disabled people are used to discomfort and difficulty, and this is perfect expedition training! I was on that row in order to help Phil, but I was so seasick that I was actually pretty useless and Phil did just about everything for me! If you think that your physical condition may limit your adventurous ambitions, read these interviews:

JIMMY GODDARD

HAND-CYCLED UP KILIMANJARO

About a month after the rock-climbing accident which left me paralysed from the chest down I was lying in my bed in Stoke Mandeville Hospital. What I really wanted more than anything else was to get back into the mountains and the open air and away from the ‘disability’ that surrounded me at Stoke Mandeville. Having a massive challenge to focus on again really got me moving forward. Travelling to Massachusetts to test-ride the bike and then later to Arizona to train with a friend on the moonscape terrain similar to Kilimanjaro, plus training here in the UK, gave me that sense of purpose and focus that I really enjoy. This was extremely cathartic after the accident. So many people have done so many extraordinary things these days that it’s nearly impossible not to find somebody who has done something similar to what you might be planning. So get on the internet and look for inspiration. Don’t be shy. Approach people and get advice. Most adventurers I’ve met make a point of being really helpful to new people trying to get into the scene. And finally, dream big but start small; learn the processes – kit, funding, planning – and work your way up to something epic!

KAREN DARKE

TWO DECADES OF EXPEDITIONS BY BIKE, SEA KAYAK AND SIT-SKI

I have no idea how my life would have been if I hadn’t ended up paralysed all those years ago. Certainly I’m sure I would have got more into climbing and big mountain/greater range stuff, but who knows? It’s a bit like that film Sliding Doors where one decision or incident totally changes the course of your life. I can’t know what direction my life would have gone in if I had survived the climbing accident with my spine intact. The stuff I’ve done since becoming paralysed has been about who I am deep down as a person – with a love of adventure, sport and the outdoors. I think people find it more surprising or inspiring or something because I happen to be paralysed. But for me I just feel fortunate to still be able to do things I love (albeit in an alternative way), and for great friends and companions without whom most of the adventures I’ve experienced would never have been possible. There was a time when I was first paralysed when pushing my wheelchair around the hospital grounds was a big adventure (no joke) – kind of a mini-expedition. When I’ve felt really daunted by a forthcoming adventure, I find it helpful to write down all my fears of likely problems. Then I try to think of one thing I can do, no matter how small or silly it might seem, to make myself feel more optimistic. For example, on the expedition skiing across the Greenland ice cap, I bought a fish-tank thermometer which has two temperature gauges, so that I could keep an eye on the temperature of my foot and my hip [as I have no feeling there, I cannot know if they are becoming cold], and reduce the risk of getting frostbite. I also carried a rape alarm in case we met polar bears as I understood they don’t like loud noises and I felt the most vulnerable of the team. Maybe they were crazy solutions, but they built my confidence, helped me overcome some fears and therefore made the whole adventure seem just a bit less daunting.

Many of the people I spoke to are serial adventurers – they’ve been doing this stuff for years and may even be able to make a living out of what they do. But everyone has to begin somewhere. We were all novices once. If you have not done a big trip before, don’t be disheartened or feel that you need to limit your ambitions. Many, if not most, of the people I’ve chatted to in this book had very little idea what they were getting themselves into at the beginning. If you have the nerve to begin, the nous to learn and the capacity to persevere, you’ll probably achieve whatever journey you set your mind to.

NIC CONNER

CYCLED TO JAPAN ON £1,000

The year before I went to cycle a bit of the Ridgeway – that was one overnight – but that was my only experience. It was quite a spur-of-the-moment thing to do. I like my sport, but I wouldn’t call myself athletic. I certainly carry a bit of weight. You know, I have love handles, I like drinking beer, I quite like a burger now and then. I wouldn’t say I have a nutritionist or am out at 5am every morning training.

INGRID, SEAN AND KATE TOMLINSON

CYCLED THE AMERICAS

Other than buying the bikes and trailers and our tickets, we pretty much made up the rest as we went along. I think with a trip like this there’s only so much preparation you can do. If you waited until you were 100 per cent ready, and had researched everything you needed to know, you would probably never set off! We didn’t have enough money to buy fancy cycling gear. When we first packed the trailers and pannier bags (in Inuvik itself!) we realised that we were hopelessly overloaded and had to give half our gear away.

© Ingrid and Sean Tomlinson

© Archie Leeming

TEGAN PHILLIPS

CYCLED THROUGH SPAIN AND AFRICA

I had no experience, no GPS, no set route, no sense of direction, no foresight and no coordination, which meant that I spent more time than not with absolutely no idea where I was. I fell off my bike at least once a day. I was attacked by wasps and thorn bushes and stationary poles. We never spent more than one night in any place. We camped under bridges, on private property (with permission), on private property (without permission), with friends of friends of friends, with people who just happened to be there when we couldn’t go on any more. But in the end I turned up in Alicante, which shows that if I can do it then anyone can. All you really need to do is this: Cycle. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

MATT EVANS

TRAVELLED OVERLAND FROM THE UK TO SAIGON

I guess that if I was giving anyone advice on how to make the trip of a lifetime happen, it would be to take a deep breath and do something concrete that means it has to happen. We can all talk about what we want to do and make it sound convincing, but until you’ve actually passed a tipping point to make it happen – something that can’t be undone – then it’s all just dreams and window-shopping. Personally, I find dreams unfulfilling and window-shopping frustrating. So, take the plunge. Do something permanent and immovable. Once you’ve done that, you’ll find a way to make the rest fall into place.

OLLY WHITTLE

PADDLED THE MEKONG AND CROSSED FROZEN LAKE BAIKAL ON FOOT

I set out utterly bricking it. I had pretty much no canoeing experience. I hadn’t been able to find a life vest and I had no idea if my canoe was river-worthy. It felt pretty unstable and it leaked more than I thought it should do. But I had half an old plastic carton to bail it out with – which later also served as a urinal on the go. The feeling of saying ‘here goes nothing!’ impossible to replicate back at home in our normal, sanitised, risk-free lives.

JAMIE BUNCHUK

LIVED WITH INDIGENOUS HUNTERS IN TAJIKISTAN AND MONGOLIA

The single most practical thing a person can do to make an adventure happen is to book their flights to that country. Then you’re committed; everything else you’ll just have to work out and hopefully get right. Don’t wait for everything to be nailed down to the last detail before you commit, because an adventure can never be completely planned. At some point you’re just going to have to jump into the deep end. Book the trip and you’ve already made the leap.